Adjusting pH for plant growth using Ionic Grow and Europonic pH Lower and Europonic pH Raise

hello and welcome to the HDI propagation series my name is Harley Smith today I'm going to introduce you to water quality management and the power of pH at the root zone plants prefer a slightly acidic solution somewhere between five point eight and six point four so for hydroponics 6.0 is an excellent target pH it only takes a little acid to lower the pH of water according to the directions on the bottle about 1 teaspoon of pH lower per gallon should lower the pH by one full increment in other words if the pH is 8 one teaspoon per gallon should lower the pH to seven but that's only an estimate some water sources are more buffered against changes in pH than others so it takes more acid to reach your target let me demonstrate here we have three water sources the first is RO water water that's been passed through a reverse osmosis filter to remove all the minerals the next pitcher is city water taken straight from the tap from good old Lansing Michigan and the last pitcher is well water taken from the hose in my own backyard every water source has a different buffering capacity the higher the buffering capacity the greater the resistance to changes in pH ro water has no buffering capacity city water has moderate buffering capacity and well water has high buffering capacity first let's check the pH of each pitcher with a pH meter the pH of the RO water is 7.0 the pH of the city water is 9.0 that's very alkaline and the pH of the well water 7.2 most fertilizers are slightly acidic so let's add three teaspoons of a growth formula to each container and check the pH again what I have is a children's Mehta and dropper the top line on this is exactly one teaspoon so I'll add three teaspoons each one two three one two three and one two three the pH of the RO water was 7.0 now it's five point one the pH of the city water was 9.0 now it's all the way down to six point six and the pH of the well water that was seven point two now it is six point eight what is the ideal pH range for plant growth five point eight to six point four so I actually have to raise the pH of the RO water and lower the pH of the well water and the city water I'll add just one drop at a time until we hit our target of 6.0 start with the RO water I'll add pH race which is a solution of potassium hydroxide I'll start with five drops then add a couple more drops okay we hit our target let's do the same thing with the city water but this time we'll use pH lower five drops ten drops okay we're there finally let's adjust the pH of the well water well water is loaded with calcium carbonate a strong buffer so it will stubbornly resistant just to pH 10 drops 20 drops 40 60 70 80 80 drops and it's barely to target let's summarize our results our o water has neutral pH but no buffering capacity so just adding fertilizer cause the pH to crash we actually had to add pH raised to bring it to target the city water had very high pH but only moderate buffering capacity so it took only a small amount of pH lower to bring it to target the well water was only slightly basic but it had a very high buffering capacity it took 8 times as much pH lower to bring it to target compared to city water if you use our old water I'd recommend mixing it 50/50 with your regular water to add a little buffering capacity to it if you have clean city water just use a standard nutrient formula that is nicely pH buffered ionic grow and ionic bloom our excellent choices if you have well water like mine use a hard water nutrient it's formulated to compensate for the minerals in the hard water and it's more acidic than a standard nutrient I've used hard water ionic for years and it really helps that's all for now if you want more advice on water quality management contact us at HD or watch the rest of this video series we're always glad to help until next time good luck and good growing

Channel: HydrodynamicsIntl

Views: 48,307

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

Keywords: Hydroponics, Hydro, Indoor Gardening, Ionic, Ionics, Ionic Grow, Hydrodynamics, Hydrodynamics International, HDI, pH adjustment, pH for plants, Plants

Id: -XLlsCVsoDg

Length: 5min 53sec (353 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 14 2012