Question about runoff testing

This is probably a stupid question, but when you test runoff the water doesn't need to be clear..does it?
I'm doing all organic and after running over a gallon of water through it, the water looks like coffee! Is this ok to test?
I would think if the water is clear, it's just running straight through and wouldn't give an accurate ph reading of the soil.

generally speaking its not going to be clear water. In other words.. its not going to look like it did (the water) when you were pouring it in.

You know how whenever your doing a flush and the water comes out of the bottom of the grow-pot and looks like piss? That's what you could end up experiencing.

Good luck..
peace.

If your organic program is working there is no need to check ph . Are you having problems ?

kingofqueen said:

If your organic program is working there is no need to check ph . Are you having problems ?

Click to expand...

Bigtime!! I wanted to go all organic with it so I started with MG Organic soil. Maybe mistake #1, but that was the only thing
available at the time. The bag said 'organic feeding up to 2 months' so I didn't wanna go crazy with nutes or anything. Plant
started off ok, but has always been light green/yellow. Figured it needed N, but still didn't wanna give nutes yet. Plant is now
about a month old and has multiple problems. Still light green/yellow and has wrinkled, 'papery' feeling and deformed leaves.
Gave a light 1/2 strength Earth Juice catalyst and grow a week ago..nothing. Figured it had to be some type of deficiency so I
gave a light feeding of catalyst and microblast..nothing. Checked the ph and it was 5.1 so I added lime. Ph is now at 6.7, but the
runoff is always super dark. Seriously, I'll have like over a gallon of runoff and it never seems to get any lighter. Is that normal?

Not normal for me . It usally clears up . Now that you got the ph under control , I,d say if your yellowing after a month that the nutes in the mg soil have been used up and your plant is hungry . A correct flush is 3 times the container size but I,ve never flushed more than 4g with a 3 gallon pot . Mabey just let it ride for now since u believe u have flushed it enough .Since your ph is correct now and you have flushed the meadium , you should see some improvement in around 3 days . Feed it next watering and you should be on track.
Is your runoff 6.7 ? how did u test?

Tested again and it's 6.5. It took about 2.5 gallons, but it did clear up a bit. Oh, I'm using a Hana ph meter.
Thanks a lot for the advice.

Cool sounds like your on the right track.