FF Oceans Forest ph at 4.5

[Rad420]

Just wondering if anyone has had any issue with oceans forests acidity? I am currently on my second indoor grow using it. The first one I had issues with ph throughout the whole grow. Runoff was in the mid 4s. I just started a second grow with it. I have 2 seedling that are 2.5 weeks old that I just transplanted into 3 gal fabric pots. My one plant totally stopped growing and has curled up almost like heat burn. On the second watering with 6.3-6.4ph water I tested my runoff and it was 4.6 and 4.8! Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[Apoc]

Yes there has been problems with Ocean Forests acidity apparently randomly. Garden lime will increase your soil PH.

I PH water to 6.2 then fill a red Solo cup with soil. Fill the cup to the brim with PH water and let it set. Couple hours strain some water out and PH it. That'll give you a rough idea if something is horribly off.

Try Happy Frog soil that stuff Rocks. I have one bag seed in a 5 gal fabric pot and it's filling a 3x3 tent, minimal Mega Crop nutes. Good soil.

 

[Rad420]

So my local hydro store guy recommended to run a shitload of ph 8.0 water through the soil and this will re-buffer it. Should this do the trick?

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Water runnoff pH is meaningless

Do a slurry test if yer concerned about yer soil

Never had issues with FFOF soil myself

 

[DaddyKush]

Lime and/or worm castings will both buffer your pH somewhere close to the 6.5 - 7.0 range. If all you can get is pelletized lime, just use a rolling pin or something similar to grind it into a powder. Apply water to see the beneficial changes. If you start with your medium in the right pH range, you'll have a much less stressful grow.

 

[Emilya Green]

FFOF will slurry test to 6.5-6.8... usually up on the higher side. As Chris said, runoff pH has absolutely nothing to do with the pH of your soil. Just water at 6.3 pH with all your incoming fluids, and the FFOF will do exactly what it was designed to do. Stop wasting your time measuring runoff pH. The measurement is totally arbitrary and depends on how much runoff you produced, what is in your nutes and the pH you started with. At no point does it correspond to anything going on in the soil.

 

[Emilya Green]

Lime and/or worm castings will both buffer your pH somewhere close to the 6.5 - 7.0 range. If all you can get is pelletized lime, just use a rolling pin or something similar to grind it into a powder. Apply water to see the beneficial changes. If you start with your medium in the right pH range, you'll have a much less stressful grow.

This is extremely bad advice. There is plenty of dolomite lime in the FFOF. Your soil pH IS in the correct range. FFOF is a great soil, just as it is... don't ruin it by following this recommendation.

 

[Emilya Green]

If I hear terrible advice, no matter who spouts it... you can be assured that I will say something. I see that as my primary role here... to dispel and debunk the bro science that pervades these online forums and video sites and to try to counter those who give terrible advice while trying to sound more knowledgeable than they really are.

 

[DaddyKush]

This is extremely bad advice. There is plenty of dolomite lime in the FFOF. Your soil pH IS in the correct range. FFOF is a great soil, just as it is... don't ruin it by following this recommendation.

No emilya, it's not extremely bad advice. It's how I've dealt with acidic soils for close to 30 years, and it has worked every time. Never killed a plant yet.

 

[Emilya Green]

No emilya, it's not extremely bad advice. It's how I've dealt with acidic soils for close to 30 years, and it has worked every time. Never killed a plant yet.

FFOF is not an acidic soil. You made an assumption and then advised the OP to fix something that was not broken.

 

[Rad420]

Let's all calm down here. I appreciate everyone's advice and I thank anyone who takes the time to read and answer my posts.
I am a novice and am trying to figure out how to do this properly. I get lots of conflicting advice as to whether or not to check ph and how to check it. My last grow I went by the advice of @Emilya and I didn't check runoff at all. I ph'd my solution to 6.3 and fed it like that but I ran into a lot of nutrient problems in the 3rd week of flowering. It started with what looked like a cal/mag issue but nothing helped it, adding more cal/mag, reducing the cal/mag or even just adding plain ph'd water. It was to the point that by the end of the grow most of my top colas had all their fan leaves and 90% of my suger leaves turn brown, dry up and flake away. There was very little trimming needed!
Now I'm starting a second grow and one of my seedlings is just curling up and stopped growing so im trying to pin point the problem before I get to far ahead again. Here are some photos of my issue.
Thanks everyone.

 

[Emilya Green]

I am calm, even though I am being personally attacked for strongly stating opposing facts. I only am trying to save you from making a big mistake and there is no emotion going through me at the moment other than a mild bit of frustration. I know you get a lot of conflicting advice, but please do yourself a favor and look at the number of followers, ie, the number of people who trust me and my advice, as compared to anyone else you wish to compare. There is a reason for that.

 

[Rad420]

And I appreciate that. I'm just trying to figure where I'm going wrong. My one plant looks like shit. I remember you telling me that the soil has buffers in it that should bring ph back up to 6.8 as it dries out and it all made sense but like I said I ran into a lot of issues in my first go at this and am now trying to eliminate a possible repeat. When I googled FFOF ph issues I came across a few post some as old as 2015 stating that others had a similar issue with their FFOF with ph being around 4.5 right out of the bag. That's why I decided to check runoff and got roughly about the same. 4.6-4.8. I'm going to try a slurry test like @Chris Scorpio suggested and see what I get. Instruction for slurry test was 2parts distilled water with 1 part soil. Mix until clumps broken up, let sit for 15 min and check.
Is this a good method?

 

[Emilya Green]

And I appreciate that. I'm just trying to figure where I'm going wrong. My one plant looks like shit. I remember you telling me that the soil has buffers in it that should bring ph back up to 6.8 as it dries out and it all made sense but like I said I ran into a lot of issues in my first go at this and am now trying to eliminate a possible repeat. When I googled FFOF ph issues I came across a few post some as old as 2015 stating that others had a similar issue with their FFOF with ph being around 4.5 right out of the bag. That's why I decided to check runoff and got roughly about the same. 4.6-4.8. I'm going to try a slurry test like @Chris Scorpio suggested and see what I get. Instruction for slurry test was 2parts distilled water with 1 part soil. Mix until clumps broken up, let sit for 15 min and check.
Is this a good method?

in airtight conditions.... and others who are reporting a 4.5 pH out of the bag are also in error. Check your premises. 4.5 pH soil would be so acidic that it would instantly fry a plant, and there is no way it would ever grow. Google and bro opinion is not your friend when trying to find out facts... because you also will find in your search results OPINIONS, and the fact is that FFOF is buffered on average to 6.8 pH.

 

[Rad420]

So any advice as to what could be going on with this plant. I got 2 plants, 2 different strains and the one with issues is a day older than the other but stopped growing now.

 

[Emilya Green]

So any advice as to what could be going on with this plant. I got 2 plants, 2 different strains and the one with issues is a day older than the other but stopped growing now.

tell us more about your additives... the nutes you are using, the pH you have been adjusting to and anything you added to this designer soil.... It is my belief that in these answers we will find the cause of your difficulties.

 

[Rad420]

FFOF soil. No nutes added yet. Just watered 2 times with 6.3-6.4 ph. Light at 30in above top of plants.

 

[Emilya Green]

FFOF soil. No nutes added yet. Just watered 2 times with 6.3-6.4 ph. Light at 30in above top of plants.

just watered 2 times? Here is where the problem is. While I commend you for patiently waiting for the roots to make it to the bottom and then strengthen up enough to where the plants can use all of that water, and you not watering until they do... there is a better way when you have put the plants in way too big of a container to totally follow my watering method to a T. Please remember that my article also talked about the reasons we successively uppot.

In your situation it is best to water every 3 days, out to 3x the diameter of the plant, but with only enough water to soak in to around 3 or 4 inches deep. A little will still make it down to the bottom where that big water table is sitting, but try to minimize that and just water the top spreader roots while you wait for the bottom roots to be able to use up 5x the water they were born to handle that sits down there every time you completely water the container. I call this 2 stage watering, and you should keep doing this every 3 days until the bottom finally dries out and you can water the complete container properly again.

This answers everything. Our plants are highly adaptable, so they have slowed down growth until they can solve this watering problem for you. Help them out... show them that you understand there are two sets of roots, and that you can give them what they need for now via the top roots. They will respond accordingly.

 

[Rad420]

So I just did a slurry test with some of my FFOF soil right out of the bag. I mixed 1.5 parts distilled water to 1 part soil. Mixed it and let it sit for 15-20min. I get a reading of 4.85.

 

[Emilya Green]

That does not make any sense because that would kill any plant that hit it. If this is the case, sue Fox Farms for this bad bag of soil, or the maker of your pH pen. I suspect that you didn't get a good representative sample of the soil. I advise you to call up Fox Farm right now and ask them how this could be.