Using Vinegar For Lowering pH

[PrairiePoet]

Many things can be used to lower the pH. Here is a list of common items and what their pH is: pH Levels of Common Materials - Jack Eden

Though I'm not sure about the sulferic acid. I'd prefer to work with phosphoric acid.

Prairie

 

[Revshot]

Revshot! Thanks for stopping by! Battery Acid? Battery Acid? You want me to put Battery Acid in my plant soil? lol.
Reminds of being in the Army and someone telling someone else to go find some chemlight batteries lol. I don't know if you are serious or joking lol. No, I didn't fall for the chemlight batteries gig, or the exhaust sample set up lol.
Not being mean spirited, I'm smiling and laughing lol. Do people really put that shit in their water/soil?? I wouldn't touch that with a 100 ft pole lol. Not in my plant lol. Just sounds bad lol. I take it that the roots obviously do not suck up/eat the battery acid? Otherwise, you would be getting one weird ass high lol.

check the label of your 100 dollar bottle of "concentrated ph down" its either made of sulpheric acid or phospheric acid

and yes im dead serious. use it all the time. never had any ill effects. dont be shocks by the "battery acid" term, any ph down solution is an acid as its below a ph of 7

when you really think about it, 1 litre of ph down should last quite a while and in that litre theres only 70ml of acid, so really its almost nothing

 

[Revshot]

Though I'm not sure about the sulferic acid. I'd prefer to work with phosphoric acid.

Prairie

phosphoric acid is essentially the same thing, if you wanna get super tuned in you could use sulpheric acid of veg and phosphoric acid for bloom.

only difference is one acid is made from sulpher and one from phosphate but it all does the same thing.

 

[Rushed]

phosphoric acid is essentially the same thing, if you wanna get super tuned in you could use sulpheric acid of veg and phosphoric acid for bloom.

only difference is one acid is made from sulpher and one from phosphate but it all does the same thing.

I'm glad you posted on this tread, good info, I'll use it.

 

[Revshot]

I'm glad you posted on this tread, good info, I'll use it.

no prob happy to help,

10 bucks will net you over a litre of battery juice and that a life time supply of it to make your own ph down.

just dont store it with the lid shut let it breathe just like a battery would. and make sure its new eletrolyte as old battery juice would have led content in it

i have also seen sucess with hydrocloric acid but im not 100% about the idea of adding chlorine to my mix, its readily avaliable at any pool store for like 5 bucks for a 4l jug

 

[Jacob Bell]

Hi all, just thought I would drop by and post some new pics of Estella. She is growing so much now. I am still using vinegar to pH my water. each water/feed. I am going to buy some plant pH down/up soon, but for now the vinegar is working. Here she is last night:

From looking at pics from a few wks ago, wow. she has grown. i'm so happy about that! Once again, thanks all of you for your input and replies. I highly appreciate it!!!!

 

[Conradino23]

Sorry for the bump, but I found it through Google

I know it's not the right thread, but nobody is answering for my topic on organic soil part of the forum and I have an issue running... I made my own organic compost/soil mix and I wound up with very alkaline (8.0+) stuff, which combined with local tap water (8.4) locked out my seedling from getting her nutrients. I flushed mix with purified water + vinegar and eventually went down to 6.5-7.0, but I'm wondering how it affects microlife? I've been working on my own mix for about 4 months (added shitloads of stuff) and don't want to toss it now.

What do you think?

 

[Redoctober]

Revshot, great info! What do you use for pH up?

 

[biotrucker]

Vinegar definitely works to lower (acidify) pH! All I had was red wine vinegar so I used that. There is so little wine in it that it won't make a difference.

I have town water which I run through a tap filter which will eliminate most of the chlorine. I try to let it sit out for a day when I can just to be sure.

Straight water was reading an 8 on a scale of 3 to 14 (using a liquid test kit). I added one cap full (about a half tablespoon) of red wine vinegar to a gallon jug of water. Dropped the pH level to 5 instantly.

I have a 6 pot hydro system (one of those all in one container type set-ups). It's no frills really, but it is working for my pineapple k.

After feeding it the pH was 7.5. I dropped 3 capfulls of vinegar in the system and stirred it around. Came down to a 6. I use the grow/bloom/micro liquids from GH.

 

[biotrucker]

i dont know about everones rave review but i tried it in my DWC set up and i found i was constantly adding some every day to keep the PH down, flat out it works but dosent last. now if you wanna get something cheaper then ph down listen up.


sulferic acid and R/o water. thats it.

sulferic acid aka electrolite is nothin more then battery acid (33.3%) and you can buy it at any parts store.

mix 70ml of acid to 1 litre of r/o and for god sakes add the acid to the water not the other way around!
there you have it! PH down thats stable!
i have to buff mine roughly once a week its so stable.

The acidity may work but I don't know about the effects of sulfer on the plant's ability to uptake nutes. Perhaps in a soil system, but I wouldn't add it to a hydro system. No idea what it might do to the roots of my plants. Battery acid is also caustic, which is another consideration to keep in mind.

 

[SpaceGhost]

i dont know about everones rave review but i tried it in my DWC set up and i found i was constantly adding some every day to keep the PH down, flat out it works but dosent last. now if you wanna get something cheaper then ph down listen up.


sulferic acid and R/o water. thats it.

sulferic acid aka electrolite is nothin more then battery acid (33.3%) and you can buy it at any parts store.

mix 70ml of acid to 1 litre of r/o and for god sakes add the acid to the water not the other way around!
there you have it! PH down thats stable!
i have to buff mine roughly once a week its so stable.

I think I am going to give this a try. Last night I spilled some of my GH ph down on the cement and it was eating it like acid that I cleaned oil spots up in my old driveways.
If it saves a $$ and works better I'm all 4 it.
I've used distilled vinegar and I don't think I'd use it again unless it was a emergency, I have it for back up.

 

[tokerace]

I quit using Ph up and down. I am in my 5th week of flowering and for veg. and flower I am using GRO-POWER 4-8-2, and Growmore seaweed extract. When in veg I add just a little miricle grow patio, it has high N. to every 3rd feeding or so. In bloom I use the same two,but add a little miricle grow 15-30-15 every 3rd feeding. Anyway everytime I have checked my PH...soil and food it is ALLWAYS at 6.5. I have had not one problem as far as any deficiencies. They stay green all the time. The seaweed extract is 0.10-0.10-1.5 and has like ALL of the micro's you need. The gro power 4-8-2 has 2% humic acids. I am NOT trying to advertise, but using this I have had absolutely NO problems at all AND I had fungus gnats and they are all gone to.Thats a plus for me. I will post and let you all know how my buds turn out. GL

 

[QueenTokelove]

I have used both vinegar and baking soda with my grows to control the ph. But I am not doing dwc but coco. It seems to help with my plants. They usually get calmag mixed with vinegar at least once a week and I also give as a foliar feed. Of course a brand name ph up or down would be better. But using baking soda or vinegar is better than doing nothing, imo.

 

[Metalliogre]

This thread still active? I am growing 2 clones, one which seems to be doing very well and the second, which seems to be dying. I have not changed the ph levels in the water since I had them. I started to worry so I grabbed the Vinegar. Has anyone figured out the proper doseage of vinegar to drop ph levels down?

 

[az2000]

Has anyone figured out the proper doseage of vinegar to drop ph levels down?

I haven't used it (yet). But, a post near the beginning of this thread said 1-2 Tbsp white vinegar per gallon lowered Ph from 7.8 to 6.5. That's about what I need to achieve. So, I intend to do 1.5 Tbsp per gallon. (Or, buy a tester to be more accurate.).

I might also look into those hose-end sprayers. They're made for fertilizer or insecticide. I have an Ortho brand with a dial which lets me set ounces or Tbsp to gallons. That would be a good way to apply a variable amount of water at the correct inclusion of vinegar. (But, I read how tap water should stand for two days to get rid of chlorine. So, maybe a hose-end sprayer isn't a good idea.).

 

[az2000]

I haven't used it (yet). But, a post near the beginning of this thread said 1-2 Tbsp white vinegar per gallon lowered Ph from 7.8 to 6.5.

FWIW: I bought a PH meter (Milwaukee ph600, $21 on Amazon) and calibration solution at the local hydroponics store. Today, I added about 5ml (1 tsp) to 1/2 gallon of tap water which had been left to sit/aireate for a day. The PH of the water was 8.2. It went to 6.8.

I definitely recommend using a meter instead of just assuming some amount of distilled (white) vinegar will produce a certain PH. For example, you'll adjust ph *after* adding nutes. The nutes will acidify your water to some unknown degree. You may only need 1ml of vinegar.

I like this Milwaukee because it uses a screw adjustment to calibrate to a single value. This means, if milk is ph 6.6 (which I'm finding to be consistent with the milk I buy), I can use a shot glass of room-temperature milk to verify calibration, and perhaps even calibrate to it. Saves me money on calibration solution -- especially buying two (for those more expensive 2-point calibration meters which expect to see 4.0 and 7.0, exactly.).

(Buy a bottle of drinking water (ro water) and let the probe sit in that when not in use. Don't use distilled. Manufacturer says distilled will damage it if used as the medium to keep the probe moist over a long period of time. I've read tap water may not be a good medium for storage either. A low ppm water like ro seems to be what's recommended. If it works for a year, what the heck. $21.).

 

[SixtiesHippie]

Vinegar works in hydro, but not for long. My water comes out of the ground at 7.7. I can take it down to the desired 5.8, and four hours later, it's back in the high sixes. Go to your local Tractor Supply Store and buy Milkstone remover. It's used for cleaning dairy equipment, it's 15$ a gallon, and it looks just like the stuff GH sells, but it's a little stronger. It's phosphoric acid, the same thing in soft drinks.
Baking soda works just fine for raising PH. Just use a little at a time and wait a while between testing before adding more.

 

[az2000]

buy Milkstone remover. ... It's phosphoric acid, the same thing in soft drinks. ... Baking soda works just fine for raising PH. Just use a little at a time and wait a while between testing before adding more.

Thanks for the tips. I'll probably buy PH Up/Down. I'm a first-time grower (3 weeks into it). Going into this I wanted to be prudent (reduce expenses) until I see if I have a green thumb. I Invested $500 in lights (don't think you can cut corners there, and figured I could sell them on craigslist if this doesn't work out.). But, I thought I could get by with tap water, general PH change "in the right direction", and some cheap nutes.

I nearly killed 6 seedlings. Buying a PH meter and changing to RO water brought them back to vigor. I've since bought GH Flora, cal-mag, etc. Now that I see healthy plants, and know I can do this, I'll probably stop screwing around with vinegar and bicarb and just use Up/Down.

 

[jfrog352011]

I have been spraying my plants with 1 part vinegar and 4 parts water to kill Fungus Gnats. I checked my Ph and it was 6.0 and 6.5. I sprayed both on the roots and on top of my plants about 5 times a day. I have been doing this for 5 days and it looks like I'm willing the war with the Fungus Gnats.

 

[kiwibloke]

How about in soil . . .Is this still a go ?? Anyone ??