1 year later and i am thinking about PH again for my indoor grow this time. I think I’m going to stick with the drops because i am seeing many bad reviews no matter what pen i look at… I have a few questions i can’t find answers for or maybe I’ve over looked them? Anyway i am wondering do i PH my water alone or with nutes? Which makes me wonder will drops work or will the color be off? Also does PH tend to wander or if I’m using the same water/nutes will it always be the same adjustment? Just wondering if i need both PH up and down or is it possible i will always need the same once i do it a few times?
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If your just watering plants in soil/compost and your ph is well out you should adjust it.
If you add nutrients you should measure the ph AFTER adding the nutrients cos they will usually lower the ph a fair bit anyway. Most folk have to lower their ph so they never actually need ph up.
Tap water ph can drift about from time to time so you should always measure the final mix before using it. Your drops should work well enough but obviously not as accurately as a decent ph pen/meter.
Often after adding nutrients you’ll find you need to add the same amount of ph down to the solution, most of the time. You cant rely on this however cos it’s usually when you decide not to bother measuring that your tap water starts to vary (swing) about 
Plants like the ph to swing a bit, just as long as it stays in range.
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This is the PH pen I use. I cant fault it, had it 3 years now, came calibrated and I just put it in a known PH solution every 6 months to check it, and it has only moved 0.01 from its original calibration.
You can find them on amazon or ebay cheaper than their website. Comes in a case with PH solutions, 2 years warranty. I paid $90 Ca and its money well spent. I went through 3 $25 cheap ones in my first year of growing, so I thought sod it going to spend some money on a decent one.
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It would help is if we knew what he intends to use as a medium indoors. If it’s soil/compost mix and his well water is still around 6.5 he probably wont need to bother about the ph at all.
If it’s a hydro grow then it’s vital he keeps it in range. I hear good things about apera pens. My favorite is the bluelab one but as long as it’s accurate brands don’t matter much.
Cheap ph pens are generally useless and ruin many grows.
You can save money on an EC pen though cos they are fairly simple by comparison so a cheap one often does a decent job if kept calibrated 
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As long as you add nutes when what’s in the compost is used up you should be ok.
I went right off compost, had too many bad bags, ph miles out and some even had bits of building site waste in them. I switched to coco, it’s miles better. No more dirt in the house helps the domestic situation too
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Hey @Albannach bro,
How’s things with you and your Mrs - hoping all is well. 
You mention changing your medium to coco , question ; can i maybe mix some ‘all-mix’ ( bio bizz.) with some coco ? - would that work for better air-ation ?
Just curious ( for now.). !?
Anyway keep well and if you’re needing some seeds i can send you a few.
Talk later mate …
Gaz
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Hi Gaz bro, things have been better but we’re both still kicking and that’s the main thing eh. Think all-mix is plenty hot enough in nutrient content so it probably wont hurt to mix in some coco. It should drain well and get plenty of air.
I far prefer coco bro, tried mixing it with perlite but had better results using it straight. It’s lovely to work with and great to see hydro system growth rates in a bucket of what looks like compost.
Hope your keeping well and growing plenty in this time of total madness. It’ll help keep you sane 
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Thanks for sharing, here in Spain it’s even more expensive 
, for that price it should also give the hour and play some melodies … 
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It could play some banging tunes to your plants, apparently they like music so avoid stuff like Nick Cave
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