I'm on my first grow with a PH meter.
I've had a couple of successful harvests without it - especially outdoors where I still don't monitor PH.
But it's sure been a help, I had yellow top leaves and growth tips just as my PH meter, PH up and PH down arrived.
I was able to recognize my tap water comes out at about 7.5 PH, and that was causing iron lockout
![Smile :) :)](/styles/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
All better now.
My tap water has consistently been about 7.5, so I'm starting to assume that as a default and add 2 drops of PH down without bothering to measure PH (when plain watering).