Cheapest EC and/or pH meters THAT WORK

Hi all,
I'm looking into getting an EC meter and possibly a pH meter if not too expensive. Right now I am just using the general hydroponics pH indicator solution which is alright, but a pain. I also do not have any method of checking the EC at the moment and would like to look into a TDS meter most of all. Does anybody have any suggestions for TDS and/ or pH meters that are CHEAP, but actually work as well. I know the really cheap pH meters like what you can get at home depot are shit, i figured that out the hard way.
Any suggestions or links are appreciated!

My advice, if you are using soil don't ever PH your water. I haven't PH'd my water in over 2 years. Also you don't need an EC meter if you learn to feed your plants what they need and not what the bottle tells you.

If you take this advice it might blow both our fuckin minds. My neighbor took my advice and he is finally producing some high quality weed, before it was like last resort style shit. I wouldn't smoke that shit unless I absolutely had to lolol.

Milwaukee 101 pH meter. had mine 3+years with no issues. close to a $100

HM EC meter from Amazon. maybe $30.

pH is way more important than EC in my opnion.

rkymtnman said:

Milwaukee 101 pH meter. had mine 3+years with no issues. close to a $100

HM EC meter from Amazon. maybe $30.

pH is way more important than EC in my opnion.

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The soil has buffers in it and the ph fluctuates constantly when you first water to when it is dry. I didn't even PH my hydro trays and they came out fuckin amazing. All you gotta do is use the right nutrients for the medium and the shit will take care of itself.

Adding ph up and down only fucks with the buffers in place. Just my experience though, I went from adjusting the ph and watching the ec every single time to never. I have had 100% less problems.

I am not using soil, I am growing in coco so pHing is of a little bit more importance. But $100?? EEk. Is that about as cheap as they get for a working calibratable one?

Honey Oil Riot Squad said:

I am not using soil, I am growing in coco so pHing is of a little bit more importance. But $100?? EEk. Is that about as cheap as they get for a working calibratable one?

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That is absolutely the cheapest you want to buy, I have bought over 2,000 dollars worth of ph pens and even the expensive ones lose calibration and die off. The absolute best one is this one that plugs into your res but that things way way way expensive. That one will do you justice for a while.

I am thinking of doing a trial run in coco just to see if not phing works, it works for flood and drain so I don't know how coco would be much different. Good experiment .

Siino Gardens said:

The soil has buffers in it and the ph fluctuates constantly when you first water to when it is dry. I didn't even PH my hydro trays and they came out fuckin amazing. All you gotta do is use the right nutrients for the medium and the shit will take care of itself.

Adding ph up and down only fucks with the buffers in place. Just my experience though, I went from adjusting the ph and watching the ec every single time to never. I have had 100% less problems.

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You also have to keep in mind that the type water you use will be buffered differently causing your pH to change more or less when adding nutrients - if your using tap water its buffering capabilities would vary by region too. You are lucky to live somewhere that your pH is perfect lol! I have been using distilled water due to bad tap water and after adding my nutes I actually had to add a bit of pH up to get to around 5.5. And this was at half strength nutes for early veg - more nutes later on would cause the pH to dive even more.

Damn that is true, each water source is not created equal. I got lucky we got somewhat decent tap here. I stopped using RO because the ppm was less than 50 so I figure the plants can take a little ppm of randoms shit. Our water comes out the tap at PH 8 ish.

Well damn, TDS meters are doable right now but I'm not about to spend $100 on a pH pen (i'm poor ). but maybe I ought to save up for a good pH meter instead of even going for the TDS meter. idk. I'm having a bit of problems with my first grow that's been caused by failing to nutrient/ pH properly I believe so I've been looking into investing in some better equipment to get it all just right. But . Stoner scientist issues. Is equipment for project on attaining guapa homegrown weed > the $100 i've got for my next hundo? The worlds will never know.

Honey Oil Riot Squad said:

Hi all,
I'm looking into getting an EC meter and possibly a pH meter if not too expensive. Right now I am just using the general hydroponics pH indicator solution which is alright, but a pain. I also do not have any method of checking the EC at the moment and would like to look into a TDS meter most of all. Does anybody have any suggestions for TDS and/ or pH meters that are CHEAP, but actually work as well. I know the really cheap pH meters like what you can get at home depot are shit, i figured that out the hard way.
Any suggestions or links are appreciated!

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Hanna. Cheaper than Blue Labs.I have had my Primo 4 model for 5 years. Buy the calibration solution for it at the same time! http://www.amazon.com/Hanna-Instruments-PRIMO-Based-Conductivity/dp/B005GLE572

Siino Gardens said:

Damn that is true, each water source is not created equal. I got lucky we got somewhat decent tap here. I stopped using RO because the ppm was less than 50 so I figure the plants can take a little ppm of randoms shit. Our water comes out the tap at PH 8 ish.

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Weird! Mine is right around 7. Crazy how much that can change.

Honey Oil Riot Squad said:

Well damn, TDS meters are doable right now but I'm not about to spend $100 on a pH pen (i'm poor ). but maybe I ought to save up for a good pH meter instead of even going for the TDS meter. idk. I'm having a bit of problems with my first grow that's been caused by failing to nutrient/ pH properly I believe so I've been looking into investing in some better equipment to get it all just right. But . Stoner scientist issues. Is equipment for project on attaining guapa homegrown weed > the $100 i've got for my next hundo? The worlds will never know.

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USE TEST STRIPS! I was a dialysis nurse and we used them in part of the tests we performed all day on our water. Use the money you save to pay for the EC meter.

Honey Oil Riot Squad said:

Weird! Mine is right around 7. Crazy how much that can change.

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Whats the ppm of your tap though? Cause that could be what makes such a difference. I appreciate you taking my experiences into account and not just calling me a dickrider and passin on cause you actually just taught me something. Curiosity is taking over, gonna have to grab a bag of coco and see if this tap can stand up to it.

Only decent ph pen to buy imo I'd rather have a good ph pen and dial into my plants using half strngth nutes, they can tell its too little or too hot but your water won't tell you it ph5.5 or 7.5 yeah? obviously we need both but save up and buy one, good luck man.

Honey Oil Riot Squad said:

I am not using soil, I am growing in coco so pHing is of a little bit more importance. But $100?? EEk. Is that about as cheap as they get for a working calibratable one?

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the Milwaukee is nice in that the probe is replaceable if needed.

look at it this way: you grow a plant with pH being out of wack and get 1/2 oz off it. you grow the same plant with perfect pH and you get 3 oz. meter is now paid for. and if you take care of it, it will last for the next few years.

the Milwaukee rep taught me to rinse it with white vinegar after use and then store ithe probe in either RO or distilled water. like i said, mine is 3+yrs old and still calibrated within 0.01

HM. Works great. Costs only a little. I go around testing people's tap water for them now

My tap is an incredible 520 PPM. That is outrageously high. I wouldn't have known without the meter.

hotrodharley said:

USE TEST STRIPS! I was a dialysis nurse and we used them in part of the tests we performed all day on our water. Use the money you save to pay for the EC meter.

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I work in a lab and at first for pHing I would just take hand fulls of these like 4 padded pH test strips home everyday Weirdly enough though I find that the GH pH tester drops work even better than any of the types of pH strips I could nab. But yet still, there's such a large degree of error from just eyeing the color.

Siino Gardens said:

Whats the ppm of your tap though? Cause that could be what makes such a difference. I appreciate you taking my experiences into account and not just calling me a dickrider and passin on cause you actually just taught me something. Curiosity is taking over, gonna have to grab a bag of coco and see if this tap can stand up to it.

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I'm unsure what the ppm of my tap is bc I don't have an EC meter lol, but I've found a little bit of data online comparing levels of solutes in tap water around the US. In the midwest where I am it tends to have very high levels of almost all the ions they had listed, in particular I saw very high levels of Ca. And I am really getting convinced that calcium in tap water could be what causes problems for a lot of people. The plants love Calcium, but too much being present can cause nutrient lockout (like potassium lockout). I think that is what is happening to my plants right now possibly due to my tap water, but only time will tell from the switch to DI. Also, calcium and iron (which is also high in tap water here) has a 2+ or 3+ charge in water so it creates a fairly strong aqua acid. More solutes of higher positive charge (like Ca2+, Fe2+, Fe3+, Mg2+, etc.) = stronger aqua acid = lower pH of tap water. So if your tap water is higher in pH it would make a lot of sense that you may have less solutes in there. See now you are teaching me stuff too... dickrider.
In theory, if one had all of the data for the concentrations of solutes in their tap water, you could calculate the ppm to an even more accurate value than any EC meter would be able to. In fact you could probably calculate the ppm in your finished nutrient water from scratch just by knowing the concentrations of the ingredients in it. But that sounds like an absolute mess that I am not about to embark on. You could even calculate the exact pH down/ up needed if you are careful enough and feel like scrunching numbers and looking up how each solute interferes with each other for hours on end.

It's amazing what insight a chemistry degree gives you into the wonderful world of marijuana sometimes. I've even thought about trying to start a career in the cannabis industry in the near future. Cannabis extractions are about to become a multi billion dollar industry with competition for the best quality so hows about a #LeaglizeIt for the jobs anyone? eh? eh? Help a poor starving 21 year old get a good job? . Yeah. And no problem Siino thanks for the help.

sunny747 said:

HM. Works great. Costs only a little. I go around testing people's tap water for them now

My tap is an incredible 520 PPM. That is outrageously high. I wouldn't have known without the meter.

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Holy moly that sounds pretty high!

Siino Gardens said:

Holy moly that sounds pretty high!

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Yea, it's disgusting. I put in an RO unit now. Now I 'm at 60 ppm which is fine.

Hey....keep using whatever it is your using until you can afford something decent with a REPLACEABLE pH probe. Dont skimp here when growing in coco coir is my suggestion. Get something like the Blue Lab Combo meter. Its expensive but it lasts forever. One time buy. Replace the the ph probe every 8 months to a year and calibrate it often. They all go bad after repeated use. The ec/tds probe isnt as finicky and will last forever. Keep it clean and use it often. I rely on mine everytime i refill and reset my tanks. Save your bucks.....buy a blue lab and quit playing. I bought every brand out there. It got frustrating. Iam offer this advice from someone who spent a shitload of cash on bullshit meters over the years. Trust me on this.