First thing to be said, don’t get frustrated, don’t hurry through something without thinking logically about it, don’t be afraid to admit and own your mistakes. Share your knowledge, your successes and your failures.
Those of you that have followed some of my other posts know that I am growing outdoors in SoCal using different grow mediums. Hydroponics, soil in pots, and in the garden ground. This relates to the hydroponics portion. I recently upsized from 5-gallon buckets to 30-gallon Costco totes because the weather has been warm, the girls are getting huge, and I was having to water/nutrients/PH twice a day due to how much they were drinking. The buckets only held about 2 gallons of water because of the 6-inch netpot size and leaving an air gap for the roots, even with airstones. I have had a hard time chasing PH in the 30 -gallon totes with that volume of water, about 20-gallons, leaving air gap, etc. I like to be in the 5.8-6.4 range. My tap water comes in at about 9 PH as I have a whole house salt water softner and a whole house filter. So I fill another tote with tap water using an airstone for 24-48 hours for degassing, chlorine, etc.. Switched out the reservoir waters on my two plants yesterday, added my Masterblend to 1000 ppm, 2.0 EC knowing that as I bring the PH down, those will both go up to the Masterblend recommended levels. 1200ppm, 2.4 EC. I’ve done this a dozen times before.
Enter the pooch. I’m unknowingly out of GH PH down. I have used lemons from my tree before in an emergency such as this. I even posted about it here in the forums. Someone said something about not to do it, adds organics, could be detrimental, etc. I didn’t want to leave them in a 9 PH solution, so I searched the forums. You know what else was recommended??? Vinegar. Easy enough, I have a fresh gallon in the house. So I grabbed it and started adding a little at a time. Went from 9 to 8.5 pretty quick. Then it started slowing down. I kept adding just a little at a time and waiting, retesting. Before I knew it, I had used 1/2 gallon in each tote to get it to 6.8. Still too high for me, but good enough to wait for my Amazon delivery of my new GH PH Down bottle today. Got up this morning and both my plants look like they have been on a drug, alcohol, and hooker filled weekend in Vegas. Wilted AF, looking so bad it hurt me to even visualize them in that state. I run outside at 6:30am, rip the tops of the totes off, and there is just nasty foam and what looks like an oil slick in both of them. I’m standing there, sans coffee yet, and I’m thinking WTF? As the gears in my mind slowly start going over what happened, I suddenly realized VINEGAR IS A WEED KILLER! WTF did I just do? Pulled both plants out of the totes, put them in fresh 5-gallon buckets to rinse. Used hydrogen peroxide to scrub every inch of the totes, lids, and airstones. Rinsed each rootball in about 30 gallons of fresh water from the hose, screw PH now. Filled tubs, added nutes, got my Amazon delivery thankfully, overnight AM selected, got the PH down to 6 and put them back in the new nutrient solutions. They still look terrible tonight, don’t know if they will recover. I’ll take and post pictures tomorrow as it is dark now. Went to the bar and drowned my sorrows in some Lalo tequila and Modello beers. I CAN’T believe that I didn’t think about the vinegar that way, I use it all the time around the property to kill weeds in a spray bottle. I was so focused on PH, I got tunnel vision about what I was doing and its possible effects. Never had that happen with lemon juice or citric acid. So, boys and girls, learn from this lunkheads mistakes. Pay attention, don’t lose focus, be patient. Or, don’t F*&# this up!
Rant over, I’ll go back to crying in the corner and banging my head repeatedly. Thanks.
. Maybe I’ll snag a couple back out just to document what happens and how it shows.
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