I used already brewed coffee grinds to pH Down. What would happen?

[ice minus]

Hi friends!

I just wanted to say I've resumed this experiment, deliberately, as I've ended up with a couple too many clones -- I anticipated some failures but had none! What a delight!

So over the last few days I have a couple young plants as controls/normal that I'm using actual pH down with, and then the ones I am sacrificing for science are being fed with pH'd water of 6.6 just like the others, however not using pH down -- using my old espresso pucks

Just to reiterate -- these are pucks that are typically literally waste, and go into our organics bin for disposal and no other usage.


Water registers almost as high as 8.0 from the hose after carbon filter and hose, fresh from the source. I now can crumble pieces from the pucks into the jug of water and stir, and a bunch of bubbles start forming in the water, maybe as a result of the acidification or something? Either way, I can just keep adding and stirring until 6.6 pH, my target, is achieved

I'm still a newbie and lacking any kind of self confidence, so I'm too embarrassed to share any pictures of my plants at this time - but, I just want to report that I have no observed ANY negative effects yet vs. pHing with name brand products, after several days of this so far.

I posted about this a while back as you can see with this thread here and also on one other forum I was using at the time, and most people thought it either A> wouldn't work or B> wouldn't be effective but I haven't observed either yet! Some said it could leech sodium or other undesirables but I believe they didn't realize these were already extracted espresso pucks that have already been used!

AND furthermore, my water has traditionally been SUPER resistant to pH changes with both Citric and Phosphoric pH downs so far -- they will fluctuate literally overnight usually, when I go to bed and check in the morning even.

For some reason the espresso pH down has been rock solid once it finally gets there. The Citric on the other hand needs to be watered literally right away, and the phosphoric General Hydro does better but still drifts after a day or two tops.


With my coffee grinds, I pH'ed to 6.6 while stirring frequently. Let it settle. Pour off just the water that seperates to the top while leaving the grinds to dump out after, check the water AGAIN in the morning, and it's still 6.6.

To be continued! But I still love the idea of getting further use out of grinds that were already destined for the trash otherwise

Thanks for looking!

 

[ice minus]

Try it with water. They escape from it too. Their misson is to lie a lots of eggs in their short adult life. Can't do that if they drown..

Most definitely.. I think the coffee and potentially very find coffee grinds make it even more miserable for them maybe though

I heard that diatomaceus earth (im being highlighted, so its spelled wrong) does a similar thing by shredding the bugs bodies at the soil level. Maybe the coffee has a slight similar effect as well? Or maybe simply the odour is a slight repellant?

Or, most most likely, this is completely unfounded speculation by me and not even remotely true

 

[OleReynard]

Lemon juice

 

[ice minus]

Lemon juice

Love this, But I think I've experimented already in the form of even supposedly more stable "citric acid" product:



A guy who used to be on my Discord server checked the MSDS sheet at the time and said it's just granulated Citric basically

It doesn't do so well with my water, tons of fluctuation but I do use it -- when it can be watered with right away!

Phosphoric based is much more stable. And a great "hack" I learned from the guys at Black Swallow Living Soil, is that Fish Hydrosylate is stablized with phosphoric acid just like pH down -- so you can use it for this purpose, and the soil loves the trace food or nutes from it I guess!

The used espresso grinds seem to be really holding the pH well in my tests though, and gives these pucks a second purpose in life, so I'm excited to continue on experimenting!

 

[OleReynard]

Love this, But I think I've experimented already in the form of even supposedly more stable "citric acid" product:



A guy who used to be on my Discord server checked the MSDS sheet at the time and said it's just granulated Citric basically

It doesn't do so well with my water, tons of fluctuation but I do use it -- when it can be watered with right away!

Phosphoric based is much more stable. And a great "hack" I learned from the guys at Black Swallow Living Soil, is that Fish Hydrosylate is stablized with phosphoric acid just like pH down -- so you can use it for this purpose, and the soil loves the trace food or nutes from it I guess!

The used espresso grinds seem to be really holding the pH well in my tests though, and gives these pucks a second purpose in life, so I'm excited to continue on experimenting!

Ph down when you buy it has a acidity smell to it

 

[MROrganicGreenz]

Have a look here. There is numbers and data for nutrients in coffee ground and a trial.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2016.02.015

As a gardener, I would always say: Put it on your plants. But the results from the trial say otherwise. After fast reading, I couldn't find any big flaws in the paper, so you should consider using it. If someone has further information, please post here or PM

If you don't have access through institutions or otherwise, just try: "sci-hub.hkvisa.net" This could also be interesting for everyone. It's a not illegal site, where you can find many scientific papers for free. Just give it a try.

Regards