Checking Ph with discolored water

[Elliot Jansen]

I decided to check my ph today, about half way into my 2nd week of green veg.. I bumped up their nutes to .5 strength and they are doing really well, they all look healthy..:watchplant: However I want to maximize their growth, and I am pinching the stretchers as well so I want them to have every nute they need to rebuild and be fat.. Anyway my question is, with discolored water from Karma and Pro Grow and Cal MG, how can I be sure that the color of my test water is true.. I use the droplets so it's always kind of a educated guess when it comes to ph'ing for me anywayz.. What Im doin is working so I know I should just let them be, but at the same time I want them to be able to access every nute as needed.. Any thoughts?? Sheesh..I need to get some pics already... and I will soon..

[MrPuffAlot]

you cant, buy a digital meter.

goodluck

[Alistair Young]

Yeah, a digital meter. I bought an inexpensive one from the man at the hydro store; it's made by a company called Hanna. I think it cost me about $37.00. I'm sure it would have cost less elsewhere, because hydro stores are expensive.
When using it on straight RO water I double check what it reads against those drops that you mentioned; it seems to be accurate enough. It seems to need to be re calibrated frequently, but it is the way to test when the water is colored.

[Elliot Jansen]

Damn... just when I thought I was done spendng money for a little while.. OK thanks guys.

[MrPuffAlot]

do not check your PH with your digital PH meter with straight PH water.

Not enough ions in the water to get an accurate reading, and also harmful
to your PH probe.

I always add a splash of declorinated water before testing/using my RO water.

[Growdude]

do not check your PH with your digital PH meter with straight PH water.

Not enough ions in the water to get an accurate reading, and also harmful
to your PH probe.

I always add a splash of declorinated water before testing/using my RO water.

Ive never heard of this.

[Elliot Jansen]

Ok, so... I have been ph'ing with my droplets despite the slight color variation... And what I've found is that,

A: The water isn't really that discolored, when you take it from sitting res water, maybe because alot of the nutes and minerals sink to the bottom?? But even when I stirred it up, the color still wasn't that murky when I held it up to the T5, maybe a little.. Honestly it looks really murky when it is in the res and at feeding time but thats it... Kinda like creek water looking brown until you put it in a cup and hold it up to the sun.. I accounted for the discoloration in my testings though, making it just a hair light so that the ph has room to come down some and the fact that it may be showing a hair darker than it really is..

B: Next to mixing nutes.. Ph is probably the most important factor in Hydroponics (newb)... Once I adjusted my Ph my plants freakin took off.. I noticed exponential (sp?) growth in one day. Not even in week three yet... Seed one (suspected male) Has been pinched down to the hilt to stop him from stretching, and even through that stress has shot it's 2nd pair of pointers w/small stems.. My other 2 have looked more pretty than I have ever seen them... They are both about an inch tall and on their second pair of points as well with a little stem coming up..The way they act I suspect them female... you know taking their sweet time, doing what they want, and growing in spurts when they feel like it, or when the ph is just right for them.. I hope they are cause they sure are pretty, and perfectly green.. Wish I had pics to show you but my computer is so old it doesn't have USB ports...lol:hitchair: :postpicsworthless:

PS. IT should be noted that I am only at .5 strength on my nutes, full strength might be murkier.. I hope not..

[Tater]

You'll never fully dial in your grow without a digital ph meter. I dropped almost three hundred on my nutridip tri meter after testing my ph once with the droplet method. You can get them much cheaper than that. A fun fact about PH that lots of people don't know is that for every .1 on the PH scale it is either a 100 times more or 100 times less acidic depending on direction of the fluctuation. That means that your PH tester with say a .3 difference before you can notice the colour change means a error of margin of about 1000000 times.

[MrPuffAlot]

do not check your PH with your digital PH meter with straight PH water.

Not enough ions in the water to get an accurate reading, and also harmful
to your PH probe.

I always add a splash of declorinated water before testing/using my RO water.

reread what i wrote..

I meant to say.

Do not test your PH in RO (reverse osmosised) water with 0ppm.

Reason above..

sorry for the mistake
:cool:

[Alistair Young]

I just had another thought on this subject. My meter is busted, and no longer works properly. I decided to try the pH test reagent drops on murky water, and like Elliot pointed out, if you go ahead and test a sample, you'll see that the murky water doesn't necessarily obscure the results of the test. That is to say, if you pour a little sample in a test vial, you might notice that the water isn't as murky as you think.

What Tater says makes sense though. A good digital pH meter is bound to be more accurate than pH testing drops, but the drops are better than nothing. In fact, when I was using the meter I double checked its results against the pH reagent to make sure it was accurate.

$300.00 is a lot of money for a meter, but you get what you pay for. That's why I'm not going to replace mine until I have a bit of dough saved aside.