Sulfuric Acid with Hard water?

Indoor Growing Hydroponics
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Does Sulfuric Acid help in keeping the pH stable?

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you can use sulfuric acid to ph down. but keep in mind 1. highly reactiv at 98%!!! 2. it will add alot of sulfur to your nutrient profil. normaly you would call sulfur an element of freedom because our favorite plant can take sulfur quite good( that may depends on strain).
3. get a ph meter :stuck_out_tongue: or rent one . calculating ph is working if you are a chemist in some way or a math man.

i would recommend to use phosporic acid 59% and/or nitric acid 3% ( this will also add N and P to the nutrient profile ) instead of sulfuric acid,

hope that helps and itĹ› not confusing too much. if you have further questions drop me a pm i`ll try to help :slight_smile:

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:exploding_head:

Are you near a smelting plant or something!?!

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I have a very hard water over here,but not near to those values.I also was wondering if using Sulfur Is a good Idea to counter carbonates in my tap.
59% sounds Better than 98,I wouldn’t Imagine how to handle those cause all I ve used before Is Nitric at 3%,got It on my skin at times and nothing happened.What if a droplet of 59% S acid gets on my hand?

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You have to be extremely careful with Sulfuric as well.

I’d say dilute it using a calculator down to 1.35% and use it.

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i use 85% phosphoric acid and also battery acid (32% sulfuric) i much prefer the phosphoric, but if it gets on your hands just wash them. doesnt burn my hands… at least if i wash them off right away.

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I just use the “battery electrolyte solution” available at most part shops. It’s dilute sulfuric acid so if a little gets on you no big deal (but I’d still wash my hands after I was done just as a precaution) and it’s relatively cheap also.

My water is around 500 ppm with a lot of calcium and iron and I normally use 2ml per gallon of the electrolyte solution, and that’s with it straight from the tap, I don’t have an RO system. But since it is straight from the tap I try to do it a day or 2 before hand as it does seem to make some calcium(I’m guessing that’s what it is) fall out of solution and that’s just less unknown stuff going into my soil

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That’s what I wanted to get!
It’s just diluted Sulfuric acid.
But I guess they changed the batteries in my country, so they’re now some gel based batteries, you just need to add distilled water to them.

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If the battery is serviceable (add water) those are usually just FLA. Flooded lead acid. Should be the same electrolyte. I’ve not heard of a battery that only requires water. FLA(flooded lead acid) SLA(sealed lead acid, can’t add water) AGM(absorbed glass mat can’t add water)
From there it’s lithium based or other chemistries that aren’t used in automotive/garden/utility.

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I got a litre of 98% from a chemist friend, I diluted the fk out if it but I can’t remember the ratio. It works a treat. 1 litre is a lifetimes supply.
It’s significantly heavier than water, I mention this because when I first went to pick it up I almost dropped it because I wasn’t expecting the extra weight. Be careful with it, it’s crazy hazardous in it’s concentrated form.

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Thanks!

How did you drop it in water?

Glass dropper?

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Yeah I used a glass teat pipette but just add it slowly because it can get hot enough to boil the water and spray acid all over the place.

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Always put acid into water,never water into acids,It creates some heat when you mix them,if you throw water It probably becomes Dangerous like @slain said

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Yeah definitely this… 98% sulphuric will carbonize most organic stuff it touches.

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AlkalC, an online calculator says I’ll have to add 2ml of Sulfuric to get the pH down from 8.5 to 6 for 50 gallons of water.

So yeah that’s going to last me a long time.

I’m just going to dilute it to 1/10th strength and work with it.

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Can you guys tell me how to dilute S acid ? Where do I find the equation or a calculator?

Edit-I Just found out,but It seems to turn my water to 5.9 pH I should add 70ppms of Sulfur :scream:
Would this harm the plant or my Coco coir?

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70 ppm should be no problem! but keep in mind the S from other parts of the nuts

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thanks to all the guys who left their replies here
you know, it’s quite convenient to find they in one thread :ok_hand:

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