City water - PH paranoia?

Bushmaster

New Member
I'm new, first post, and I'd like to say "thanks" for all I've learned here so far. What a great site!

I'll try to be brief. Background: Sunshine Soil # 4. Two healthy strains, Power Kush, and Skunk clones doing well so far, and 4 seedlings sprouting 3rd sets of leaves, all in a mylar lined cabinet under 3 cfls, 500 watt equiv/4,500 lumens ea, at 6500k. I'll be using House-Garden Bio One Component Soil (first application last week - impressive!), along with their Root Accelerator, Drip clean, Magic Green and possibly Cal Mag (unchecked recommendation for the Bio One -experience anyone?) and probably their bud products when it comes time, at which time my 5'x7' bud room will hopefully be complete with a 400 watt hps (Agromax bulb) and a 400 watt MH, with some 2700k cfls to aid in spectrum.

So, I'm worried I'm going to f**k something up with my nutes. I'm checking my city water with a Sun Leaves ph vial kit. One drop per three quarters vial as instructed, (yes, I know I need a good ph/tds meter, just can't swing it yet), and I come up a strong blue, like ph8 or more. Tonight, I test distilled water, and three different brands of bottled spring water, all same result (blue/8ph). I mix a gallon of the city water with Europonics PH adjuster (phosphoric acid), and it does come down, but my first question is this: with all my tests coming out the same, can this type of tester be trusted? I did get a high ph reading off one of those instant test strips used for pools/hot tubs as well.

And my second question: if I do need to use the ph buffer for my water, how does that affect the efficiency of the nutrients? Would anyone out there use the water with these expensive ass nutes straight as is? Why or why not?

As a side note, there is a pet store in town selling reverse osmosis water by the gallon. As much as I'd hate to have to use it, I get the feeling how critical good water is from reading what I have here and elsewhere.

Thanks a lot in advance for any help, and especially anyones comments about this brand of nutrients, as I haven't seen much on them. Peace.
 
Oh yeah and your tap water might be in the 8 range if you have baking soda or some kind of base in there... you can probably get on your city web site and look at a water quality report or something and see exactly what kinds of crap is in there. Also chlorine is commonly added to tap water so if you do decide to use it be sure to let it sit out for at least 24 hours so some of that toxic crap evaporates. Its certainly no bueno for your ladies.
:smokin:
 
Oh yeah and your tap water might be in the 8 range if you have baking soda or some kind of base in there... you can probably get on your city web site and look at a water quality report or something and see exactly what kinds of crap is in there. Also chlorine is commonly added to tap water so if you do decide to use it be sure to let it sit out for at least 24 hours so some of that toxic crap evaporates. Its certainly no bueno for your ladies.
:smokin:

if your tap water ph is high, you can use vinegar to lower it too. mine was about 7.8 and I would bring it down to 6.5 with a teaspoon or 2 of vinegar/gallon h2o.

The chlorine will evaporate within 10-20 minutes if in a large mouth container like a bucket (not a gallon jug).
 
Thank you both. I appreciate the advice. Interestingly enough (to me at least), I added my nutes last night, and checked PH at every step. They seemed to lower the PH, probably not quite enough, but I was comfortable it wasn't going to fry my babies. From what I was told, the soil(less) mix I'm using is buffered, so maybe betwern that, leaving the water out and adding a touch of vinegar it'll be ok till I can afford a meter.
I'll try to post photos soon. I'm pretty happy with my ghetto cfl reflector. Thanks again-
 
i do the same, i have about 8-9 gallon jugs and 2 liters i use and if at all possible i get distilled water for my nutes and works fine i have never tested my tap water but have a few friends around that have used it for years and never had an issue, the ladies can can take a beating but have very sensative areas just avoid those and let the ladies do all the work!!:roorrip:
 
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