Low PH When Using Nutes

Cannabliss89

Cannabliss89

New Member
Ok so I recently bought the General Organics GO Box but I have a couple questions. Whenever I add the nutes to my water, the ph drops down super low, even if I add it to my tap water which has a 7.8 ph, it still drops it down below 6. My question is do I need to adjust using ph up until it's back in the mid 6 range? I'm assuming I do, but it also says on the box "no ph adjustment necessary" or whatever.
It doesn't really make sense, how are my plants going to absorb the nutes if the ph is like 5?
Do you guys normally adjust your ph after adding nutes?
This is my first time using nutrients and I really don't want to mess up my girls cuz they are doing well. Any help would be appreciated.

Also question for any GO box users: Do you use bio marine or diamond black?
 
I ph mine back to 6.0 that works best for me in ProMix HP which is soiless. If you're in dirt I'd say ph back to 6.5 :thumb: I use biomarine at 10 ml and as directed on diamond black. I think diamond black is only used for weeks 1 and 2!
 
I use the GO Box and yes, the pH goes way down. I add pH Up to bring it back, sometimes bringing my water pH up as high as 8 to make sure my runoff stays around 6.5.

I do use Bio Marine and Diamond Black. They're in the box so why not? But like thcSnow said, just for early veg.
 
I found a few threads on this subject on different forums. It's kind of frustrating because I'm not sure what to do, there's a lot of people that say that they've used these nutes and have never adjusted the PH, they say the PH naturally balances out in the soil, but then there's also people that do adjust the PH. Some people also say if you have dolomite lime in your soil it will correct the PH, I don't have any lime, unless it's already in the FFOF soil which I don't think it is. Some people claim that using PH up will kill off some of the beneficial microbes that you want to feed the soil with, so I would need a natural PH up like wood ash or something. It seems like a decent amount of people have had success without adjusting PH, I'm tempted to try it because it would make feeding a lot easier. I'm just scared that it will mess up my plants, I guess I could try it and if I notice any problems I could just do a flush and go back to PHing. I'm not sure what to do. I don't actually have any PH up, not sure where I'd get wood ash, does anyone know of another natural/organic PH up?
I think I might try feeding without adjusting PH and see what happens. I don't really know what else to do.
 
I would ask if they actually grow though. A few stores around me have no actual knowledge. They just want to sell you stuff!
 
I have had the same issue.. Funny as its only with one strain out of the 3 I am running.. I tested my mix after I noticed a problem with the one strain and found it was like 4.1pH.. I flushed it with a pH adjusted water of 6.5 until the runoff was in the 5.5 range and the plants seem to be coming back.. I know soil is supposed to be more forgiving with nutes and pH, but I also think it depends on strain and pot size and soil type and so on..

and I am using FFOF and the same nut line..

also from what I can gather, if the PH mixed nutes going into soil is roughly 5.8 you should be good to go as far as I can tell so far with my limited experience, as the soil seems to balance..
 
I don't use GO. I'm using promix and botanicare- but my 2c...
I use rainwater, which is about ph 5.6. By the time I add a full dose of nutrient I'm down to 4 or sometimes as low as 3.8. I then ph up to about 6.5 afterwards.
Promix doesn't have the buffering qualities of soil. Good soil should be able to easily take whatever ph is thrown at it. Rainwater as I said is about 5.6- so since your solution is similar to rainwater it's not going to cause much problem. Over the course of years soil can turn acidic. You probably don't have to think on those time scales right now.
Added dolomite lime does a good job of buffering if necessary.
I do not believe ph up or down will hurt your plants.
 
Weaselcracker said:
I don't use GO. I'm using promix and botanicare- but my 2c...
I use rainwater, which is about ph 5.6. By the time I add a full dose of nutrient I'm down to 4 or sometimes as low as 3.8. I then ph up to about 6.5 afterwards.
Promix doesn't have the buffering qualities of soil. Good soil should be able to easily take whatever ph is thrown at it. Rainwater as I said is about 5.6- so since your solution is similar to rainwater it's not going to cause much problem. Over the course of years soil can turn acidic. You probably don't have to think on those time scales right now.
Added dolomite lime does a good job of buffering if necessary.
I do not believe ph up or down will hurt your plants.
Click to expand...

I have noticed my girls love to be around 5.8 and 6.2 in promix. I have raised trainwreck, plushberry, white rhino, white russian, apollo 13, black jack, purple kush, holy grail, and bruce banner #3 in that ph range and they absolutely went wild I had 2 footers that are bushy and lush as hell in a nc1 pot!
 
You might be on to something! The cogs are slowly turning in my head over this one. I've noticed that even though popular wisdom says '6.5-7', I get problems when I go near 7. I've gotten very gunshy about that number - I don't like going near it anymore! But I'm creeping downwards -generally keep things around 6.4 at the moment- but still going slowly downwards...
 
Thanks! Funny how it is- over the years I had sort of guiltily been lowering the ph- like "Well, they say it's supposed to be 6.5 to 7, but my plants don't seem to agree, so I'm just going to have to lower it and not tell anybody...'
 
Lol I have been reading about soil and soiless that's the perfect ph for soil but soiless is more toward the acidic side! I transptransplanted to 5 gal super soil now and they are loving it!
 
It's a misconception that plants won't thrive outside their optimum pH range. That can certainly be true if the soil pH goes too far beyond the low end of the range, but it is generally not the case when it is above the range. High pH is not the cause poor plant growth, but can be an indicator of other conditions that can limit plant growth. The availability of some micronutrients, for example, can be affected by high soil pH.

It is far more effective to work around the negative effects of the high pH than to try to bring it down, because bring it down can be a challenge. For example, phosphorus can get tied up in alkaline soil and not be available to the plant. If your plant shows signs of a deficiency of a particular micronutrient, spray a dilute solution of that micronutrient on the leaves rather than panicking and trying potentially harmful tactics to alter the soil pH.
 
If I wanted to be alkaline I would have to add a shit ton of ph up after mixing my nutes. I would say that's worse than what I do now...
20150601_005913.jpg
looks pretty happy to me!
 
I'm using promix- not soil, but if I was to water a plant with a solution of PH 8, for example, I would have a very sad looking plant soon afterwards.
 
That you would! I had my first grow looking sad for the first 2 weeks in promix hp because I kept the ph at 7.0. Now I'm on my second one in promix at 6.0 straight out the gate and they are so happy!
 

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