Coco pH and flushing technique

[mulga bill]

G,Day, Tortured Soul. Wow, What a post, presently i am only growing "Autos" consequently all of my decisions are made according to their likes and dislikes. My grow space is limited so smaller strains are the order of the day. I am constantly trying to figure out what is the best pot size, the best type of pot etc.etc.It would seem that every grower has their own idea of what size and type is best and one can spend many hours researching this subject alone ! So i have decided to stick to the pot i am currently using,all things considered it appears to be doing the job fine.I just want to put together a good,simple system that works for me.Get the mechanical things in order and spend more time learning about the plant.I believe it`s called the kiss method.Presently i am looking into the initial preparation of the CoCo, what is the best/right way to do this? As usual there are as many ways as there are growers. Anyway,my other life is calling.Thanks very much for your input,it is very much appreciated.......

 

[gr865]

Is that normal for RO water? I don't have a reverse osmosis water device, and it has been a few years since I helped a guy who did with his grow - but I seem to remember his RO water being somewhere in the neighborhood of 10x less acidic (pH ~ 5.0) than yours. And that came as a surprise to me; I had expected RO water to be 7.0. I did some web-searching and read that very pure water has no buffering ingredients and, therefore, doesn't take much to show changes (I knew this part)... and that people routinely saw an acidic pH. But, again, I'm thinking that what I read indicated that a pH in the range of 5.0 was normal for RO.

Maybe I am misremembering (highly possible at this particular time ). Maybe the exact range varies slightly due to the specific RO device?

OR... Maybe there is some kind of contaminant getting in, in very slight amounts (as it wouldn't take much to cause a significant change to the pH of pure(/nearly pure) water?

I assume you check the calibration (and recalibrate) your pH meter regularly and that your readings are accurate. So maybe I did, in fact, misremember what I read, lol.

Yes I buy my RO from a machine near my place, $0.25/gal. I try using rainwater as often as I can, I can contain around 60 or so gallons of rainwater, and I need it to rain now. LOL
My rainwater is 2 to 5 ppm and a pH of 6.25 to 6.50 and my purchased RO's pH is 6.75 to 7.00. I use rainwater till I get low then I begin mixing the two.

You are correct that pure water has no buffering, few yrs ago I was trying to use rainwater only and did not buffer it to the 120 ppm I do now and I had nothing but problems grow after grow. Think I got it figured out now!

GR