How ph crazy are you

im a soil grower and was just wondering how cazy ppl are over ph? I myself feel like if rain water is water sufficient for plant growth, why is tap so bad (besides the Cl that is in it but a good bubbling does the trick). Also when im real lazy i just go buy a few gallon jugs ~.99 each, assuming they are FDA approved to drink i doubt it does harm to a plant. I put a little ph down to give it that acidic kick but that s about it. So my question for all you is how anal are you about your ph(or whole operation, do you only use a steril environemt) or are you more of a au-natural person who thinks "hey its a plant, it needs food, water and light-thats it" (kinda how i am) Yes they need a little extra car but cmon is it rocket science?not to me.

when i first started out i never knew the ph.. and it didnt really slow me down at all... i recently got a ph meter and really havnt used it much. im sure that if i had an elaborate setup i would want to know but it hasnt been an issue... i guess checking it every once in a while is good but not a main concern

If pH of your soil is balanced and your feeding properly there is no need to adjust the water unless it's WAAAY off. Let's say somewhere around 5 or 8, anything close to suitable or neutral shouldn't cause enough fluctuation to matter.

Personally I use tap water. Never had a problem, even in the city, but I'm sure some places are worse than others and I might take it into consideration if I knew it was bad. The way I see it is if it's fit for me to drink it's certainly fine enough for my plants

My first attempt was a disaster, cfl's + tap water + miracle grow and all failed.

I scrapped everything and started all over, one thing I can admit to being anal about is my ph level's and so far so good (cross fingers) When I first checked it my tap water was well over 8.5

lol no mg here running all earth jucie products as organic is the way to go. Supposidly a propper tea bubble will bring the ph to 6.5

bajafox said:

My first attempt was a disaster, cfl's + tap water + miracle grow and all failed.

I scrapped everything and started all over, one thing I can admit to being anal about is my ph level's and so far so good (cross fingers) When I first checked it my tap water was well over 8.5

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I'd put more blame on the "first attempt" part.

Your pH problems quite possibly come from letting salts build up in the soil from the fertilizer. Water isn't going to mess with your pH much in the short term, maybe over the course of a few months though. Salts on the other hand will make soil alkaline quite quickly if you're not constantly flushing them out.

my first couple of grows i didn't even have a ph meter, but alot of people on here were all... oh, you need to go and get a ph meter and check your ph, bla bla blah.. when i first got my meter, i was checking my ph every watering, and adjusting it to like 6.5 or so for my soil grows.. but i have to admit that i rarely check it anymore.. i'm like everyone else really, i figure if my water is safe for me to drink, its good for my plants too..
now, if i were a hydro grower, i would be way more on top of my ph as i know that ph plays a much bigger role in hydro than it does in soil becasue you don't have the buffer between the plant and root system like you do with soil..

I like to keep an eye on the run-off, and make sure it isn't getting too out of line.

i dont test my run off at all. my nutes auto adjust my waters PH to 5.8 no matter what so i dont really need to ever test it. i have a 2nd set of plants i use other nutes on that are cheaper and i test the PH of that and i try to make sure its 5.8-6.5 and adjust if its not