I am about to give my plants fertilizer I tested the water mixed with the fertilizer and it is 890 PPM do I need to add some pH down to it before I give it to my plants so I don’t burn them
What is the Ph from runoff? What is the ppms from runoff? Also Soil…coco… .medium?
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Ph and ppm are two different things. You need to test the ph of the water and then you’ll know if you should lower it, or raise it. Ppm stands for parts per million. That’s how strong your nutrient level is. Ph is the alkalinity of the soil.
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890 ppm for a week out sprout would be a bit much. An older established plant could take. Have no idea which one you are asking about.
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I watered them and tested the run off and it was 3200ppm . I just ordered some ph soil test kits , should he
Ave them by Friday , do you think I should do a flush or wait till I test the soil?
My plants are 7 weeks old ( they are autoflower) and about 12” tall.
This is all new to me ,any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I am using the fertilizer from ILGM ( veggie stage) in a 3x3x6.5 grow tent
With hdmi lighting, full 24-7 , was getting ready to start 18-6 cycle for light.
I purchased some foxfarm ph up & ph down. I’m being overwhelmed by different people’s opinions . Looking for some advice.
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From my experience, the soil ph testers suck. You should get a good water PH tester. It’s my first time growing, but I do have a worm farm so I have a little experience with plant stuff.
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Don’t feed until your runoff gets below 1000ppm just plain water
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I am surprised its ppm is still that high after 7 weeks. This high of reading is telling you there is plenty of nutrients in the soil. Therefore, no nutrients need to be added. As @Bluntsmoke said the rule of thumb is to add nutrients when the runoff ppm is below / around 1000. (EC 2.0. 500 scale = 1000, 700 scale = 1400).
Not knowing how much you have researched or studied PH and PPM let me direct you to a couple of resources I found useful when I was trying to better understand this area of growing.
Anything from growweedeasy I find to be accurate and reliable. It has numerous articles on TDS (PPM) and PH. This title will get you started PPM: What It Is and How To Track It
Use its search to find others.
If the runoff PPM is accurate, for now continue with 6.5 - 6.8 ph water. Water enough to obtain some runoff and test it again to confirm reading and to monitor it generally.
Posting a picture is helpful too. Sometimes different eyes can see things.
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What meters do you use to test ph and ppm? Apera or blue lab are good. What soil are you using?
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After you add the nutes to the water for feeding check PH and adjust accordingly with your PH up or down back to sweet spot 6.5 PH before feeding. Hope that helps good luck.
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With autos, start off at about 1/4th recommended dose. Autos are sensitive to nutes. With them having their own race to the finish, its hard to recover if you give too much. Always check ph after you add nutes and adjust accordingly.
I think a lot of that has to do with synthetic verses organic Nutes. Synthetic feeds the plants and kills the soil life. Organic feeds the soil life so they can feed the plants.
My autos were drinking 2,000-3,000 ppm happily for awhile. Once they started getting later into flowering I backed off and flushed them a bit as they were showing early signs of nute burn. They seem to be doing ok. I use Foop fertilizer, derived from fish waste.
Fox Farm organic soil
I am using Fox Farm organic soil and 1 time per week a 50/50 mix of fish tank water and regular tap water which is in a 1 gallon jug that has been let open for a few days for the chlorine to evaporate out .
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