Acid
Well-Known Member
Hey guys,
So I recently switched from organic peat to a mineral coco grow. I got the full line of hydro nutrients (canna coco), but only almost the full line. I still have all my organic nutrients (Biobizz), and the BioBizz PH Down with citric acid, too. So I felt like not even buying another PH regulator. I then used the citric acid ph down for my mineral coco grow.
My tapwater has a generally high PH of 8.1, so I need to ph it down. No nutrient-line has ever fixed my PH into a good range, it never went under 7. I need this stuff to work.
In the past 2+ weeks, I only had problems with my plant. Droopy leaves, yellow new growth, strange burnt tips that look bronze colored and just off (rather than just burnt), slowed general growth, the list is long. I flushed as an emergency idea already, but didn't help. My PH when using the BioBizz PH Down always seemed fine when I mixed it, had it at 5.8-6.0, with an EC of 1.4-1.5 (including 0.4 ec from tapwater). Of course with calmag, this and that, as recommended by Canna. Temps fine, humidity a bit lower to let the plant slurp some more water (around 50% humidity), as my temps aren't that high to let enough water evaporate in the substrate. Around 74-76°F.
I asked here and there, got several opinions. The biggest suspect was.. overwatering. Yes, overwatering in 70/30 coco/perlite. I watered ONCE daily, with 15-20% runoff. Others water 3-5 times daily with little runoff, so I made the decision to do it once, with good runoff. I then stopped doing this, stopped watering. 2 days, 3 days, nothing changed. Still droopy, still deficiencies, plant still looks sad. Tried this over a span of a week with no success. And yes, my substrate is 100% pre-buffered and ready to use.
And now I feel like I may have found the cause - My PH down. Please take this with a grain of salt, this is literally brainstorming by a total idiot (me). I'm just trying to connect the dots here, because no one could help me, everyone had different ideas, yet nothing has helped so far, my plant gets worse and worse every day. It still looks fine, but something is just REALLY wrong with it, as it can't even get its leaves up properly. And when I know ONE thing really good, it's bad yellow new growth, and fast growth that's just yellow in the beginning. This is the bad yellow new growth, the one I'm really scared of.
The PH down I use is citric acid, the stuff that will make your nutrient solution go up in PH in the span of a few hours already. It takes 30 minutes for my solution to go from the 5.8 I made, to 6.0 already, when I pre-make it and check PH later before using it. This wouldn't be too bad in the usual organic grows I had, as the substrate buffers out the small ph fluctuations. But I'm doing a mineral grow now, with canna coco nutrients, in coco perlite substrate. As far as I know there's pretty much nothing to buffer the nutrient water into the right range, or?
So if I'm guessing correctly, the PHed nutrient water IN the substrate will already go up from 5.8 to 6.0 in half an hour, worsening over the span of a few hours to 6.5 and up. Am I right, or am I wrong? I literally have no idea, so I need to ask to understand this correctly.
Did I make a mistake here? Should I have used a different PH regulator for my mineral grow? Here are some images just for the fluff of it:
So I recently switched from organic peat to a mineral coco grow. I got the full line of hydro nutrients (canna coco), but only almost the full line. I still have all my organic nutrients (Biobizz), and the BioBizz PH Down with citric acid, too. So I felt like not even buying another PH regulator. I then used the citric acid ph down for my mineral coco grow.
My tapwater has a generally high PH of 8.1, so I need to ph it down. No nutrient-line has ever fixed my PH into a good range, it never went under 7. I need this stuff to work.
In the past 2+ weeks, I only had problems with my plant. Droopy leaves, yellow new growth, strange burnt tips that look bronze colored and just off (rather than just burnt), slowed general growth, the list is long. I flushed as an emergency idea already, but didn't help. My PH when using the BioBizz PH Down always seemed fine when I mixed it, had it at 5.8-6.0, with an EC of 1.4-1.5 (including 0.4 ec from tapwater). Of course with calmag, this and that, as recommended by Canna. Temps fine, humidity a bit lower to let the plant slurp some more water (around 50% humidity), as my temps aren't that high to let enough water evaporate in the substrate. Around 74-76°F.
I asked here and there, got several opinions. The biggest suspect was.. overwatering. Yes, overwatering in 70/30 coco/perlite. I watered ONCE daily, with 15-20% runoff. Others water 3-5 times daily with little runoff, so I made the decision to do it once, with good runoff. I then stopped doing this, stopped watering. 2 days, 3 days, nothing changed. Still droopy, still deficiencies, plant still looks sad. Tried this over a span of a week with no success. And yes, my substrate is 100% pre-buffered and ready to use.
And now I feel like I may have found the cause - My PH down. Please take this with a grain of salt, this is literally brainstorming by a total idiot (me). I'm just trying to connect the dots here, because no one could help me, everyone had different ideas, yet nothing has helped so far, my plant gets worse and worse every day. It still looks fine, but something is just REALLY wrong with it, as it can't even get its leaves up properly. And when I know ONE thing really good, it's bad yellow new growth, and fast growth that's just yellow in the beginning. This is the bad yellow new growth, the one I'm really scared of.
The PH down I use is citric acid, the stuff that will make your nutrient solution go up in PH in the span of a few hours already. It takes 30 minutes for my solution to go from the 5.8 I made, to 6.0 already, when I pre-make it and check PH later before using it. This wouldn't be too bad in the usual organic grows I had, as the substrate buffers out the small ph fluctuations. But I'm doing a mineral grow now, with canna coco nutrients, in coco perlite substrate. As far as I know there's pretty much nothing to buffer the nutrient water into the right range, or?
So if I'm guessing correctly, the PHed nutrient water IN the substrate will already go up from 5.8 to 6.0 in half an hour, worsening over the span of a few hours to 6.5 and up. Am I right, or am I wrong? I literally have no idea, so I need to ask to understand this correctly.
Did I make a mistake here? Should I have used a different PH regulator for my mineral grow? Here are some images just for the fluff of it:
