Ph and Iron content

Indoor Growing Climate
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Hello everyone

This is my first post on the forum, so hopefully it ends up in the correct spot. Thanks in advance for any help on the issue.

I’m about a week and a half into the vegetative stage with my clones. I am using Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil with organic perlite (no nutrient release). Also, I am growing in well ventilated, 3.5 gallon food grade buckets (with the exception of two smaller clones), using a basic Fox Farm nutrient setup. For the early stages (early clone, early root), I used distilled water. During the transplant into the larger containers, I used some of my well water, mixed in.

I’ve been monitoring the ph, and have noticed my drainage is coming out at around 6.85

The distilled water, when mixed with Fox Farm Big Bloom and Grow Big, sits around 6.35 ph, which is perfect.

My well water, which I was going to use during waterings when not using nutrients and distilled, hovers at around 7.65. This is obviously high. However, the well water is only 120ppm total dissolved solids, but has an elevated iron content. If I can bring the ph of this well water down to around 7, would it be problematic to use this during times I am not using distilled and nutrients? My logic is this: The only real nutrient absorption that would be slightly diminished from mild lockout at 7 ph, would be Iron. With the content of Iron so abundant in both my well water, and nutrient mix, I don’t see it being a huge issue. The plants should still absorb iron at around 7 ph. Any thoughts on this matter would be appreciated. I’ve been ph testing drainage from watering. I have some ph down on the way, along with a soil ph tester.

Cheers

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I’d think you’d be fine. I watched someone with high pH and low iron pour rusty Barrell water into their plants and it worked great. Surprise the hell out of me. Welcome to ilgm!

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Thanks for the reply. The little ladies look pretty healthy, so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. Still, gonna probably take the ph down to around 7 with the well water in the future. Thanks again.

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No problem. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Lol.

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Iron generally needs to be chelated for plants to uptake. So the majority of iron in your tap isn’t available to the plants. Not a big deal as plants usually don’t require a lot of iron anyway. Chances are your nutrients contain enough iron chelate to cover the plants. Knowing that you’re on the edge I would just watch for signs of deficiency in the plants.

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That makes a lot of sense. I kinda forgot about that. So yeah, the nutrients should cover that in the long run. Appreciate the information.

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