Runoff ph is 8.2

[Trippster62]

@DIY.Rik
(I'm going to have to work on quoting folks, she I tried quoting you the only thing in there was where you quoted me)
I use ACV

Apple Cider Vinegar. I use organic woth the MOTHER in whoch holds healthy nematodes and goodies.
I find this starts to help stabilise things a little.

Have you calibrated your PH pen recently?????

Also have you heard of Alkalinity. Which refers to how easy it it to adjust a liquid PH. Higher the Alkalinity the more acid you'd need to adjust things.
You can use small amounts of Bicarbonate or diatomaceous earth to increase this but offset it with citric acid, as I recently found out from @GMO
[/quote]

I'm not sure what you want me to do with the ACV. Are you saying to ph the water with the ACV? I've been using citric acid, but could change if I need to. If something else please elaborate.
It's been about a month since I calibrated.
I also have ph up and ph down drops from, I think, Atlas Scientific. I usually do the bulk of adjusting with the citric acid and fine tune if needed with the drops.

A little more about my water. Over the last month or so the ph of the water coming out of the tap has risen considerably. It used to come out at around 7.2 - 7.4. The water coming from the tap is now 8.2 - 8.4.
The well runs into a limestone aquifer. We are not far from a quarry and I feel like they may have blasted into a new vein or something and put a lot of limestone dust into the aquifer.

After a bit of reading I have found out that calcium does raise ph. And that a build up of calcium in the soil will raise soil ph. So, while I can't be sure that a build up is the cause, what I've read so far leads me to believe that calcium in in the soil is causing the water ph to rise as it filters through the soil.
If the runoff were still below 7 I wouldn't be concerned but, everything I have read says soil ph should be between 6 and 7.

[Guest]

Water going in is 6.5 run off is 8.2

75% organic soil
25% perlite
10 gallon cloth pots

So I think I've figured out how I got here. I need to know what can be done to fix it.
There is a lot of calcium in my water supply. I think the calcium has built up in the soil over time and has now caused the problem.
Is there any way to strip the excess Calcium out of the soil that anyone has heard of?

I use ACV

Apple Cider Vinegar. I use organic woth the MOTHER in whoch holds healthy nematodes and goodies.
I find this starts to help stabilise things a little.

Have you calibrated your PH pen recently?????

Also have you heard of Alkalinity. Which refers to how easy it it to adjust a liquid PH. Higher the Alkalinity the more acid you'd need to adjust things.
You can use small amounts of Bicarbonate or diatomaceous earth to increase this but offset it with citric acid, as I recently found out from @GMO

I'm not sure what you want me to do with the ACV. Are you saying to ph the water with the ACV? I've been using citric acid, but could change if I need to. If something else please elaborate.
It's been about a month since I calibrated.
I also have ph up and ph down drops from, I think, Atlas Scientific. I usually do the bulk of adjusting with the citric acid and fine tune if needed with the drops.

A little more about my water. Over the last month or so the ph of the water coming out of the tap has risen considerably. It used to come out at around 7.2 - 7.4. The water coming from the tap is now 8.2 - 8.4.
The well runs into a limestone aquifer. We are not far from a quarry and I feel like they may have blasted into a new vein or something and put a lot of limestone dust into the aquifer.

After a bit of reading I have found out that calcium does raise ph. And that a build up of calcium in the soil will raise soil ph. So, while I can't be sure that a build up is the cause, what I've read so far leads me to believe that calcium in in the soil is causing the water ph to rise as it filters through the soil.
If the runoff were still below 7 I wouldn't be concerned but, everything I have read says soil ph should be between 6 and 7.

Yeah I think 6.8 is the sweet spot for soil.

I think @Marcus has a point about the EC before and after as that will tell you about the hardness, calcium and mineral levels of your water.

Maybe try some paper PH strips or something as a 2nd back up.

[Trippster62]

I never PH in organic soil unless I have a problem by the way.

Sorry, I re read your post!

Also you maybe need to buffer to soil.

I had never checked runoff at all before this run. I have also never lost a plant that was 8 weeks into veg and ready to be moved to flower.
I flushed the 3 remaining plants. I lost another one 10 days later. Since I only run 4 plants at a time losing 2 means I've lost 50% of this grow.

My son, who works in a legal facility here in the states that runs hydro, suggested I start testing runoff. I found out a lot of good hydro information doesn't have a direct correlation with soil.

[Trippster62]

A more immediate not fix but aid would be foliar, hit it with properly ph'ed water. Then a flush to remove your excess.

Didn't do a foliar spray but flushed again last night. Will see if that did any good tonight.

[Trippster62]

Lime can buffer your soil. Or small amounts of the bicarbonate will help watering in as you can really mix the lime in now?

Unless you water it in.

@GHO may also be able to help you.

Lime would raise pH and add more calcium? Couple of things you can try is adding peat/elemental sulphur to lower pH. Possibly adding humic acid will help to buffer your soil.
if you're in a hard water area you really need a filter.

What's your soil recipe? Are you certain it's the water?

I added the sulphur right after seeing that the ph was too high. What I've read has said it can take a long time for the sulphur to work it's way into the soil enough to change things. Peat and humic acid are things I haven't looked into. Thanks.

Yes on the filter. I need one. I thought I had one that I could use use, but the drop in tds was almost insignificant. It's just an inexpensive inline hose filter that has 20u filtration. I've looked around online and found several others that boast 5u filtration. I'm wondering if maybe one of those will work well enough. I'm an old man on a fixed income and need to save as much as possible whenever possible.

Soil recipe? Ha ha ha. You want my super secret super soil recipe? Ok are you ready for all this? Buy whatever organic soil they have in the garden center ... anywhere ... just not from Miracle Grow. Open bag, mix with perlite, plant.

I can't be100% certain it's the water, but that's what it seems to be to me.

[Trippster62]

What's the EC of your tap water going in?

Also what's the EC of your run off?

What soil are you in?

What feeds are you using?

Any pics of the plants?

Thanks

My son just convinced me I needed a TDS/PPM/EC meter.
Did my measurements using PPM.

PPM of water from the tap has been running between 225 and 285 since I got the meter earlier in the week.
Runoff after flushing last night was in the 400s.
Using Emerald Harvest nutes to feed. I had been over feeding for a long time but have recently learned to use the PPM of the runoff to get a better idea of when I should be feeding. Was feeding daily at recommended mix. Soil mix is in my previous post.

Let me login with my phone and I'll post a couple of recent pics.

[Trippster62]

This may take an old man a bit to figure out. My pics don't seem to want to be uploaded to the gallery. Got 1 so far. It is probably something simple that I'm not seeing.
I know pic's under hps don't help in identifying problems much. Running 3 600w HPS and 3 240w LEDs.

[Trippster62]

[Trippster62]

That's all I can get to upload. Everything else gets the error message that the dimensions were not able to be determined. .
Sorry

[Trippster62]

Oh, those 2 are of the same girl. She looks healthy above the soil, it's just the rise in the ph of the water as it runs through that has me concerned.