Pennies over Dollars, Growing mistakes

[Zogs]

Biggest mistake has to be litmus paper. I got back into growing about 7 or 8 years ago now and picked up about a years worth of litmus paper. I figured that would get me in the ball park and that's all i cared about. That and the cheap price,, that was more important!!

I'm not sure what the deal was but it had to have been a bad batch of papers because turns out it wasn't even close to accurate. My tap water I now know comes out around 7-7.5 PH. The litmus tests strips were showing it around 5 PH. I spent almost a year dumping large amounts of PH up into my tap water.. My poor plants suffered all sorts of horrors. I was chasing around every deficiency known to exist.

 

[Shane Karmann]

Biggest mistake has to be litmus paper. I got back into growing about 7 or 8 years ago now and picked up about a years worth of litmus paper. I figured that would get me in the ball park and that's all i cared about. That and the cheap price,, that was more important!!

I'm not sure what the deal was but it had to have been a bad batch of papers because turns out it wasn't even close to accurate. My tap water I now know comes out around 7-7.5 PH. The litmus tests strips were showing it around 5 PH. I spent almost a year dumping large amounts of PH up into my tap water.. My poor plants suffered all sorts of horrors. I was chasing around every deficiency known to exist.


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This brings back the horrors of my first hydro grows. I wouldn't believe that low a reading now but I bet I would have back then. Lots of my first plants looked like your picture.

Municipal water is almost always adjusted to 7 to 7.5 because we like the taste. Mine is always a little higher than that and I add pH down when I fill a res.