Balancing Your pH
When adjusting your reservoir’s nutrients to adjust your pH. For example, potassium hydroxide (also called caustic
potash) can be used to raise your pH up. Use nitric and phosphoric acid to lower your pH down.
You can use nitric acid in your vegetative cycle because it will add nitrogen to your crop and phosphoric acid in your
flowering cycle because it will add phosphorus.
And guess what? Personally I prefer to use nitric acid in my flowering cycle because tissue samples have shown
your favorite plant doesn’t use a whole lot of phosphorus during flowering. In fact, in most cases nitrogen use increases.
If you’re looking for organic forms of pH down you can use citric acid to bring the pH down. This you can get at a
vitamin store; just make sure that it is a really pure type of citric acid.
You can even use vinegar (acetic acid) but the acetic acid varies in different vinegars so you have to be a bit more
careful and watch what goes on. For this reason, citric acid is the preferred acid to use.
PH buffers
Some companies promote using chemicals to buffer your hydroponics nutrients. So what is a buffer? A buffer is a
chemical that helps maintain pH stability of the nutrient solution.
A lot of growers aren’t aware of this little known fact, but a lot of nutrient companies use magnesium, calcium and
potassium carbonate or bicarbonate as their pH buffers. This is absolutely not a good idea.
Here’s why: remember that carbonates and bicarbonates are anions and add to the alkalinity of your nutrientsolution and growing medium, and even though they might buffer the pH a
bit, these “down and dirty” pH buffers will cause your growing mediums pH
to accelerate up.
OK, so lets take an in depth look at chelates. What are they, anyways? Well, chelates are complex organic molecules
used to allow the micro, macro and secondary nutrients to remain available to the plant over a wider pH range.
They do this by binding them to ions, and this prevents those ions from precipitating or locking out with other
elements.
You can use different chelates to lower and raise the pH level as well, depending on what you need. So the whole
activity is another balancing act. Adding chelates to the mix makes it easier for the plants roots to absorb the macro,
micro and secondary nutrients that it needs.
There are several advantages of using chelates :
· It increases availability of nutrients.
· Mineral nutrients are prevented from forming insoluble precipitates.
· Toxicity is reduced of some metal ions to plants.
· It prevents nutrients from leaching.
· The mobility of plant nutrients increases.
· It suppresses the growth of plant pathogens.
· When formulated correctly can help stabilize pH.
When adjusting your reservoir’s nutrients to adjust your pH. For example, potassium hydroxide (also called caustic
potash) can be used to raise your pH up. Use nitric and phosphoric acid to lower your pH down.
You can use nitric acid in your vegetative cycle because it will add nitrogen to your crop and phosphoric acid in your
flowering cycle because it will add phosphorus.
And guess what? Personally I prefer to use nitric acid in my flowering cycle because tissue samples have shown
your favorite plant doesn’t use a whole lot of phosphorus during flowering. In fact, in most cases nitrogen use increases.
If you’re looking for organic forms of pH down you can use citric acid to bring the pH down. This you can get at a
vitamin store; just make sure that it is a really pure type of citric acid.
You can even use vinegar (acetic acid) but the acetic acid varies in different vinegars so you have to be a bit more
careful and watch what goes on. For this reason, citric acid is the preferred acid to use.
PH buffers
Some companies promote using chemicals to buffer your hydroponics nutrients. So what is a buffer? A buffer is a
chemical that helps maintain pH stability of the nutrient solution.
A lot of growers aren’t aware of this little known fact, but a lot of nutrient companies use magnesium, calcium and
potassium carbonate or bicarbonate as their pH buffers. This is absolutely not a good idea.
Here’s why: remember that carbonates and bicarbonates are anions and add to the alkalinity of your nutrientsolution and growing medium, and even though they might buffer the pH a
bit, these “down and dirty” pH buffers will cause your growing mediums pH
to accelerate up.
OK, so lets take an in depth look at chelates. What are they, anyways? Well, chelates are complex organic molecules
used to allow the micro, macro and secondary nutrients to remain available to the plant over a wider pH range.
They do this by binding them to ions, and this prevents those ions from precipitating or locking out with other
elements.
You can use different chelates to lower and raise the pH level as well, depending on what you need. So the whole
activity is another balancing act. Adding chelates to the mix makes it easier for the plants roots to absorb the macro,
micro and secondary nutrients that it needs.
There are several advantages of using chelates :
· It increases availability of nutrients.
· Mineral nutrients are prevented from forming insoluble precipitates.
· Toxicity is reduced of some metal ions to plants.
· It prevents nutrients from leaching.
· The mobility of plant nutrients increases.
· It suppresses the growth of plant pathogens.
· When formulated correctly can help stabilize pH.
