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It is definitely the bicarbonate in your tap water that is buffering the ph. You have to be careful with bicarbonate, you can keep adding up, or down and not change anything, then you get to a point and get a huge change all of a sudden. Tap water can be ok to use. Depends on whats in it. Here in so cal, the water has chlorine and fluoride in it. I wont drink it, or cook with it, and if i had a choice i wouldn't even shower in the shit. I think fluoride is technically poison. When i mix PBP with RO water i always let it sit 24 hours mixed before i adjust the ph, most of the time it adjusts itself. I like the house and garden because, its the same exact numbers as the PBP, it just has more calcium and magnesium, which makes it work great with RO water. Its also more concentrated and cheaper over time.
This is just me kind of thinking out loud, dont really have any data to back this up, but i think the reason you could get better results with tap water than RO with the PBP is that it doesnt have enough micro nutes. I was told by someone more knowledgeable than myself, the PBP is lite on micros, and I should use a micro boost if using PBP. The problem is the nute companys dont actually tell you whats in there products, so all we can really do is speculate.
I dont know, i stopped caring about all this when i switched to H&G. I dont even use a PH or EC meter anymore, i just mix it according to the schedule, watch my plants, and adjust accordingly. I have not had a single PH issue since switching to H&G.