Old Reviews vinegar to help ph water.???

[Wild atlantic growman]

Hi guys .as I mentioned in my intro post I'm new to this forum and new to growing...iv just got myself a ph tester and tried it out on my tap water (that iv been feeding with)left over night.obviously.bit suprised to get a reading to 8.9...i added about 4 drops of vinegar to the water and she went right down to 6.8...my question is am I gona make a right hash of it(pardon the pun) using this method for ph ING water...tia wild Atlantic grow man.

 

[Cptn Feathersword]

The thing with vinegar is it only lasts a short time. Check it after a few hours and you will see it rising already, by the next day its back to square one.

 

[Wild atlantic growman]

The thing with vinegar is it only lasts a short time. Check it after a few hours and you will see it rising already, by the next day its back to square one.

Thanks for the response...is there any old house hold products one could use to adjust water ph..I know I need to get a btl of up /down for the future but it's just no an option right now..also.im sorry if this has been brought up in another thread already

 

[Cptn Feathersword]

Vinegar is a good option for emergency but not a long term option as you will see.
Buy the powdered ph down and make small batches of ph2 water so you can accurately reduce your waters ph with it

 

[Pikku Nälkä]

Mains water needs to be above 8 because if it's lower, calcium and magnesium can bind to water pipes (apparently). Mine is 8.3 out of the tap. 5 hours later, warming to 21.5C it lowers to 7.9.

I used white vinegar in a a bubbler and ended up making a vinegar "mother" which covered the roots with slime (ultimately killing them). I guess there would be a chance you could get away with it in soil though. It would be interesting to see just how long it takes to rise again. In a fabric pot soil grow, I would need to water every 2-3 days, so it could be to my advantage that I wouldn't have a "build up" of acid.

As for alternatives, there is citric acid. Lemon juice has citric acid. You can buy it in powdered form in supermarkets for numerous applications, like descaling kettles. Again, it apparently doesn't work long term, but then what time scale are we talking about here?

Myself, I've got some GH pH Down. That's phosphoric acid. It has the added bonus of having phosphorus, ie. one of the macro nutrients. There is also nitric acid which has nitrogen(?), also a macro nutrient.

 

[Pikku Nälkä]

Ok, this got my interest.

Adding Lidl VitaFit brand lemon juice

Start pH: 8.2
Time: 16:20
Water temp: 13C (straight out of the tap)

    1   drop: 7.7
    2  drops: 7.5
    3  drops: 7.2
    7  drops: 6.8
    14 drops: 6.1
    18 drops: 5.7

Update: The has pH dropped a little. I've noticed it naturally drops as the water warms up (previous tests dropped from 8.2 to 7.9). Details below.

Time: 08:40 (16 hours 20 mins later)
Water temp: 21.5C
pH: 5.6

Update

Time: 16:20 (24 hours later)
Water temp: (I forgot to take it)
pH: 5.6

Update: Whoops, I missed the 48 hour mark.

Update

Time: 16:20 (72 hours later)
Water temp: 23.5C
pH: 7.1

Ok, I'll leave it here. So it takes just a few days for the pH to rise enough for there to be some lockout, but it was still good for at least 24 hours. If you were growing in fabric pots, you would probably be needing to water again anyway.

 

[Dr. Babnik]

I use acetic acid or hydrochloric acid for pH Down.
For pH Up, I use toilet cleaner... a mix of potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide.

I am in the process of finding buffers that keep pH stable over time.

 

[jok81]

hi wild atlantic grow man , the thing with adding vinegar is it can go stale an cause mold growth an make for other problems further in imho .
say with a branded ph up - down, your getting a much cleaner product with much less chance for things to go wrong .
What Dr babnik uses : acetic acid is the pure acid form part of the vinigar ( vinigar is roughly 3–9% acetic acid ) , making it alot cleaner without the bad bits added that can cause potential problems . just to add , you only need to add very small amounts of ph upor down ......say if your water is 7.5 , only a couple of drops of ph down could swing down to 5 - easy

 

[jok81]

I use acetic acid or hydrochloric acid for pH Down.
For pH Up, I use toilet cleaner... a mix of potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide.

I am in the process of finding buffers that keep pH stable over time.

hi dr babnik , i have noticed longer ph stabilization when been adding ascorbic acid and citric acid to feed regimes .
citric acid goes straight up into the plants in the "citric acid cycle or krebs cycle . both are acidity ph regulators / buffers

 

[Mossy]

I used white wine vinegar in a soil grow and it was Excellent.. @Wild atlantic growman

Heat and light affect PH..so if you store your water somewhere cold and dark it will have a lower PH than the same water in a warm lit room.
In Winter if I measure my morning water..and my Afternoon water..the ph can vary as much as 1 PH point..