Phosphorus deficiency and incorrigible pH

Hi! I'm having problems with these plants (different genetics, same problem), and I don't know what to do anymore, I hope to get some help from someone better than me.
My plants are showing something I think is a severe phosphorus deficiency with purple branches:
2 months ago I bought a cheap pH meter for soil, giving me a result of pH 8, I dind't give attention to this value since the meter was cheap and problably not working, a week later I tested the run out water and confirmed pH 8. From that moment I tried a lot of different products to acidify my soil, started with a pH down made for weed, it didn't work, so I bought citric acid, it acidified (pH 6) my soil for just a day, and the day later the pH was 8 again, the next weeks I watered always with a bigger amount of citric acid, it acidified my soil down to pH 4, but only for the first day, the day later was 7.5/8 again... this last week I tried with vegan vinegar, and I got the same result, actually it went pH 8 even faster. I don't know what I can try anymore and my plants are starting to die and I'm losing all my leaves, please help!!

Are you checking the ph of the water/nutrients your feeding them?

Darkoh69 said:

Are you checking the ph of the water/nutrients your feeding them?

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Im using distilled water, all my nutrients have acid ph and I’m not using nutrients containing humic acid anymore that should have an alkaline pH, my nutrient solution in the end has a pH of 3,5/4 by adding citric acid(my tester can’t get a value under 4). It seems useless how low the pH of the solution is, the pH of the soil always returns to being 8…

My first move would be to try something besides distilled water which has not only any solids removed but also a lot of oxygen removed...and is notoriously hard to work with successfully, especially when it comes to pH.

Super simple fix, will cost about 20 bucks, will immediately let your plant eat what's in the soil already, and fix your ph all in one.
Do a flush with this product

What nutrients are you using? What soil are you growing in? Feed them with quality hydroponic nutrients, follow the mixing directions on the nutrient label & follow the nutrient manufacturers feed schedule. Stop checking the Ph & stop trying to adjust the ph. Let the quality nutrient solution buffer the soil ph for you. Stop looking for solutions to problems you are creating. Stop creating problems

These plants looked underfed or locked out for awhile… you mention ph a lot but tell us more about you nutes and medium? What size pots? Environment? Thanks.

I have a lot of experience in this PH thing, I spent about 2 years researching it. Do not worry about if your PH rises a day later. Why are you even waiting a day later to feed your plants? It just doesn't make sense! You should set your PH and feed them straight away! Do not leave the water sitting around for days and days on end....

They are either underfed or have a nutrient lockout. But I wouldn't know how you figure out which one it is. All I can say is if you aren't PH'ing your water then it's probably a lockout.

Thank you all so much for the advice!!

Darkoh69 said:

What nutrients are you using? What soil are you growing in? Feed them with quality hydroponic nutrients, follow the mixing directions on the nutrient label & follow the nutrient manufacturers feed schedule. Stop checking the Ph & stop trying to adjust the ph. Let the quality nutrient solution buffer the soil ph for you. Stop looking for solutions to problems you are creating. Stop creating problems

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CaliRootz88 said:

These plants looked underfed or locked out for awhile… you mention ph a lot but tell us more about you nutes and medium? What size pots? Environment? Thanks.

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I will try to be as clear as possible.
I use plagron soil, for vegetative stage I mix 2 part of grow mix to 1 part of bat-mix, more perlite added, I want to go in flower soon (if I can fix this), so I changed pot with a bigger and this time mixed 1 part of grow mix to 2/3 parts of bat-mix, to the soil I add 1g/ per liter of soil of top crop top vulcan (which basically is vulcan ash, this one has a pH of 7.5) and some mycorrhiza.
I water 2 times per week, one with nutes and one just water (5 gal fabric pots):
4 ml/L Fish Mix BioBizz (5-1-4), 4ml/L of some Alga nuts available in my country only (Ascophyllum nodosum , 1-0-0), 2 ml/L Rhino Skin and Sensyzim Avanced Nutrients, an Aloe juice and honey I made myself (enough to get 80ppm from 20ppm) and enough acid to get the water at pH 4.
I always use the quantities recommended by the manufacturer.
Leds 22/2 hours (300w total, but working on 60%), room temperature 82 to 88 °F, humidity 60/70%.
I forgot to tell that before of this my plants where showing some kind of cal/mag deficiency, so I used a lot of Cal-Mag by BioBizz and a lot of epsom salt (2 months ago) and I'm sure I was wrong. I also used ph up (humic acid), because the meter I had at the time was wrong, giving me a much lower pH value.
I talk a lot about pH because I don't know what else it can be to lock out phosphorus (if it is a phosphorus deficiency).
These pics are from some months ago:

harrychilds said:

I have a lot of experience in this PH thing, I spent about 2 years researching it. Do not worry about if your PH rises a day later. Why are you even waiting a day later to feed your plants? It just doesn't make sense! You should set your PH and feed them straight away! Do not leave the water sitting around for days and days on end....

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I explained myself badly, unfortunately I don't speak English very well hahahahaha
I have 2 pH meters, one is for the soil and one is for the water only, I mix the acid in the water solution to get pH 4, as soon as I do my water solution I water the plants and I check the soil's pH with the soil's pH tool, giving me a result of ph 5 or lower, the day later if I put the tester in the soil its pH is 8 again

PurpleThai said:

I will try to be as clear as possible.
I water 2 times per week, one with nutes and one just water (5 gal fabric pots):
4 ml/L Fish Mix BioBizz (5-1-4), 4ml/L of some Alga nuts available in my country only (Ascophyllum nodosum , 1-0-0), 2 ml/L Rhino Skin and Sensyzim Avanced Nutrients, an Aloe juice and honey I made myself (enough to get 80ppm from 20ppm) and enough acid to get the water at pH 4.

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Are all waterings at 4.0 and if so why soooooo low?

Triplefastaction said:

Are all waterings at 4.0 and if so why soooooo low?

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The last 3 weeks yes all at ph 4, it's so low to try to lower the soil's pH for a longer time than just a day (anyway it is pH 5 once the water is in soil) , yes it is madness ph 4 but im out of my mind because I just can't fix this

They’re probly locked out from the crazy ph swings they’ve been going thru. Ph at 8 ph at 6 water at 4 that’s a lot of swinging around the plants like a nice continuous ph range anyway I would get my pots ready that your going to move to flower in and add some lime to my soil it carries a ph of around 7 and helps to buffer the soil and maintain ph herb likes a soil in the 7 range and I would ph my water around 6.5 also so not to have a wide swing in ph like that.

They kinda look like they started to consume themselves like they were hungry.like they’re nitrogen hungry. I’m not real familiar with that soil or some of those products.

Hiphophippo said:

They kinda look like they started to consume themselves like they were hungry.like they’re nitrogen hungry. I’m not real familiar with that soil or some of those products.

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Hey thanks for the advice! But note that the problems I showed in each photo were already present before I started playing with the pH, but the thing I will never understand is how it is possible that by watering with pH 4, the soil will still be at pH 8 (maybe there is so much life in my soil that the citric acid is immediately decomposed?). Anyway tomorrow is feeding time, I'll try to put more N and P, but I'm scared of burning them by too much nuts, since I already changed soil this week and bat mix is full of nutrients (it's a 5,5-11-5,5, I mean my soil is full of P, if it is not pH locking it out what else can be?)

I would wait to add extra nutes then and wait for that food to become more available to the plant I’d stop unbalancing the ph so much though I’ve literally never phd my soil ever and haven’t done my water in years and have never really had the ph issues and if I had I just added some lime and waited for it to pass but I dont know bud I wish I had a better answer for you

Hiphophippo said:

I would wait to add extra nutes then and wait for that food to become more available to the plant I’d stop unbalancing the ph so much though I’ve literally never phd my soil ever and haven’t done my water in years and have never really had the ph issues and if I had I just added some lime and waited for it to pass but I dont know bud I wish I had a better answer for you

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Me too. Never phd substrate or water when I was in soil. Just feed every time they need water & flush with clean water after every 6 feeds. Simple no problems. No ups or downs or fixing problems created by trying to fix problems