vegging with sub's super soil help?..

Ok I've been searching for information on vegging with a super soil grow.. I'm starting in 3 litre air pots then going to transplant into 20 litre air pots half full with super soil.. I was using un PH'd water as you're meant to but it is obviously not yet in super soil so should I PH? Also the stems of the seedlings started purple and when i looked into that i found it could be a PH or deficiency problem also that it could be genetic but I've ruled that out as I've seen pics of critical kush seedlings and they are green. So I've lowered the PH to 5.8 and added a tiny bit of dutch pro take root which is an organic nutrient for healthy roots.. I was wondering if anyone knows if sub cool does not PH for the whole grow? Or if he does PH thru veg or what other people do with sub's soil?.. I was planning on transplanting when the 3 litre pots are rooted out but i'm not sure how long that will take? When does sub or anyone else out there transplant? And how do you keep plants healthy before they go into super soil?..

Can anyone help? I'm thinking of vegging for 3-4 weeks before transplanting.. Should I be ph'ing or not?..

first off your using air pots. Don't use air pots when using supersoil you will need to water too often resulting in the nutrients being flushed out of the soil much sooner. use ro water anything between 6.3-7 ph will work great. using ph up or down is just killing off all the bennies in the soil most likely. This is all assuming you are mainstaing 50% humidity or less and 75F and not over watering. Are you letting the pot dry out before watering?

I don't have a water filter to get RO water.. I use tap water and let sit for 24 hours.. The PH is 7.8 normally.. I have seen that lots of others do the same. The soil I'm in now is bio bizz light mix.. So you're saying if i PH the soil it kills the good stuff.. I'm not even in super soil yet.. I like air pots as they make a healthy root system and make bigger plants.. I can water without run off a.d without leakage from the holes.. I don't think I want to start changing other things just because of one persons opinion, I was asking about PH the seedlings are 5 days old and still pretty small so i just spray a little bit of water each day until they get bigger. Do u grow in super soil? When do you transplant? And what do you do to keep plants healthy before transplanting?? That was the main answer i was looking for..

Personally, I never adjust pH. I don't use Subcool's soil anymore, but my own mixed-from-scratch soil mix.

To better understand pH, you need to learn about buffering ability. My water comes out of the tap with a pH over 8, but it has VERY low buffering ability due to it's low dissolved solids concentration (about 30 ppm). In other words, my water had very little ability to maintain it's high pH. When it's poured on my 6.5ish pH soil, it takes on that 6.5 pH rather than pushing the soils pH higher. The SOIL is more strongly buffered than the water, so it wins the pH tug-o-war, if that makes sense.

If your tap water has a high pH AND a high buffering ability (lots of dissolved solids), it will have more of an affect on the pH in your rhyzosphere.

SpicySativa said:

Personally, I never adjust pH. I don't use Subcool's soil anymore, but my own mixed-from-scratch soil mix.

To better understand pH, you need to learn about buffering ability. My water comes out of the tap with a pH over 8, but it has VERY low buffering ability due to it's low dissolved solids concentration (about 30 ppm). In other words, my water had very little ability to maintain it's high pH. When it's poured on my 6.5ish pH soil, it takes on that 6.5 pH rather than pushing the soils pH higher. The SOIL is more strongly buffered than the water, so it wins the pH tug-o-war, if that makes sense.

If your tap water has a high pH AND a high buffering ability (lots of dissolved solids), it will have more of an affect on the pH in your rhyzosphere.

Click to expand...

great explanation.

i use tap water and generic nutes.
i guess it depends more on where you live as well.

SpicySativa said:

Personally, I never adjust pH. I don't use Subcool's soil anymore, but my own mixed-from-scratch soil mix.

To better understand pH, you need to learn about buffering ability. My water comes out of the tap with a pH over 8, but it has VERY low buffering ability due to it's low dissolved solids concentration (about 30 ppm). In other words, my water had very little ability to maintain it's high pH. When it's poured on my 6.5ish pH soil, it takes on that 6.5 pH rather than pushing the soils pH higher. The SOIL is more strongly buffered than the water, so it wins the pH tug-o-war, if that makes sense.

If your tap water has a high pH AND a high buffering ability (lots of dissolved solids), it will have more of an affect on the pH in your rhyzosphere.

Click to expand...

Well said. I would rep you but me no find the button lol

Another thing to think about... Does your water supplier add chloramine instead of chlorine? Most municipalities do these days. Chloramine won't evaporate off like straight chlorine will. You either have to "remove" it chemically by reacting it with organic matter (worm castings or molasses will do the trick) or filter it out using special types of activated carbon. I use a Small Boy filter with the upgraded catalytic carbon canister.

Thanks for the help spicy.. I've checked on my water suppliers site and it says they use chlorine so I'm hoping that means there isn't chloramine.. I saw on other posts that chloramine water needs to be treated so I'm just hoping it's not in there.. As for the ppm of my water I don't know? I don't have a ppm meter to check it.. Is there a cheap way to check my soils ph? I have a ph meter which i think can be used to check soil ph if i mix some soil with water then use the ph meter to test it I've tried this with my super soil but wouldn't want to do it with the soil in my small pots because I'll disturb the roots.. I have organic nutrients from other grows dutch pro nutes and bio biz nutes.. I'm thinking of now not ph'ing my water and hopefully finding a cheap way to test soil ph to make sure its ok.. Thing is will there be enough nutes in my light mix soil to see the plants through to transplant maybe 3-4 weeks I'm guessing? If i see any signs of yellowing should i add a small amount of organic nutes? Or top dress with some earth worm castings? Or just transplant?.. I want to be ready with knowledge for if anything does go wrong.. Am also looking into adding silicon as I've seen a lot of organic growers adding this as it has so many benefits the main being stronger bigger healthier plants.. Do you have any information on this?.. Thanks again for your help

This is a picture about 10 days old the stem seems to be turning green i buried most of the purple in a small mound of soil around the stem.. They're looking better so I will go back to unPH'd water.. I have some dutch pro take root i used a few times (organic) would it hurt to use this occasionally? Or is that defeating the object of super soil? I just want them to be as healthy as possible so it grows at the right speed and gets nice and big in the long run..

SpicySativa said:

Another thing to think about... Does your water supplier add chloramine instead of chlorine? Most municipalities do these days. Chloramine won't evaporate off like straight chlorine will. You either have to "remove" it chemically by reacting it with organic matter (worm castings or molasses will do the trick) or filter it out using special types of activated carbon. I use a Small Boy filter with the upgraded catalytic carbon canister.

Click to expand...

I've heard about molasses before would it be worth adding them every time just to make sure the water is ok? When I got into this I didn't know just getting good water would get so technical but i want the best for my babies so will do all i can to give them all they need..

I remember subcool saying he gives his seedlings RO water . And when they get more established he gives tap water. Heard em say that on one of his more recent weednerd videos.

Ok thankyou I don't yet have a filter so I will just stick to water from now and hope I don't run into any problems.

From the tap*