New Grower In need of some advice...new grower alert!

[americano56]

Hello everyone, I just got onto this forum a couple of days ago and so far I really like it. I am new to growing indoors, have always been an outdoor man, but when I have no more stash near the end of winter...things can get a bit rough! Anyway, I have a little grow space, just enough for about 2 plants. Just bought a Bulldog 6 Spot from FeroLed and have a Royal Queen FruitSpirt under and just went into 12/12. My baby is about 40cm tall and all seems to be going great. The only thing that I find a little weird is that my soil is reading 7.0-7.5 Ph levels even when I drop the Ph down to 6.5 before watering. The soil mix is Bio-Bizz light mix and the nuts is Bio-grow and Bio-bloom(andI really only put 1/2 the amount of nuts that are listed anyway). I thought that the nuts lowered the Ph, so why would my soil tester be reading in the mid 7's??? I don't see any signs of nut problems, she is nice and green, very healthy looking and no yellowing tips. Should I be worried?

I also have a really nice natural water source not far from the house. I took a Ph reading this afternoon and it comes out to 5.0, wanted to know if it is safe to use the source water for an indoor grow. Would I have to boil it first to git rid of any unwanted pests, or should I stick to tap water biz? thanks for any help on this! :thumbs:

 

[namvet25]

Try and get your soil ph below seven if you can.1/2 doses of nutes might not bring the ph down enough.If your girls are looking good I wouldn't worry.That 5 ph is pretty low so I would stick with tap water as long as it doesn't have any floride in it.

 

[americano56]

Thanks for the advice! Not sure if there is Floride, but I do have a Charcole filter hooked up so I would think that it would take any of that crap out...You don't think the soil probe tester is f$%ked up? I guess I could test the Bio-Bizz soil on it's own to see what it reads with the probe, if it isn't showing 6,5Ph like listed, maybe it is my probe that isn't working.

 

[tokaite]

High,
Are you doing Auto's or Photo's...
Auto's 12/12 is not recommended (low yield) but from 18 to 24h00 is better. Myself, 18/6.
As for your source water, well have you ever tested it? Can you drink it? Is there big fucking polluting companies around you?
I would stick with tap water and try on few with your source point.
Cheeers!

 

[YouDon'tKnowMe]

i think i remember reading on here that soil pH vs water pH are two rather different beasts. the pH of your soil is where it "starts out" in essence. it's where the pH of your soil will usually end up again as it dries up. the water you add changes the pH (in your case lowers it), but as the water dries up, the pH slowly returns towards the soil's pH. over time, the soil pH will start to change towards the water's pH, but it takes time. in this way, you can use it as a "buffer" almost. basically, as you know, nutrient uptake occurs at different rates at different pH's. so if you water with say pH 5 nutrient water in your pot that usually reads a pH of 7, and then test the soil right after watering, it's probably going to read somewhere around a pH of 6. then, as the plant absorbs the water/nutrients, the pH of the soil begins rising, back towards it's original pH of 7. I tend to think this is the way you want to grow your soil plants, cycling quickly from the wet, lower pH, back up to the higher, dry pH's, allowing strong uptake of a full range of nutrients as the pH cycles up and back down again.

 

[americano56]

Good point. As I was saying, everything is growing great for the moment so maybe I should be less worried about it. Just new to the indoor grow stuff. BTH Tokaite, the RoyalQueen Fruit Spirit is a Photo, got the other Auto's in the Greenhouse! :drool: (take a look and the profile pic!)