Old Reviews Cal/Mag questions

[Waximus]

From everything I've seen, that number is an opinion. Even the rockstar grow writers swing around.
My well water fluctuates between 125-200 ppm- hard water, for sure. I used to live in an apartment that had 400-600! You could evap the water and have a chalk layer lol. With my water, I use Calmag+ at half strength starting in week 3 or 4. It has warded off a deficiency on this run, so I must have hit the sweet spot. Best to you, officinalis

 

[fweedom]

Since i used distilled water and should add cal-mag every time what should i do when my plants are super young and dont need a lot of nutrients but i still need to add cal-mag to my water just so it can buffer?

If my plants are only around 2 weeks and i want to do a veryy light feed to introduce my grow nutes im concerned that i will overfeed them since im supposed to add a fair amount of cal-mag just to buffer :dunno:

 

[wwwillie]

With the distilled you should prolly be using some cal/mag. Depends on which brand or just what you are using though. Some have N in theirs others have other things as well. Read the ingredients and the analysis to see what's in it and adjust your feed appropriately. Start out wicked light with the feed at any rate, a good bit less than the recommended. I am fairly sure not using it was part of my problem with my current grow and RO water.

 

[fweedom]

Can someone explain this cause its really confusing me...

I mixed up some nutrients (with cal-mag added first as a buffer) i then tested the water and it was the same color as 6.5 so i watered them with that.

As it sits in the test vial the ph seems to be going up the longer it sits, even the leftover water from the jug increased and is clearly much higher...why is it fluctuating and not staying constant if i added the cal-mag??

 

[A4]

Can someone explain this cause its really confusing me...

I mixed up some nutrients (with cal-mag added first as a buffer) i then tested the water and it was the same color as 6.5 so i watered them with that.

As it sits in the test vial the ph seems to be going up the longer it sits, even the leftover water from the jug increased and is clearly much higher...why is it fluctuating and not staying constant if i added the cal-mag??

What kind of water are you using fweedom? If it is tap water it also has buffers in it which will cause the pH to rise. Even if you let the tap water sit out overnight, that only dissipates the chlorine, the carbonates and bicarbonates still exist and will effectively continue to neutralize your acids.

 

[fweedom]

What kind of water are you using fweedom? If it is tap water it also has buffers in it which will cause the pH to rise. Even if you let the tap water sit out overnight, that only dissipates the chlorine, the carbonates and bicarbonates still exist and will effectively continue to neutralize your acids.

I'm using distilled water, I thought since I added cal-mag first then my other nutes the ph would stay constant and not fluctuate. But as time goes by it seems to just keep raising. .its definitely not the same color of 6.5 when I initially tested it.

 

[Grey Bear]

I'm using distilled water, I thought since I added cal-mag first then my other nutes the ph would stay constant and not fluctuate. But as time goes by it seems to just keep raising. .its definitely not the same color of 6.5 when I initially tested it.

The test is only accurate for a few minutes at best. When I used drops to test I never considered a test accurate if it was older than 30 seconds and I used to that literally hundreds of times a day.

After a minute you need to rinse tube, get a new test sample and test again.
Or get a continuous digital probe.

 

[fweedom]

The test is only accurate for a few minutes at best. When I used drops to test I never considered a test accurate if it was older than 30 seconds and I used to that literally hundreds of times a day.

After a minute you need to rinse tube, get a new test sample and test again.
Or get a continuous digital probe.

That's the thing even when I would take a new sample it would be higher than before..for example. .

The water tested at like 6.5 so I watered with that.... after i was done watering I then had some left over in the jug so rinsed the tube and I tested it again and this time it was much higher :dunno: even with added cal-mag it won't seem to stay constant

 

[A4]

Calcium is also a buffer so it could be that the calcium is causing it to rise as well. I have always added my calcium last when using chemical nutes because that is what the manufacturer recommends. I don't know what difference it makes, I figured it has the possibly of knocking something out of suspension but am not too sure.

Best guess would be the calcium is buffering the solution though. Just a guess.

 

[Waira]

:Gary: Hey Fweed-- got your PM! You're talking about pH rising after the nutes and all have been added, right? Well, the chemical reactions (buffering) are not necessarily instant, and with all the various dissolved goodies in there, it can slow things down,... but as A4 mentioned, it's the carbonates doing their buffering job that's slowly raising the pH again,... with all the stuff in there, and other potential cross reactions, it's the one reason why you don't mix up a big batch of nutes and let it sit around for days,... biological activity is the other! Once it's added into the soil, all sorts of other influencing factors come into play, so getting your soln. pre-dialed helps make sure nothing too wonky happens once it's in there... *** Dewd, you must get an Accurate 8 soil pH meter! there's nothing like a reading DIRECTLY from the soil,... if you can scare-up the $50-60 bucks, it's a totally worthy investment... with that foot long probe (giggady!), you can test the soil pH at different level if you need to,... plus it has a built in moisture meter as well! For testing pH, comparing these two methods is analogous to starting a fire with 2 sticks, or a lighter-- :roflcry: