JGibs420
New Member
7.5 is a little high for runoff pH but that's to be expected to a certain extent. I'm not sure that runoff is a very accurate representation of the soil pH overall personally. He mentioned he was watering with 2 cups of water (about 500 ml) and getting about 100 mL of runoff. The thing is if you pour in 500 mL of Solution A, then what comes out on the bottom in 100 mL is probably going to be more concentrated because of all the non-solubles and other solids that just pass right through and aren't caught up in the soil.
Plus, soil is a little different, especially if living soil, because the microlife will buffer the pH.
JGibs420, try giving them just one cup. Let them get really dried out before watering again. Then I'd also suggest pH'ing your input to 6.5 instead of 7. Sometimes with high runoff like that, you could try pH'ing even lower to get the run-off in the right range, but I'd be cautious about dropping down below 6, or too quickly. Start giving it 6.5 pH'd water, about half as much as you are now at the same frequency and see how they improve in about a week. Your leaves should pick back up in perkiness and if your runoff continues to be that high, then try pH'ing your inputs somewhere in the lower 6-6.5 range. I like to aim for about a 6.3 in Happy Frog that leaves me at 7.5, and my runoff will stay at 6.8 afterward--to give an example.
What kind of soil is it and what kind of inputs are you using?
Thank you for the amazing reply TF
So let me get into a bit more detail.
(First of all I'm very limited money wise so my budget is practically non existent)
Tap water here is around 9.8-10 pH which is what I'm using to mix my nutes in. Previous grows I never used nutes, just tap water, not as many problems as this grow except for nitrogen toxicity (previous grow) because of slow release fertilizer granules I used a bit in excess... Oops.
Keep in mind I've only fed 4 times this grow, most recent being 2 days ago. Before that was a flush of 2-3 times pot size (tap water, runoff was around 8.6 pH if I remember correctly)
I'm using Dr Fisher's Multifeed Flowergro 36 (46) as a general nute for both Vegetation and Flower.
Mixing it at one third strength, which brings my pH down to 7.
I heard that one can I add lemon juice to nute mix as a natural pH down? Or should I just add more nutes to the water? Or would this cause nute problems/lock?
Soil is just normal potting soil mixed 70:30 with perlite.
I'll definitely give it a bit less water if you think that'll help, but this was seriously the first time they drooped at all. Looking much better already perkiness wise.