Hello everyone. I recently seen a video on PHing. It said that you shouldn’t add PH up or down directly to your nutes. Instead, you should add it to a separate jug of water and then add that to your nutes. They said adding it directly causes a chemical reaction that could cause problems. I was just wondering if anyone else does this or heard about this.
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This could be bro science. Ive never had an issue using ph up or down after adding nutes to water.
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I add it as the last thing into the jug. Never seen a problem.
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Howdy
I have two small blue dropper bottles with 1/4 strength solution of pH up in one bottle and pH down in the other bottle mixed with distilled water.
Have been doing it like this for a couple of years now.
I can micro adjust my pH this way.
I use two jugs and mix my nutrients in one 2 liter jug and if it needs adjusting I add diluted pH up or down to other jug then pour nutrients into jug with pH up or down.
Thousands of growers have been adjusting pH with potassium carbonate (pH Up) and phosphoric acid (pH Down) to adjust pH in their nutrient solutions for years without issues.
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I thought it was strange, but I’m still new. I found the video if anyone is interested.
I struggle to understand how diluting is going to prevent any natural chemical reactions from happening. All it might do is slow any chemical reaction that takes place. Any reaction that is possible is still going to happen.
I take many of these YT channels with a grain of salt. Content creators are under pressure to keep pushing out content, and some of it just doesn’t make sense, imho.
I think this might be one of those ‘in theory’ versus actual practice items.
In theory, the drops of concentrated pH Up or Down would react poorly with the nutrients in solution. This would only be for the very short time that the drops remain concentrated in the solution, and only with the very few nutrients that are in immediate contact with the concentrated drops.
Stirring/mixing action will mean this detrimental chemical reaction is short, less than a second. My guess, 0.01% or less of the nutrients are negatively affected.
Have you even seen pH titration experiments with clear solution? As you add in highly acidic drops to a clear solution, the drops turn purple within the solution. But the solution is being mixed so the colour goes away very quickly as the acidic drop is mixed. I think this is the same concept.
All i can input is that i have ph my water to 6.0 before adding nutrients and notice that the ph did go up slightly around 6.5 which i what im looking for and ive added nutrients first and then ph the mix down but i cant say if ive ever noticed a difference
There is definitely some considerations that should be taken when building your nutrient solution. This probably has more to do with what you’re using than just a blanket statement about ph up and down. Some products are more susceptible to this than others.
A lot of early ph up was made with potassium silicate. If you know anything about using potassium silicate you will find that most provide very specific guidance on how to use it. This is because potassium silicate is one of those compounds that will easily bind with others and cause them to precipitate out of your solution. 99/100 people here will tell you to mix potassium silicate first if putting into your solution. If you ask me, I’ll tell you to mix it last if you plan on using it, just make sure it’s diluted into water first lol. Doing this keeps me from having to buy ph up, I just dilute into water and add until ph reaches desired level. Been doing this for years without issues hand feeding, may not be as stable in hydroponic system but i haven’t tested.
Most of the companies will have a specific mixing order for their products for the same reason, and you will see many say to mix this or that first/last. The idea is to not promote any elements from precipitating out of your solution.
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Im just adding flora nova bloom and calmag to tap water. It brings my ph down to 5.9 ish. So i usually have to add a bunch of PH up .