Ph study!!

Ive a 140l tank with my standard tap water ph of 7,is there a calculation i can do to determin how much ph down to use,and is there any tips or triks for getting this perfect,i hate this randomly throwing in a few mill here an there,so any advise would be great!

dude, the best advise I can give you is to use the liquid pH test kit made my General Hydroponics. I've got 4 electronic meters and none of them are as reliable as the liquid test kid....matter of fact, I always use my liquid test kit to reassure my electronic reading...wtf? ...no calibration needed, as consistant as gravity.

I figured out a way to use those cheap electronic PH meters, and keep 'em accurate. Hmm...actually, I'll post a thread about it, because I'm sure there are lots of people that have problems with them. I'll be back after i get the new T5s up(ditched the HPS and MH for veg) I'll get those bastards to grow short and bushy of it's the last thing I do.LOL(can't risk upgrading the MH to enough watts to cover them with enough lumens)

I use a cocktail stick and put the stick in the ph up or down solution.This will let the ph solution soak into the wood all you have to do then is just dip the cocktail stick in about 10ml if it need a little more then put a little more of the stick in the tank.This has worked for me for ages i got sick of a bit here then if the ph was too high i made it too low but with exsperiance you will suss your water out and get too know how much it will take to get it bang on.Once you have the water were you need it ph wise just mark the coctail stick and dip it into the solution at the same place everytime.

rossbonlay said:

Ive a 140l tank with my standard tap water ph of 7,is there a calculation i can do to determin how much ph down to use,and is there any tips or triks for getting this perfect,i hate this randomly throwing in a few mill here an there,so any advise would be great!

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Sorry to say... but there is no "set" formula to adjust your ph. I have been growing hydro for about 4 years and it took me about 3 to 5 crops to get a proper feel. Reason being is that your nutes are constantly on the move. The level of nutes changes daily... so you start with 140l and the next day it might be 132l then the next 124l, depending on how many plants you have and how much they drink.

Also, your water is completely different from my water, which is different from Shmo's water... etc. My nutes require me to add approx 1 tsp (5ml) of ph down about every 2nd or 3rd day.. where as my bro's (in a different town) requires him to add about 2ml of ph up every day.

You have to keep a diary or log book of everything you do to your nutes. This way you teach your brain over the course of learning. Learning to grow hydro "well" actually has a steep learning curve. Anybody can grow something in hydro, but growing it "WELL" takes a bit of learning by doing. But once you have learned it... life is good.

If you want accuracy, get a decent test meter like a Hanna HI 98129 or HI 98130. Well worth the investment if you are serious about success. I use the HI 98129 and it works very well. Also make sure you get the proper maintenance solutions that go with it (cleaning solution, storage solution, calibration solutions).

If you just wanna grow "sort of" hydro... then disregard the above paragraph.

Hope this helps. Cheers!