I’ve gotta get busy… thanks for the Immediacy. Ie: pre-Soak it
Thanks @mintberrycrunch
I finally caved in and purchased a bluelab combo meter figuring i could use it to properly check ph and ec to try and diagnose issues better.
Well imagine my surprise when what the new meter said was a 6.1/6.2 ph was coming out as 5.0 using the root farms ph drops?!?! I went back and checked the calibration solutions ph to make sure the meter was accurate and everything seems to be good. I even tried ph strips to confirm and its seems like it is indeed correct and the drops were wayyyy off.
So all this time i was giving water at about 7.0-7.3! Im a bit mad but also happy that it could be just that.
Here are the pics to show what i mean.
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Scratch in a little calcitic powdered dolomite lime and water it in. Call it a day.
Wow!
That’s a ‘first’ in my books… Here I’ve been thinking all along that the drops were infallible… I need to think about this…
Cheers
G
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Any time I adjust up or down, I recheck pH to insure I’m at 6.5 for my soil grows. Eliminate the guesswork.
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I think you may have your logic backwards bro. See an instrument is using a potential drop to extrapolate a pH value from a known set of values under known conditions via algorithms in the processor. Alot can go wrong, accuracy is largely dependent on cost in this scenario. The drops are chemical titration with an indicator that is dependent on the chemistry in the test tube; not much to go wrong there.
Color based indicators aren’t very accurate at all. Especially universal indicators which are mixtures of multiple indicators, you’re lucky to get +/- 1 from the actual pH. So a reading of 5.5 could be 4.5-6.5. Electronics have the potential for much better accuracy, something like +/- .3 from actual. It is dependent on cost, but Blue Labs meters tend to measure pretty accurate. Combine that with precision and ability to re-calibrate, it’s undoubtedly better to use a well maintained pH meter than the drops or strips.
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True, the potential, in a lab environment with expensive electronics and properly stored calibration solutions. Notice I said
Well maintained, that’s the operative function here, and the one least likely to be applied. It goes beyond calibration, the soln inside the probe has to be kept at an optimum molarity with no contamination. It likes to creep so a total replacement is called for routinely, it’s not cheap . The electrode bulb can never be allowed to dehydrate, even for a minute, without trashing the probe requiring a complete replacement to the tune of damn near what the whole thing cost in the first place. But, despite it being all over the map with no accuracy, it will appear as though it’s functioning and calibrating for long enough to trash your plants. This is the most common failure of units used at home and the inevitable demise for every unit I’ve seen shoved to the back of the nutrient shelf collecting dust after a solid six months of service at best.
Sometimes it’s better to suggest what’s practical and reliable, even if it’s not optimum.
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