PH READINGS

The ph test strips drops are great if ur after testing soil with theese test ur water first then you know the ph of ur water thn run that through ur pot and test ur run off water works wonders

it's good to check pH of anything you add to the soil. "soil" substrate has more leeway in this regard than hydro/soilless. your rhizosphere should help mitigate issues (microbes and such). once you get things down, you only need to spot check. So, i'd suggest a cheap 100-pack of pH strips that resolve 1/2 a pH and have 4 colors to more easily differentiate. the ones with 2 colors ends up a guess about which one is the right shade, lol... if it fades at all you are fucked, lol.. anyway, 4 colors makes it fairly easy to discern and a half pH is good enough resolution for this endeavour. ph pens are fine, but in the end you spend more on those that strips. you have to store it properly or it's longevity suffers. you need store callibration fluid. it's a pain, in my opinion. plus, the cheap ones suck. Checking pH of a soil slurry or runoff water is not super accurate. it should be off a bit due to the dynamic of what you are trying to do. A slurry you want to use the same volume and moisture content of soil and not from the very top. you want to use the same volume of extra water to add to that soil and at a known pH in order to use the pH strips to get a reading. You should be able to deduce that this pH is not exactly what the substrate is, but if consistent in the ways mentioned it'll always be off in the same direction. yuo need a baseline to understand "normal" so you can recognize abnormal later. runoff is a little different. it's the "dirtiest" water coming out.. it's minerals/water unused from last irrigation being pushed out with new water and new dissolved minerals. it'll probably be higher than the actualy pH of the substrate. consistency here would be when you test that runoff.. the early runoff will be more off than the later runoff etc. if you stick to a good wet/dry cycle of irrigation (wait for top layer to dry, irrigate entire substrate with no dry pockets) you should avoid most pH swings. Some nutes come pH-buffered. these fertilizers should be resistant to pH drift. In 5 years i've yet to see my pH drift. makes me feel all warm inside. ph up and down -- don't pay for a "ph up or down" product. read the ingredients on one of those overpriced things and you'll see it's just common ingredients you can buy for much cheaper and it just won't say "ph down" on it lol... fair trade, right? The type of acid or base you use does not impact likelihood of pH drift. that's a falsehood perpetuated by ppl that don't know any better. that is determined by whether it was ph-buffered or not.. an acid may vaary in strength but they all work the same way - proton donators (H+), its' about Hydrogen+ activity and what original molecule it came from is irrelevant. so, some 3 dollar 3-gallong white distilled vinegar is just as good as the overpiced 16oz bottle of "ph-down" that costs more. in fact molecules that don't have n/p/k/ca/mg/s etc are probably better options not to mess with your fertilizer formula. distilled white vinegar does not have any of that. a base you can use baking soda, if infrequent. i wouldn't use it consistently for 3-4 months. a handful of times throughout grow will not cause a majoe Na problem. check ingredient label of ph-up and then go buy that without the marijuana branding, lol. it should be cheap. it should last forever becuase you don't need to ad more than a 1 mL or 2 per gallon, in all likelihood. oh, if oyu don't have them... a 3mL pipette is a great thing to have around. can usually buy bulk for same price as a handful. so spend 5-10 and get a bag of them because they do breakdown - super cheap, soft plastic will eventually split and not function. these things are just great to have around. you'll need them for making foliar spray and what not. you onlny need the smallest size for pH adjustment, unless you are using a very weak acid/base option.