Need help with Lucas Formula

I know that the Lucas Method was designed for use with RO water. My RO set up is on its way now and in the mean time I am using distilled water. I have GH flora series. I understand what to use but no where have I seen it say that you need to adjust the PH. Is this correct? Just mix and thats it?

you will need to adjust the ph. ph changes yearly in the water,town to town, city to city, state to state............. you get the point. just get a ph meter and the gh up and down. use in small doses as it takes very little to change the ph. one drop of the ph down takes my plain ro from 7.8 to 6.0. easy enough.

dart420 said:

you will need to adjust the ph. ph changes yearly in the water,town to town, city to city, state to state............. you get the point. just get a ph meter and the gh up and down. use in small doses as it takes very little to change the ph. one drop of the ph down takes my plain ro from 7.8 to 6.0. easy enough.

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Thanks Dart. OK... I mixed up a batch last night with distilled water and let it sit about 2 hours. PH was around 5.3 I ph'd up to 6.0 and when I checked today PH was 6.6
How long should I wait before I add PH up/down to the solution?
Whats a good rule of thumb with distilled & RO for PH?

I included a couple pics of my baby. It will be 3 weeks from seed on Friday. Its bubblelicious fem seeds from attitude. Just got 1 growin now till I get the hang. Using a waterfarm,
GH nutes and 12 CFL's And I just relized I got to update the pics! It def. doesnt look like this now.

if you didnt soak your hydroton in 4.0 ph water for 24 hrs, you could be experiencing ph instability due to your hydroton not being soaked in 4.0 ph water or your nute levels being to high can cause ph swing too.

dart420 said:

if you didnt soak your hydroton in 4.0 ph water for 24 hrs, you could be experiencing ph instability due to your hydroton not being soaked in 4.0 ph water or your nute levels being to high can cause ph swing too.

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so what is the target PH with the Lucas formula? is it the same 5.8 - 6.3?

jannabana69631 said:

so what is the target PH with the Lucas formula? is it the same 5.8 - 6.3?

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Yes, anywhere from 5.5-6.3 should be fine, even a bit lower.

As said above, rinse the hydroton very carefully and only ph after nutes are added to water.

What I do is add nutes and let airstone mix around for about 5mins, then take ph,, then add any ph up or down very slowly, 1 drop at a time, let it settle for a few mins then test. Once you get into a pattern you'll know exactly how much to add.

Another thing, why is the ph of your distilled water 5.3? that seems very low for distilled water, where you getting it? with water that low and on lucas 0-8-16 formula, that will drop the ph quite a bit, and using a lot of ph up is not really good for plants.