I use Miracle-Gro to drop the pH in my solution.It get it's N from Urea, as opposed to Nitrates. So, it's more acid than my hydro-fert.My hydro solution is pretty close to proper pH, but a little basic.I end up only using a Tbsp to get 20gallons "spot-on".

Gotta watch your EC a little bit,but I like the fact that I'm dropping pH with plant food instead of just another chemical.

I'de just like to thank everybody here for your posts. I,ve learned a WHOLE lot from reading on this site. It's been quite a learning curve, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.

KanakaNui; Your reply to this post helped me a lot. The miracile grow works like a charm to lower the PH. Actually it works a little to good, meaning that this stuff builds up in the hydro and the last time I changed out my nutes I did'nt have to add any at all. Now my PH is somewhere around 5. The flowers are'nt taking it to good. I must have added to much, but that info was really good stuff.
I need PH up! for the first time.

jdog006; You wrote about baking soda for PH up. You did'nt get into it, but only to say it works. I just put a 1/2 tee spoon into 20 gallons and I'll be checking out the levels.
I'll let you know how that works out.
Again thanks to everybody here.
Happy Holiday's! Joe

Has anyone used a solution made from coffee grounds to lower pH? I'm guessing it's like lemon juice, not too effective beyond a day or two.

As I mentioned in the other coffee grounds post, used coffee grounds are almost neutral pH. If you wanted to change your pH with coffee, you'd need to use fresh grounds or beans.

Lemon juice (teaspoon a gallon) is recommended for lowering PH.

Always thought that Miracle Gro was not recommended for hydro.

Well so much for the coffee grounds idea. I used lemon jucice to lower my pH and it works for a couple of days then returns back up. Currently I'm using 'Bumper Down' a phosphoric acid based pH reducer that works quite well.

pepperbox..get away from the MG..the N is of the wrong kind..You say your ph is 5.0 ..that will lock up all of your uptake ...go to 5-11-26 and use phospheric acid to lower the ph..strive for 6.0

corky

pH Up - sodium hydroxide (Red devil Lye)
pH Down - sulfuric acid (battery acid) be sure to dilute before using.

*Sigh*

There's nothing wrong with using MG to drop the pH in your nutrient solution.Yes, it's the "wrong" kind of Nitrogen.But this is exactly why the pH goes down. It won't hurt your plants if you can keep the pH where it needs to be for your plants.

Remember, the MG is only an additive to your hydro nutes-used to adjust pH downward.

Works for me. I grow great tomatoes,peppers, basil, recao,etc in a standard hydro fertilizer with epsom salt and Cal Nitrate as proscribed.

My well water here in N.C.FL is a little hard so I use Urea based MG to drop the pH to acceptable levels for the crops I'm growing.Took a little time to dial it in for what I need.But it does work.

You won't break anything using MG to drop the pH in your nutes. I find it cheaper and easier to get than phosphoric acid because my wife buys it to fert her housplants.There is always a little blue stuff to steal.It also seems to do a better job (I use less ) than using lemon juice.

pH up I haven't had to deal with a replacement as our water is hard.

I got the idea from the linked website.Check out Kim's FAQ and Rants links for more info on using MG in hydro.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim W.'s hydro site

Using ammonium to decrease the Ph does work, but its effects on food substances are not always known. The following abstract regarding tomatoes & nitrogen form does say increasing the ammonium did work to decrease the pH but also increased the chance for blossom end rot.

http://www.actahort.org/books/98/98_11.htm

I'm not a member of actahort so I didn't read the entire abstract. Were there other consequences/considerations?

In my own (extremely limited sampling) I've not had problems with blossom-end rot growing tomatoes this way. The one time I had blossom-end rot was with a (single) tomato start I grabbed as an after thought at the hardware store. I had assumed it was related to cultivar, rather than my cultural practices as my other tomatoes didn't have this problem.My well water does have plenty of Ca so maybe it was compensating.

I've not noticed problems with my other produce using MG to drop pH. I'm not a terribly experienced hydro grower-I've adjusted pH using MG pretty much since the beginning of my hydro gardening and have been pleasantly surprised with my produce.Perhaps if I wasn't so cheap, I'd see better results using recommended chems/ferts to feed my plants.

I still feel if you're going to drop pH with stuff easily available or around the house, you will be better served with the blue stuff, than with vinegar or lemon juice.

You do not need to be a member of ActaHort to read the abstract. The Sams club or equivalent of Miracle Grow, recommended by the above site is not water soluble  it forms a white precipitate when mixed. It also contains the insoluble form of nitrogen (ammonia) compared to the soluble nitrate form.

The purpose of adjusting the pH is to help make the nutrients available for absorption by the plant. A good quality of Phosphoric acid intended for hydroponics is usually recommended. Other substances can interact with nutrients in solution or contain other substances that interact with nutrients rendering them unavailable for absorption. This can result in a deficiency, & can defeat the purpose of pH adjustment. It can also affect the quality of the crop.

Well, the cheapness that urges me to use MG as opposed to good quality phosphoric acid, prevents me from spending 13 bux or 10 Euros to read the article.When you read the article, did it mention any other problems besides increased incidence of BER?

I did find another abstract which suggests using ammonium in the concentrations I am suggesting (just to pH, proboably In fact 10% NH4/N resulted in higher marketable yeild after 8 days.

In my own garden I have grown nice tomatoes and other produce using just this method.It's not a production environment, but I'm able to keep pH in the proper range for good nutrient uptake using common household materials (MG).And I'm able to enjoy fresh home-grown produce,even tomatos w/out BER.

Sorry to hijack this thread.

Back on track, MG can be used as an additive to lower pH in a home hydroponic nute solution.You can still grow good produce.You can avoid a trip to the hydro store to buy expensive pHDown if you have MG in your garage.

Here is a link that might be useful: another actahort abstract

I am currently using a passive hydro set up growing Cherokee purple tomatoes, Ocho Rio Scotch Bonnet Peppers. I think I will try the MG method for a little bit and see how it does, I will also try the Phospheric acid to see how it works also. I'll post up my results. I do not have an EC Meter yet so which should I try first and what are the application rates?

to all of the above - GH products and their website do all calculations for perfect growth in all phases - in a pinch the lemon juice and baking soda work - spend a couple of extra bucks and get a small bottle of ph up and ph down to keep handy

Vinegar - for PH Down

I don't recommend Miracle Grow for anything involving hydroponics. It's nitrogen is derived from ammonia nitrate and urea and it lacks Calcium and Magnesium and there's no way of knowing how much Sulfer is in it. It's simply not formulated for hydroponic use as Ph down or a nutrient. It's designed for soil applications.
Although lemon juice or vinegar can be used with limited success I recommend Sulfuric acid. It's readily available at most auto parts stores as Electrolyte or Battery Fluid (contains 33% sulfuric acid). I reduce it 9 parts distilled or R.O. water to one part Electrolyte for a solution resembling approximately 3-4% Sulfuric acid. It should take somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10Ml. per gallon to get you from 8.0 Ph down to 6.0 Ph. I have used vinegar in the past, but it takes at least twice as much and doesn't hold the Ph as long, requiring more frequent adjustments.
Good Luck;
~Ken~

Phosphorus acid. Not a big secret in large production ag (soilless and traditional) but a big enough secret in the home gardener world. Often stabilized with potassium hydroxide or manganese, phosphorous acid (phosphite ion) is packaged around pH 3.
The nutrient value, fungicidal activity and increase in overall plant health are exceptional. I worry that sulfuric acid can create sulfur burn, is rough to work with, and how much sulfur do you want your plants to take up? Anyone done tissue testing after using these different pH lower products?
Citric acid is food grade and considered organic but other than the CHO does not provide other plant nutrients.
Give the phosphorous, not phosphoric acid a try.
PS not the phosphite labeled fungicides, they will cost much more and sometimes have adjuvants added that are not helpful for soilless growing.

Good info on this page

This post was edited by SAHero on Thu, Jul 3, 14 at 12:24

Ok really need to bring up the ph in my DW systems has dropped from 6.0 to 4.1 in just 5 days! So thought I'd try the baking soda started with just 24 oz. Of water with a ph of 7.2 have added 5 Tbs of baking soda to it which only raised the ph to 7.8? Thinking at this rate it would take several boxes in each system to bring the ph back to 6.0 ...just seems like to much ¿ Any one with experience using baking soda to raise the ph Please advise 8-}

baking soda will add a lot of Na (sodium) which the plant will take up in preference to K (potassium) so its not the ideal thing to use.

Thanks hex2006, yes have ordered ph up and down didn't use the baking soda in the system...Will just hope they stay healthy enough till I received it. Hate wasting nutrients the plant's can't take up though.

Seems like a large ph drop, are you using reverse osmosis water? I`d check the label on the the nutes to see if they have a high percentage of ammonium (NH4)

Yes on the RO water, can't find the ammonium NH4 listed on any of my nutes. The only changes to my mixture is the hydroguard root inoculate . ( bacillus amyloliquefaciens*) started it a couple of nute changes ago and didn't see a large ph drop till now, is just 10 ml to 5 gl of mixture and has improved the look of the roots greatly.

Most bacterial activity creates acidic by-products, the reverse osmosis water has little to no buffering capacity. If you increased the O2 supply (by airstones or agitation) to cover the additional O2 demand created by the bacterial activity that will also tend to drive the PH down.

If you have reasonable tapwater, you can mix the ro with it, using 10 -20% tapwater wont affect the quality, but it will make a big difference to the buffering capacity.

Thanks hex.. I Will give it a try, appreciate your input.

I would suggest Hydrochloric Acid/Muriatic Acid over Sulfuric Acid for pH down.

Yes the tap water at 10 -20% did help, ph is not dropping as fast now. Still dropping about half what it was but guess that is expected, have revived my PH up now but think I will continue with a ratio of 10% of the tap water to the RO in my system. Thanks again hex2006 you rock.

whats mg?

to lower ph use vinegar

Do NOT use Vinegar. It works great at first but you will find that it creates a nasty slime build up after a couple of weeks. Took me FOREVER to figure out what was causing it. This is in Hydro, not sure about soil.

I'm guessing that it would work wonders in soil since you allow your soil to pretty much dry out and slime grows in standing water.

White vinegar works fine for ph down. It's not super stable, but it keeps it down for a day. Works well in coco. Here my bcn critical xxl auto.

Interesting? Interesting to think that it might be a plant that brings us back to self sufficiency. See people start to wondering if I can grow my own weed why can’t I grow corn? Or Strawberries, apple, pear, peach and plum trees. Stranger things have happened.

Funny it might. It did bring me to grow my own tomatoes, peppers, mint, basil the list goes on. Unlike alot of growers i just grow for me so no need for a large grow with a bunch of plants.

Yes white veniger for pH down baking soda pH up

Or, Or you could use hydroponic methods that don't depend on ph.

And what would that be?

Are you saying you haven't read any of my posts. I'm building a large hydroponic garden this Spring with pictures. Lots of pictures. I'm not shy about showing gardening. But where on the same page are we at. How much understanding does the other have. So try this ( Really, I really just made it up)

Agro-Bio-Ponics

as practiced in The Gardens Of Ease

That’s not too over the top is it? I had to think of something myself to explain what I’m trying to explain about.

Take Agro? How would you like to grow just about any plant or bulb using one hydroponic mix. Not just plants but trees, fruiting trees. There's examples with pictures.

Bio, Using the Natural boom and Bust cycle of bacteria..the Fauna of Life. The plant produces waste that the bacteria consumes while the death of the bacteria provides the food to the plant. An no the plant doesn’t eat the bacteria. Haven’t you ever seen what happens to bacteria when it dies? It bursts it’s guts to the world. That the plant can consume. (That needed to be explained to someone).

Ponics? This happens all over the world in every river pond, stream and mud patch. Where ever there’s water there’s life. It doesn’t need your permission to be there it’s in every breath you take. Same thing with the plant it breaths in everything it needs from the air and ground. But it’s water that allows the moving around. Inside and out of the plant. A wet environment that allows bacteria movement.

Help a guy out..is that an explanation you understand. Think about the next person you might help that way to understand.

Oh I see. I just read up about bio-ponics, I get it it's like aquaponics but more natural like how the chinese have lived for well who really knows. I've been interested in how they use the river to make wash areas for dishes and clothes and they use carp and other fish to keep it clean. You must be the man. LoL those are very pricey. I wish I could garden all day.

Agro-Bio-Ponics really is trash recycling gardening. Gardening when you have very little to garden with. Urban gardening for those who don’t have an acre or two to grow on. Who don’t have open dirt to dig. Those who’s dirt is too contaminated to grow on. Who have to pay a water bill in the city. Paying for water to spray on a garden is daunting. You lose 80% to evaporation. No, this is about Disaster Farming. What can you do if you only have trash left to work with. What if water becomes valuable, too valuable just to drink. We only use hydroponics because we see water as something we have to waste. Using hydroponic that’s a total water loss each week. How many gallons are you using, losing to those methods. It’s worst than just throwing the water on the open ground. Worst because you pollute that water till it’s an acid. Didn’t you see that toxic waste dump in Florida spilling out. When it met the water...IT BOILED! They just dumped 450 million gallons but I digress. Another point since the Chinese were brought up.

This isn’t something they HAD choice in. (WE HAVE CHOICE AT NEARLY EVERY CORNER) Every farmer in the old world had to learn. It was trial and error for generations. Those that learned how to work the ground lived, those that didn’t were in the ground. For us it’s N-P-K. For them it was the piss, sh&t and every dead thing including human was returned to the soil. The soil where the cycle of life begins. Where our nutrition begins. Because of methods like hydroponics we’ve broken that cycle and you can see the weakness in us because of it. Hydroponics makes nice plants but there’s no nutrition in them. It’s not just N-P-K that makes nutrition but all the other things that comes with soil. All those slimy parts the roots grow thru, into and extract those things that make food healthy.

The idea that you can grow healthy plants that have no nutritional value is ridiculous. There is one periodic table for the elements that are available on the planet. Plants dont care what the source of those elements are as long as they are available to the roots in a sufficient quantity and in a soluble form. The difference between soil and hydroponics is the plants have to wait for the bacteria to make the insoluble elements available, Insoluble elements in this context can be can be anything including plant matter, dead bacteria etc etc.If you mix fresh manure into the soil in the spring it wont perform as well as if it had been mixed in the autumn.You would have folks believe a pot of organic medium is akin to perpetual motion, if you grow something that produces fruit and you eat that fruit the elements in the fruit are not returned to the medium. Unless you add something to replace the lost elements they wont be available. The bacteria etc cant create something from nothing, Chemical processes, such as the nitrogen cycle, depend on temperature and the availability of oxygen (required for oxidization). If its too cold or there is insufficient oxygen to support the number of bacteria the process will slow or stall completely.

As far as wasting water goes, i doubt i`m using as much as you I currently have tomato plants 2ft high that are perfectly happy with 6ml per hour, just over a teaspoon..

Ah, hex you want this to be so wrong. Sorry but you can look up the "no nutritional value" on hydroponics it's well documented. An yes your right the plants don't care what the source of those elements are. But we're not talking about the plants but what "feeds on them". But lets talk about something else. You mentioned a perpetual motion machine. Well, yes that's what life is. it's in the very air we breathe. The plants breathe in bacteria that has the nitrogen cycle living inside it. The plant nitrogen (waste) cycle is part of that too. Even in an anaerobic system that still goes on. I have apple and pear trees that are ten years old that have been flowering, fruiting as well. With no intervention from me other than water if I notice. That means no fertilizer either. The bucket design captures rainfall so that wasn't often. Oh, that's right there's another difference. Capturing the rain water is taboo for your form of hydroponics. I mean with all the measurements and such. Haven't needed to take a reading ph or other wise in more than 20yrs. As for growing something..a tomato. Really. Is that the hill you standing on. I'm showing Cashews, Macadamia nuts,, coffee, 3 kinds of Bio-Fuel. Apples, pears, Plums, peaches all growing happily in the system. I bring pictures of everything. There even Strawberries flowering this year that grow anaerobically. Let's just off the top of my head there are Norfolk pines, Fiddle leaf figs, Sago palms, cactus, White and Yellow Birds of Paradise, Orchids, Pony Tail palms, Citrus. All growing quite happily. Those pictures are already on here. As for water consumption on average each tight 5gal container holds about three an a half gallons. That water last between 45 and 60 days with out rain. If I get a good rain once a month I don't have to water at all.

Seems like your list contains mainly long lived, slow growing stuff that can get by quite happily on very little in the way of nutrient. I have a 1000L IBC that collects rainwater from the roof for my flood and drain system which is outdoors, its open to the elements, worms, bacteria etc etc. I use pond zyme to break down the roots in the hydroton over the winter,

Well, all I have is a bucket with 3gal of water in it. Wait, wait a minute. hex did you admit that my system works. No, hex changes the question to something else. No comment on the perpetual motion actions? No fight back against the "no nutrient value" statement. You could have looked that up without commenting first.

"Seems like your list contains mainly long lived, slow growing stuff that can get by quite happily on very little in the way of nutrient."

Hell yeah, and aren't I glad for it. There's no waste. Let me repeat that, there's no waste. There is nutrient buildup but since there's no ph issues it causes no problem for the roots.

Please...Please let me explain "the nutrient build up". The build up is in the bodies of the Various Fauna in the environment. Their dead bodies break apart creating a nutrient soup at the bottom of the containers. It's part of their "boom and bust" cycle. The roots were sitting in a soup of nutrient. The only thing from increasing their growth was access to air. Now it's getting some and I can tell already that the flowers look bigger, more full. The kinds of early signs only a Plant Person would notice. Annnnd isn't anyone curious about how roots can grow in an anaerobic environment. With regular hydroponics it's a death nell for plants.

You know I really didn’t think about it till hex brought it up. See these trees have been living in a bucket of water for ten years. With out any intervention from me. But this is how they define

“Perpetual Montion”

is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics.

But my system does have external inputs being sunlight and water. The plant captures sunlight and the design captures rain. As long as there’s sunlight and rain it keeps on going. Seems I can’t give myself a cigar on that one.

For PH up baking soda, PH down citric acid .