How to make PH down for hydroponics
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- čas přidán 19. 04. 2022
- This video shows how to make your own PH down for hydroponics from food grade phosphoric acid and save big money.
PH down is used in all forms of hydroponics including NFT, vertical grow beds, aeroponics, deep water culture and Krakty systems.
We discuss the importance of maintaining the correct PH for your crops and how it affects plant growth and disease.
Towards the end of the video, I calculate my cost per head of lettuce using the store bought PH-down and the savings for making it myself.
Thank you for sharing your gifts and mastery through the love of nature ...this info is exactly what I was looking for...wonderfully done
Powdered Vitamin C will work as ph down. It will need more checking than if you used phos acid though. Will drift out of range quicker.
You can even use Lemon Juice, again it will not hold the ph in range as well as Phos acid does.
What a smart 🤓 ideas 💡💡
Thank you dear
Thank you so much for this video. I have been struggling to troubleshoot and identify the reason why my Nutrient water Ph won't stop going up. After watching your video and reading through few articles
I recollected reading about bicarbonates in my borewell (ground water pumped up) water analysis report. My borewell water is safe to drink and has PPM of around 300 (it varies from 200-400 based on season).
Have you ever compared pros and cons of investing and maintaining an RO setup vs using as much as phosporic acid as it takes to keep your system running healthy. I actually bought a comparably cheaper 100LPH RO system to use
for my 6000 planter (3000 nursery and 3000 harvest stage) NFT setup. But using and maintaining that RO setup is big pain in the A**. About three months into the usage my membranes gave up and performing low, so now that system
gives about 40 LPH. I find it much easier to use the borewell water directly as the water analysis suggested its best suited for both drinking and agriculture. But of course at that time I was not aware and neither the lab told me anything about these bicarbonates
causing Ph buffer issues. One thing I noticed during my trobleshooting is, I added just the Ph down to my plain borewell water and the ph stays same it won't increase.
I am also almost thinking to budget for Phosphoric acid for the long run and not to worry much about it. But I did notice the nutrient water lathering up and starts building up some stinky smell (could be acid or something else?) not sure if I am also dealing with some bacteria in my tank or NFT channels along with Ph issue or if they are correlated.
Looks like we did a lot of the same research. Making my own PH down reduced the cost to a manageable level for me. I do not have the smell problem. Sounds like your water went anaerobic.
Thank you for the reply ! Over time I did notice that smell eventually went away and plants grew healthy! So I've decided to keep using my own phdown that I prepared using 35% food grade phosphoric acid. Thank you again for motivating a lot of folk like me with your videos!
sulfuric acid is a bit safer, both in terms of handling and storing, and more forgiving when having a bit too much as a nutrient. when it comes to commercial production of food, of course more concentrated cheaper chemicals are preferred but, after some research i'm buying some ph down ready product based on sulfuric acid, that is pre-diluted for the aquarium trade, rather than handling dangerously corrosive chemicals at home. in a non-commercial scenario, a few extra dollars is not worth the additional risk handling highly corrosive chemicals on ongoing basis. bottles are easy to knock over etc. Highly concentrated acids look very benign in a plastic container, but they are not.
Very straight forward and informative. Just curious, after a year since this video is uploaded is it still effective in lowering Ph? Any issues you encountered after making this video with the DIY Ph Down? Thanks and hope you make more videos.
No - this is still the way to go if your PH down costs are high.
Hello. Where can I buy a tri meter like the one you are using?
Hello Sheen, I am in the Philippines and I bought mine through Lazada (Philippines version of Amazon). It was shipped from China and arrived within 2 weeks.
@@expathydroponics8500 can you give me link?
I use kratky method.. How often i need to check my ph level? Thank you so much
If you don't need to add water - then the PH level should not change. I would say - only if you need to add water or nutrient solution.
I am aware of the taste of your salad. But is Coke Zero o.k. with a ph of 2.6 or so and based on phosparic acid to chinch in smaller systems?
I don't know what else is in coke zero. If it is a small system, you can get away with white vinegar - although not ideal.
Hi Where did you buy the phophoric acid?
I purchased online in Lazada in the Philippines. I can buy one liter of 85% food grade for 400 pesos (about $8 usd. ) But I noticed here in the US - the Amazon prices are much higher.
Why not lemon juice?
Lemon juice can be used, however I read that it does not have staying power and it adds citric acid that plants do not use, whereas Nitric and Phosphoric acid includes either Nitrogen or Phosphorous.
@@expathydroponics8500 thanks for the information
Sounds like you need an RO system my friend.
Ha ha - yep. But I don't have the extra money. Maybe in my next system.
How to make ph up?
So far I do not have that problem with my water. I actually don't know.
😃😃😃
Thank You
I use muriatic acid in my swimming pool. Is that ok? I read that you can also add vinegar. Thank you
Both can be used - although vinegar won't hold the lowered PH. I like that phosphoric acid because it gives the extra benefit of the nutrient phosphorus.
Can you use sulphuric acid?
No it builds up unhealthy sulfates in the soil.
I am not an expert - but sulfuric acid may add sulfur which may not be ideal for plants.
What kind of water did you use sir?
Wet .... only joking. I use well water, but it tends to have high alkalinity.
@@expathydroponics8500 thanks for the video. I also use well water but the ppm is around 600-700. Planning to get reverse osmosis water filter. Will that help?
Yes, it will help a lot. You have to do the math though. Typically for every liter of purified water that comes out of the RO unit, you have to "throw away" 3 liters of water. Big expensive commercial units can be more efficient on waste water. But....as noted.....they are expensive. If you're on your own well, and the water costs are very low, and you have a good use for the waste water, the math looks pretty good. @@jyrkytv1112
Hard to hear you over the water
Thank you for the feedback. I was having a hard time controlling audio levels. I later videos I have resorted to recording the narrative separately.
7:30 Don't store chemicals in bottles that people associate drinking from. It doesn't cost anything to reuse some of your old PH - Down chemical bottles. What will end up happening is someone will think the water bottle with clear liquid in it contains water. There has even be cases of someone storing chemicals in drink containers and forgetting they did so and poising themselves.
czcams.com/video/0VtUGoGZtI8/video.html
I agree - I keep these bottles on a high shelf away from children. I should just print some labels.
Base on your assumption, 100ml(PA):1000ml of water is too expensive compare to a commercial pH reducer (nutrihydro 3:1000) with almost the same price.
My cost for the PA was 400 for 1000ml. this makes 10 Liters of PH down - about 40 pesos per liter. The best price I can find for Nutrihydro is 135p for 500ml. If I didn't use so much, I would probably just buy from Nutrihydro for the convenience. Nutrihydro is the best commercially available PH-down I tried and works with the same effectiveness and my DIY solution. (at least for me)
Now I understand👍
Hard to hear and video is really ruff
Sorry, I was pretty new to making videos and probably should have recorded over the video or used a better mic.