My newest young plant in coco got nuked - How did that happen?

[SmokingWings]

I get the feeling that we might be looking at the source of the problem and not recognizing it. Human nature being what it is will sometimes makes us try to solve a problem and forget to ask ourselves how we got to the problem in the first place. So, several questions. Maybe then we might be able to backtrack and see the cause.

How many plants are in this grow? You mention have you have one that is in a different growing medium that it is growing OK. What is the growing medium for that one? This has started to make me think that we should be looking at the coco itself and not just the pH, ppm and other numbers.

Did you grow these from seed? Or are they clones? Every time I read the thread through from the top down to the the most recent comment which has to be about 6 times since you posted I keep asking myself why are these plants so large before the problems started to show up.

 

[Acid]

So first of all - I will leave the silica out now. Was probably a better idea to do that earlier on. Thanks for that suggestion, I thought it's 100% needed so I always used a tiny drop in my feeding.

Secondly, here's the track of everything:

There are currently 3 plants in this grow. Two Gazzurple seeds from Humboldt Seed Company (Feminized,photoperiod seed) in a 70/30 Coco/Perlite mixture. The coco is "canna coco professional plus", the perlite is just normal plant perlite.

The third plant is an autoflower from RQS, planted straight from seed into its final 4 gallon pot. The substrate for this plant is BioBizz Light Mix, a peat-based substrate with some compost, worm humus, perlite, and light pre-mixed nutrients for 2-3 weeks of growth.

Both get the exact same water from the bucket, but the autoflower gets some organic boosters for now, while the two coco plants get the coco line, including calmag and silica, they got it from seed onwards.

The biggest plant (Gazzurple) was my first project around a bit over a month ago. It was planted in its first seedling pot with the BioBizz Light Mix substrate, but I kept overwatering it and it just kept yellowing because of it. While doing that, I randomly had the idea to switch to coco and try it again. I just gave up organic peat grows, I always failed.

So I switched to coco, but still had around 5 gallons of biobizz light mix left over, so I popped one new Gazzurple seed, and one Autoflower seed. I felt like doing a dual grow to see where it'll take me. New gazzurple in coco, autoflower back into the shitty biobizz stuff that always kills me plants. Gazzurple popped on the 17th of September, the Autoflower on the 18th of September. The old Gazzurple still grew slowly, and yellowed severely.

This coco growth impressed me so much, that I pulled the plug on my older Gazzurple seedling in the BioBizz substrate, and I.. "ripped" it out the substrate. Washed the roots, disinfected it with H2O2, and repotted the severely stunted seedling into another coco seedling pot. Autoflower still in Biobizz substrate, never changed.

Then I had two Gazzurples in coco. The oldest stunted plant suddenly started growing insanely fast. I fed it with 0.5, then 0.6 and so on EC, always with silica and tiny amounts of calmag, with the BioBizz PH down (Citric Acid). The newest one also slowly started growing. Everything was fine. The big one suddenly started drooping for days and days, and it never really recovered from it until today, it just got a bit better. The younger one never really turned a healthy green, but always stayed a "light green", and the leaves kept feeling papery thin. Something was just off.

The big one still kept growing, but with the leaves never really going up. It just grew however it wanted to, looking sad all the time. The autoflower did its thing, WONDERFUL dark green leaves, but I guess I overwatered once again & it got stunted, iron lockout, and I was dumb enough to top it at the same time too. But it's fine again, new growth is green, it's all good.

And now we're coming into current times. Around 3 days ago, my tiny gazzurple plant in coco suddenly started showing a few brown spots here and there, the tips of the leaves curling upwards slightly. The tips weren't brown, just pointing upwards, with the leaves themselves being normal horizontal. Upwards clawing pretty much. Big old plant was fine, but still looking sad and droopy. One day later, we come to the first post I made on this forum, and the rest is shown in the images.

In all this time, I have changed.. nothing, at all. It all stayed the same, I just slowly raised EC and kept PH at around 5.8 to 6.0, sometimes 6.1, that's it. Nothing fancy, literally nothing. I only topped the biggest plant, but it had absolutely no problems with it. Temps were always the same, 74-76F, humidity always the same, 50-60%, air circulation, even a smart exhaust fan, oscillating fans, everything. There's literally nothing missing, only 2-3°F more that I'd wish for.

This is why I'm so clueless. My biggest suspicion is still the citric acid, as my tapwaters PH is at 8.1, and nutrients only slightly lower it. The citric acid may work wonders in low PH tapwater, but whenever I mix nutrients into water and PH them, the PH will rise from 5.8 to 6.7 or 6.8 in a few hours again (not in substrate, but in the cup I let it sit in).

 

[Th3Grow3rNooB]

feed right at 5.8, don't start higher, it'll drift upward as the plant feeds. listen to bill and feed at least once a day in coco, don't let it dry out.




doesn't sound like mold. start a thread the next time you spot an issue and include pics.

Sorry, i should specify " Downy Mildew " Have a looks at some pics and see what you think in relation to this post.

This is why I'm so clueless. My biggest suspicion is still the citric acid, as my tapwaters PH is at 8.1, and nutrients only slightly lower it. The citric acid may work wonders in low PH tapwater, but whenever I mix nutrients into water and PH them, the PH will rise from 5.8 to 6.7 or 6.8 in a few hours again (not in substrate, but in the cup I let it sit in).

So you dont use the avg PH Down Hydrochloric acid that most people sell at the shops ? With PH jumps like this going on in the Rez, i woudnt be surprised the same jumps could be happeing at the root zone ?


Ill be using this forum more frequently for sure, all you guys have great input and can normally help solve the issue :

 

[Acid]

Sorry, i should specify " Downy Mildew " Have a looks at some pics and see what you think in relation to this post.


So you dont use the avg PH Down Hydrochloric acid that most people sell at the shops ? With PH jumps like this going on in the Rez, i woudnt be surprised the same jumps could be happeing at the root zone ?


Ill be using this forum more frequently for sure, all you guys have great input and can normally help solve the issue :

Yeah I don't have any shops nearby, not even far away, I live remotely. I only had my BioBizz PH down here, so I thought it's fine to use, as everyone said it's fine to use. I only found one thread on reddit which said to NEVER use citric acid or vinegar as ph down in coco grows, which was my first big clue. I then found a different thread with a diagram showing the stability of phosphoric acid, which was then changed to using citric acid, and a huge PH swing upwards in a few hours inside the substrate, and then back to phosphoric acid, which stabilized the substrates Ph again. That was my second biggest clue.

That was the moment I ordered the usual General Hydroponics PH Down, but the shop pretty much f-ed me over and hasn't even shipped yet, I ordered thursday last week. This dumb timing will probably cause the smallest coco plant to die by the time this stuff arrives, if it's even the cause at all. Just my suspicion.

Otherwise I literally have no idea as to what's going on. I'm completely lost here. I wish it'd just be temps or humidity, but that wouldn't cause such severe problems, as my auto is thriving, even if the environment isn't picture perfect. My PH pen is always 100% calibrated, the EC meter is absolutely fine, and I'm always measuring and mixing carefully, after watching tons of tutorials on how to mix everything to not destroy / brick the nutrient solution.

I have never ever seen a plant get destroyed so quickly, and I've done TONS of bad stuff to plants already. It always ended with stunted growth, nutrient lockouts, yellowing, but it was SLOW. Now my small plant just suddenly got NUKED out of nowhere in not even 1 day, with the last 2 days just destroying the rest of it. Literally out of nowhere, with no changes at all.

 

[bluter]

if your using lemon juice to ph it won't work for long. only use lemon juice in an emergency. you won't get through a grow with it. it's effectiveness is only a few minutes to a couple hours.

it's not holding and the media is spiking. your issue looks almost completely ph to me.

 

[SmokingWings]

So you dont use the avg PH Down Hydrochloric acid that most people sell at the shops ?

I can't find anything that claims that Citric Acid is actually bad for adjusting water pH. It is used in food processing and is considered organic. There are recipes for using Citric Acid to make fruit juice drinks that are safe. Citric Acid should not be used for aquarium water because it is anti-bacterial. It probably will work well for cleaning out hydroponic systems between grow sessions.

The Hydrochloric Acid used is safe for lowering water pH and it is even found as part of our stomach acids in small amounts. There seem to be more cautions about using it instead of Citric when contact with skin or eyes is possible.

For lowering the pH of water for plants or swimming pools either is OK. I am thinking that the reason so many grow shops sell Hydrochloric Acid for lowering pH is that it costs less than the Citric Acid and in the amounts we use it is safe.

 

[Acid]

I don't know if I am allowed to link a reddit thread here, I will just copy the image and mention the author (u/lathyrus_long), as I can't find any specific evidence somewhere else, this is my only source right now:

What you see here is a chart of GH PH Down being used, then Citric Acid (What I use, the yummy organic stuff that makes mouth tingle tingle), and afterwards just plain phosphoric acid. Here is the explanation from him:

_________________________________________

• Blue = pH
• Green = EC
• Red = temp

"Citric acid" near the black line represents when citric acid was added

"Phosphoric acid" near the black line represents when phosphoric acid was added.

After adding each you can see the effect on pH and EC.

Various plants (tomato, cucumber, pepper, morning glory) in rockwool were irrigated twice daily at pH = 5.8 and EC = 1800 uS/cm, with the concentration of fertilizer and each pH down product adjusted to those targets. Source water has pH ~ 8, EC ~ 700 uS/cm. The fertilizer is the usual Masterblend 4-18-38 + MgSO4 + Ca(NO3)2. At each irrigation event, solution was applied until it drained from the media, with automated monitoring of the leachate. The image is a graph of leachate pH, EC, and temperature versus time, over 24 days, including only the time (roughly two hours per day) that we're actively irrigating. We see that:

• The pH/EC within each irrigation event always varies a lot, because I irrigate each zone in succession and different plant species take up nutrients (and thus affect pH/EC) in different ways. You can ignore that, since the overall trend is much bigger.
• The plants are outdoors, so the temperature changes some. The primary effect is clearly the change in pH down and not the change in weather, though.
• The change takes a few days to show its effect, but with citric acid the pH rises very high. It eventually rises to roughly my source water pH, so I think the citric acid is doing basically nothing.
• The citric acid also results in decreased leachate EC, possibly because of precipitation of calcium phosphates at high pH.
• The phosphoric acid shows higher pH than the GH product. I think that's because the GH product also contains monoammonium phosphate, and plant uptake of ammonium causes decrease in pH. They probably intend that to cancel out the natural rise in pH from nitrate uptake, but my water is hard enough that enough phosphoric acid to achieve my target pH is too much MAP and my pH falls.
• I wondered whether citric acid would have worked, but I just wasn't using enough. A separate experiment in my recirculating system (not pictured) showed half-life under an hour, so probably not.

___________________________________________

This was one big clue as to why I may f-ed up my coco grow with citric acid, as the spike in PH was severe. Does this ring a bell for anyone? I'm a noob and this stuff looks absolutely confusing to me, but if I understood correctly, citric acid does really not work that well, at least not for a straight up coco grow with hydro nutrients. This stuff DOES work wonderfully in my organic peat-moss substrate. Absolutely not hating on citric acid, I just feel it might be wrong in my grow if my tapwater PH is as high as his? Only my EC is lower, as his is 0.7, mine is at 0.3-0.4 out the tap, around there

 

[Th3Grow3rNooB]

I can't find anything that claims that Citric Acid is actually bad for adjusting water pH. It is used in food processing and is considered organic. There are recipes for using Citric Acid to make fruit juice drinks that are safe. Citric Acid should not be used for aquarium water because it is anti-bacterial. It probably will work well for cleaning out hydroponic systems between grow sessions.

The Hydrochloric Acid used is safe for lowering water pH and it is even found as part of our stomach acids in small amounts. There seem to be more cautions about using it instead of Citric when contact with skin or eyes is possible.

For lowering the pH of water for plants or swimming pools either is OK. I am thinking that the reason so many grow shops sell Hydrochloric Acid for lowering pH is that it costs less than the Citric Acid and in the amounts we use it is safe.

A fellow here who runs a Hydro shop has a degree in Horticulture, he is 100% against the use of Organic PH Up/Downs in Coco grows. What he describes is what our freind here seems to be experiencing. I am not sure of the science behind it, but if you look into Organic PHing for Coco, its not compatible apparentlty. If you like i will ask him next time and get a recap, he knows his stuff.

 

[SmokingWings]

Otherwise I literally have no idea as to what's going on. I'm completely lost here.

I think that you are trying to do to much at a time looking for or hoping for the perfect method. And, this is leading to an issue where the root system is not getting enough time to adjust after you transplant. Throw in a possible issue with the pH and the plant will have a harder time recovering from anything.

As for the pH of the water. There are many things that will affect how fast the pH of the water can change after being adjusted. Warm temperature can cause it to drift back up quicker than stable cool temperatures. The amount of CO2 in the water will affect how fast the pH swings back up. The CO2 in the air will have an effect.

Even aeration will have an effect on fast the pH changes back after it has been adjusted even if the aeration is stopped. Changing how much air has been mixed in changes the pH numbers a couple of hours later.

On top of all that, alkaline water is often associated with higher pH but it is not set in stone. There can be alkaline waters that have lower pH levels and the minerals that made the water alkaline to begin with can start to change the pH back within a matter or hours.

I keep remembering recommendations to adjust the pH, add the nutrients in the proper order, then check and adjust the water again if needed and finally to use it to water the plants. Any water left over should be dumped. Then do it all again the next day with a new batch water.

 

[SmokingWings]

A fellow here who runs a Hydro shop has a degree in Horticulture, he is 100% against the use of Organic PH Up/Downs in Coco grows. What he describes is what our freind here seems to be experiencing. I am not sure of the science behind it, but if you look into Organic PHing for Coco, its not compatible apparentlty. If you like i will ask him next time and get a recap, he knows his stuff.

Yes, ask him. I wonder if it has to do with the way Citric Acid will kill off the bacteria and maybe that prevents some of the plants ability to absorb the nutrients.

In a soil grow the various beneficial bacteria re be able to reproduce fast enough that it does not make much of a difference but in coco the continued loss of any beneficial bacteria is going to have a serious effect on the plants health from top to bottom.

 

[Wastei]

The main problem I see is you're adding Ca/Mg to already really hard water? That will bring you a high pH that you can't regulate no matter the pH down you use? If you use Coco A + B from Canna you shouldn't use "Calmag" at all, even with RO water(reverse osmosis).

You have to add minerals according to your base water and more is not better if you dont know what's already in the mix? Don't use any organic acids and use phosphoric acid, not citric acid as pH down. Never ever use Lemon juice since it will first be acidic then alkaline when broken down causing heavy pH swings at every feeding.

Potassium silicate would help you more to stabilize pH and you should in no way add "Calmag" to your already hard base water, that's a big NO NO. pH of your runoff water is way more important to keep track of than your input. It's the only way to know what the plant puts out other than using a proper soil pH meter and the only way to know how to compensate for pH in the medium.

Sometimes I have to go all the way to 7.0 in pH to reach 6.0 in the containers in flower running coir, and earlier in veg and early flower I need to run pH lower like 5.5. Follow the plant and do measures to stabilize pH, I like to use potassium silicate for that reason.

Cheers!

 

[Acid]

Yes, ask him. I wonder if it has to do with the way Citric Acid will kill off the bacteria and maybe that prevents some of the plants ability to absorb the nutrients.

In a soil grow the various beneficial bacteria re be able to reproduce fast enough that it does not make much of a difference but in coco the continued loss of any beneficial bacteria is going to have a serious effect on the plants health from top to bottom.

What I've read so far is that citric acid breaks down way too quickly, and can cause bacteria to settle down into the substrate. It'll also create an oily film in the runoff, which I actually have noticed. It looks like an oil spill on water, but only very lightly. Is this just normal stuff with hydro nutrients, or can that be the citric acid?

I don't have a lot of time to read through everything right now, I can just say:

My phosphoric acid will arrive tomorrow, that's good news. I hope it'll help.

The CalMag I can leave out, problem is just that I heard so many different things about this. Some say I should add it, because I don't exactly know what makes up my EC in the water. I only know that I have 49mg/ml of calcium, and 5.3mg/ml of magnesium in my tapwater, which doesn't tell me a lot, only that I have around 9 times the amount of calcium in my water, in comparison to magnesium.

I'll try to read through everything later on, I just wanna say thanks to everyone for trying to find causes and giving suggestions. Don't be soft on me, I f-ed up tons of things already, I do dumb things, I need a harsh opinion. Otherwise I'd just waste my time with my own stupid decisions again.

 

[Roy Growin]

I keep reading through this and I can't understand why your citric would cause such a problem - I used it successfully for several grows on the trot
When we say 'citric acid' I wonder if we are talking about the same thing?
The stuff I used was concentrate designed to remove limescale from agricultural irrigation systems
Powerful stuff, I still have the burn marks on my worktop and I also used it to descale the kettle
Is your citric that strong?

 

[Acid]

Mine's BioBizz PH Down, I don't know the exact concentration as BioBizz is rather "bitchy" about their formulas. They never really say what exactly is in their product. I can tell you though that I've never gotten a burn from that stuff, not even a slight itch. I was very careful at first about this stuff, but I got a bit more dull after some time and some stuff always dripped on my hands here and there. I feel like I could drink that stuff no problem (I won't), but it seems to be very soft. It has never destroyed anything, it just crystallizes after a day or two if a drop falls onto something, but it doesn't even destroy the paint on wood or anything at all.

I also think that it may depends on general PH of your water? Mine is 8.1 out of the tap, with coco nutrients it goes down to 7.5 or 7.4, but that's it. I then have to use a rather suspicious amount of the BioBizz PH Down stuff, around 8-9 drops for 1L of nutrient solution. That always bugged me out too, as my PH pen is 100% precise. Letting it sit after mixing it, will get it from 5.8 to 6.2 after ~30 minutes, 6.7-6.8 after 12 hours, all the way to 7.4 after 24 hours of letting it sit. I did a full test over 24 hours of just the nutrient solution in a cup. I know that no PH down is 100% stable, but I think this stuff may be too "soft" for an all out hydro/coco grow, as it was made for organic substrate.

My organic nutrient mixture for the peat substrate I have, will go all the way down to 6.7 without PH down, and then I only need to correct it slightly with 1-2 drops so it goes to the recommended 6.3

 

[Wastei]

What I've read so far is that citric acid breaks down way too quickly, and can cause bacteria to settle down into the substrate. It'll also create an oily film in the runoff, which I actually have noticed. It looks like an oil spill on water, but only very lightly. Is this just normal stuff with hydro nutrients, or can that be the citric acid?

I don't have a lot of time to read through everything right now, I can just say:

My phosphoric acid will arrive tomorrow, that's good news. I hope it'll help.

The CalMag I can leave out, problem is just that I heard so many different things about this. Some say I should add it, because I don't exactly know what makes up my EC in the water. I only know that I have 49mg/ml of calcium, and 5.3mg/ml of magnesium in my tapwater, which doesn't tell me a lot, only that I have around 9 times the amount of calcium in my water, in comparison to magnesium.

I'll try to read through everything later on, I just wanna say thanks to everyone for trying to find causes and giving suggestions. Don't be soft on me, I f-ed up tons of things already, I do dumb things, I need a harsh opinion. Otherwise I'd just waste my time with my own stupid decisions again.

You need to add about 0.5g Epsom salt per gallon of water (0.13g/L) to balance your base water and you'll be good on the Ca/Mg ratio. Epsom salt has a pH of 5.5 and the extra sulfur will help you lower pH.

49ppm Ca and ~ 15-20ppm Mg giving you 2:1 ratio and you don't need to add any Calmag because you already compensated by adding Epsom salt to optimal ratio. You'll get the rest of Ca/Mg and optimal mineral ratio for coir from the base A + B.

Cheers!

 

[bluter]

i generally hold off on the cal-mag unless / until i see an ask. piles will depend on your water source.

 

[Th3Grow3rNooB]

What I've read so far is that citric acid breaks down way too quickly, and can cause bacteria to settle down into the substrate. It'll also create an oily film in the runoff, which I actually have noticed. It looks like an oil spill on water, but only very lightly. Is this just normal stuff with hydro nutrients, or can that be the citric acid?

I don't have a lot of time to read through everything right now, I can just say:

My phosphoric acid will arrive tomorrow, that's good news. I hope it'll help.

The CalMag I can leave out, problem is just that I heard so many different things about this. Some say I should add it, because I don't exactly know what makes up my EC in the water. I only know that I have 49mg/ml of calcium, and 5.3mg/ml of magnesium in my tapwater, which doesn't tell me a lot, only that I have around 9 times the amount of calcium in my water, in comparison to magnesium.

I'll try to read through everything later on, I just wanna say thanks to everyone for trying to find causes and giving suggestions. Don't be soft on me, I f-ed up tons of things already, I do dumb things, I need a harsh opinion. Otherwise I'd just waste my time with my own stupid decisions again.

I cant find you mentioning and apologies if you have, but what is the EC of youre tap water ? Mine here is 0.2 Which is 100 ppm. I have been told that 0.4 EC ( 200-250ish ppm ) and above is useless nearly for mxing nutes. Im sure people have has sucess, but hmm..

I know alot of growers that frown upon me for using my tap water lol... However we use what we have i guess.

Have you got a EC Meter ? Out of curiosity, i would be curious right now to know the PH Runoff atleast. I never test PH RunOff unless things are looking dire.

 

[Acid]

I cant find you mentioning and apologies if you have, but what is the EC of youre tap water ? Mine here is 0.2 Which is 100 ppm. I have been told that 0.4 EC ( 200-250ish ppm ) and above is useless nearly for mxing nutes. Im sure people have has sucess, but hmm..

I know alot of growers that frown upon me for using my tap water lol... However we use what we have i guess.

Have you got a EC Meter ? Out of curiosity, i would be curious right now to know the PH Runoff atleast. I never test PH RunOff unless things are looking dire.

EC of my tapwater is usually at around 0.35, going by the canna guide it's apparently the perfect amount to not do anything like RO with the water. I don't know what to believe anymore though.

The runoff PH the last time I checked was at 6.8 after the next daily watering every 24 hours, with 5.8-6.1 going in

And generally some updates - Just got the European version of General Hydroponics PH Down, it's called terra aquatica pH down, apparently it's the same thing though. I just used it, and it was.. way too much? I had to use like 15 or 20 drops of that stuff to get my water from 7 to 5.9, this can't be normal. Especially because my ph pen works absolutely fine

 

[Th3Grow3rNooB]

I don't know if I am allowed to link a reddit thread here, I will just copy the image and mention the author (u/lathyrus_long), as I can't find any specific evidence somewhere else, this is my only source right now:

What you see here is a chart of GH PH Down being used, then Citric Acid (What I use, the yummy organic stuff that makes mouth tingle tingle), and afterwards just plain phosphoric acid. Here is the explanation from him:

_________________________________________

• Blue = pH
• Green = EC
• Red = temp

"Citric acid" near the black line represents when citric acid was added

"Phosphoric acid" near the black line represents when phosphoric acid was added.

After adding each you can see the effect on pH and EC.

Various plants (tomato, cucumber, pepper, morning glory) in rockwool were irrigated twice daily at pH = 5.8 and EC = 1800 uS/cm, with the concentration of fertilizer and each pH down product adjusted to those targets. Source water has pH ~ 8, EC ~ 700 uS/cm. The fertilizer is the usual Masterblend 4-18-38 + MgSO4 + Ca(NO3)2. At each irrigation event, solution was applied until it drained from the media, with automated monitoring of the leachate. The image is a graph of leachate pH, EC, and temperature versus time, over 24 days, including only the time (roughly two hours per day) that we're actively irrigating. We see that:

• The pH/EC within each irrigation event always varies a lot, because I irrigate each zone in succession and different plant species take up nutrients (and thus affect pH/EC) in different ways. You can ignore that, since the overall trend is much bigger.
• The plants are outdoors, so the temperature changes some. The primary effect is clearly the change in pH down and not the change in weather, though.
• The change takes a few days to show its effect, but with citric acid the pH rises very high. It eventually rises to roughly my source water pH, so I think the citric acid is doing basically nothing.
• The citric acid also results in decreased leachate EC, possibly because of precipitation of calcium phosphates at high pH.
• The phosphoric acid shows higher pH than the GH product. I think that's because the GH product also contains monoammonium phosphate, and plant uptake of ammonium causes decrease in pH. They probably intend that to cancel out the natural rise in pH from nitrate uptake, but my water is hard enough that enough phosphoric acid to achieve my target pH is too much MAP and my pH falls.
• I wondered whether citric acid would have worked, but I just wasn't using enough. A separate experiment in my recirculating system (not pictured) showed half-life under an hour, so probably not.

___________________________________________

This was one big clue as to why I may f-ed up my coco grow with citric acid, as the spike in PH was severe. Does this ring a bell for anyone? I'm a noob and this stuff looks absolutely confusing to me, but if I understood correctly, citric acid does really not work that well, at least not for a straight up coco grow with hydro nutrients. This stuff DOES work wonderfully in my organic peat-moss substrate. Absolutely not hating on citric acid, I just feel it might be wrong in my grow if my tapwater PH is as high as his? Only my EC is lower, as his is 0.7, mine is at 0.3-0.4 out the tap, around there

Yes, as I mentioned, a freind running a shop here is 1000% against the use of Organic PH Ups & Downs in Coco. It is not compatible with Coco throughout an entire grow cycle.. The runoff with the water. I don't know what to believe anymore though.
That Tap Water is not great I wont lie. As i said, growers in my part laugh at me for using 0.2 EC Tap. Gotta use we gotta use though right man haha!

The runoff PH the last time I checked was at 6.8 after the next daily watering every 24 hours, with 5.8-6.1 going in

That PH RunOff needs attention. I can check my PH RunOff at any stage of growth and it will vary from 5.7 Low range & 6.1 High range.
If you always feed at @ 5.8 ish youre coco will buffer throughout the grow and you will always get a runoff that is near the input. Atleast you now know the issue is most definitly PH related and just gotta get that 12$ bottle of PH Down

 

[Wastei]

EC of my tapwater is usually at around 0.35, going by the canna guide it's apparently the perfect amount to not do anything like RO with the water. I don't know what to believe anymore though.

The runoff PH the last time I checked was at 6.8 after the next daily watering every 24 hours, with 5.8-6.1 going in

And generally some updates - Just got the European version of General Hydroponics PH Down, it's called terra aquatica pH down, apparently it's the same thing though. I just used it, and it was.. way too much? I had to use like 15 or 20 drops of that stuff to get my water from 7 to 5.9, this can't be normal. Especially because my ph pen works absolutely fine

Dilute your phosphoric acid to about 5% strength and it will be easier to use. As a general rule you need to run lower pH in veg and early flower and raise pH at mid to late flower running containers

Your water will work fine in containers and you'll save money on the "Calmag" use since you only need to add small amounts of Epsom salt to balance your tap water. 0.13g per liter or 0.5g per gallon of water. That will only raise the total of your base water by ~30ppm.