PH? Overwatering? Underwatering? or N?

[sproutco]

Why would distilled water have a high ph?

Because it essentially contains nothing but hydrogen and oxygen. It is neutral (7 ph). Most plants like there soil and water slightly on the acid side. Rainwater at my house is close to 6 ph. It is very, very easy to change the ph of distilled water because it has little to no buffer to the neutral ph it has.

 

[MynameStitch]

stay away from the stuff that says added minerals for taste

all of those have sodium in them which is toxic to plants in small amounts,
your plants take in sodium first before any other element and cannabis does not like high levels of sodium, you will have stunted growth and a shocked plant if you choose to use water that has sodium in it, bottled water and even some distilled water has it

which is why i say do not use distiled water, one of the reasons that is

RO water is kinda like distilled in a way but is purified differently and RO is safer for plants

stay away from bottled water that has sodium and other addiotives you want either tap water that is not overly hard, or bottled water that has been filtered with no additives or RO water


i wrote an articale on overgrow about water softner and sodium toxcicity in cannabis

ill post it here so you can read it
i had pics too

but sorry dont got pics now but at least you can read it

so ignore the part about pictures 1 blah blah and blah

Hello peeps i have come across something that everyone should know about, let alone have totaly not thought about when it involves sick plants.

when i started growing for the first time, i had ZERO problems whatsoever!

Then for some reason I got very intrested in helping people with sick plants and quickly learned alot.

Someo of you know me very well and some of you know me only by how I help out the community, well recently i havnt been able to be on as much as I like with family issues and my sons school work. I also stoped growing recently because just taking care of a few plants was to busy for me to handle with everything.

So now i have started my grow back up and have happy!

But now i am having trouble with my grow and did some research on what was going on.

First when my 2nd grow happend i had a few problems with ph troubles and plants NOT wanting to retain there nutrients no matter what i did. balacing out the ph helped but still would not make the plants deficiency or (s) go away.......
My first grow i had no problems with ph or anything like this......
Now with my current grow i have 6 plants 1 which is showing a nitrogen deficiency and now my other final bogglegum is showing a deficiency and are not going away and getting worse....

my ph is at 6.5 and the run off is 6.7..... so how could this be when im supplimenting with nitrogen based nutrients and ph is where its supposed to be and yet the plants are not getting better?

Want to know why? Recently i have just found out... like about 3 days ago i found out that my city has a damn water softner to stop calcium buildup in there pipes because our city pipes are very very old and they didnt want to dig them up they seen it as a better idea to install a *!@^!&*@^!&*(%^!@% water softner.... and it was so messed up because i found out they was using a water softner because they sent out a brochure saying what there readings was and such how much junk is in the water and so on...... well on the back it said ensure cleaner water with our water softners we have installed.....
i found out that the beginning of spring summer they installed one..... and have put in heavier amounts of salt pellets in the water. So where does this come into play?

the salt takes away calcium and magnesium ions in the water so it pretty much replaces them with sodium which is toxic to plants in medium to high numbers, now plants do need small amounts of sodium, but the ones contained in water softners is by far triple the amount needed for the entire plants life!!! PLants will then start to grow new growths to about 3 to 5 inch tall and then stop growing and show signs of being sick!there for is where you get your "soft water" word from. and matter of fact thats all i had with my 2nd grow was mag deficiency releated issues.... you water your plants regulerly with this sodium water you get a buildup of sodium in the soil,therefore you can kill your plants in less then 6 months using water softned water. sodium is horrible when it comes to locking out nutrients. I have helped numerous people in sick plants and such and never have i seen someone talk about water softners and such. Now i know 100% that water softner water will cause either A calcium deficiency, phosphorus deficiency and or nitrogen deficiency and most likley magneisum. And most of all if you have a High ph the sodium build up will be worse when watering your plants with the soft water.
Why? because depending on how high your ph is it makes it harder for the plant to absorb certin nutrients, thus making more defiencys and harder for your plant....
SO how do you fix this problem?
You will either have to get bottled water and make sure the water your buying doesnt or hasnt been sodium ioned or run through a water softner.
always check the ph before watering and make sure there isnt sodium in the water your using.

You can either collect rain water and store it in a tub and what not for later use.

Boil water, by boiling water will get rid of some of the salts in the water, or if you want to see if you got sodium in your water you can either contact your local water company and ask them for a read out, which will not flag anything because, all you have to say is you need to know how much sodium is in the water because you are on a sodium restricted diet + alot of people ask for readouts of there water. Or you can boil some water in a pan and if you see some white stuff around the pan then you have sodium in your water..... the more white the worse you have.

Or you can go to a home when they are not there and use there water of the side of the house if you know they dont use a water softner but i dont reccomend doing that unless you got permisson!

So now im stuck at a dilemma here, one of my bogglegum though to be recovering and then when i watered her she went and relapsed again......shes 5 in tall and hasnt grown since! also you can tell early signs of water softner related issues is on the plant it mostly starts on older leaves mostly towards the tip or middle of the leaves and will show like a calcium deficency and some twisting sometimes. also it may show up like nutrient burn sorta then turn into the spot like calcium deficency, then it may go to showing a nitrogen deficiency like mine recently have done.
My 2nd grow showed first mag def then phosphosrus def and NO nitrogen def so it can be random depending on how bad and how much sodium is in the water.

I have included in here some pictures of what they may look like when you think you may have sodium buildup in your soil from the water you use. Also forgot to note that some of you know what thrip damage looks like..... looks like they peal away the green clorophyll from the leaves? well SOMEtimes in sodium toxicity plants like mine have now, when they first grow the leaves wil show like light light green patches and then the other parts the normal green color. it made it look like i had a slight pest problem which i did not have.

But here are some pictures here of what the damage looks like when using soft water.....
Sorry for the babbaling and such but i love to help out and want people to know water softner water is extremly bad for your plants and when you have NO idea what is wrong with your plants and you did everything the growfaqs have told you and what other people have told you and your plants are still sick?
Then you take a look at the main culprit...... your water!!!!

Picture 1 shows the weird pigmintation in the leaves, both of the plants have the same size and the other one was germed 5 days before which soulda been bigger.which are only 5 in tall if that and have not grown since

pictures 2 and 3 how the twisting of leaves and spots on how much it resembles calcium deficiency and high ph.

Picture 4 is from my other orange bud plant that is showing the same thing almost like nute burn but really isnt....

and picture 5 shows my sick bogglegum compared to its other one who is taller and have also stoped growing

here is a picture how a water softner works, it works off an ion exchange, as the hard water is passing through the softner,

The hard minerals will attach themselves to the resin beads, These beads is what contains sodium which is released at the exact same time as the other.
When the resin beads cant hold anymore calcium or magnesium, it has to be recharged. Recharging the system is taking the salt brine through the resin beads.

The sodium is what replaces the calcium and magnesium which is what is discharged from the waste it produces, thats why its bad to water plants with water softner based water. the sodium suppliments calcium magnesium which is why i get the calcium def along with the rest.......

 

[dre86]

Nothing wrong with most any water. Usually most bottled water like distilled has a ph around 7 or so. This is too high a ph.

hmm I though pH 7.0 is neutral and perfect for cannabis? I could be wrong though..

 

[MynameStitch]

if its soil growing yes, hydro and soiless no its to high

 

[imnotcrazy]

Yeah hydro is less than 6.2 I can attest to that.

 

[dre86]

ah thx *goes watering the plants with distilled water*

 

[Verite]

Imo 7.0 is too high even for soil. MJ likes it slightly acidic. I like it around 6.2 to 6.4

 

[MynameStitch]

sproutco you are the first peson so come on a pot growing site to give out advice when you are not growing nor have grown a single pot growing plant

 

[guineapig]

Go for a "Spring Water" variety rather than "Distilled Water" or "Drinking Water..."

The super-pure "Steam Distilled Water" if you get it, add your fertilizers (PBP or GH for
example) and then pH it. You will notice it has suddenly become very very acidic,
even though you just added a very small amount of fertilizer (even a few drops of
fertilizer!!!)......But, if you use 1/4 tap water with 3/4 steam-distilled water, you will
notice that the pH does not drop as dramatically and settles in at around a nice 5.9 or 6.2ish.....the tap water somehow "buffers" the pH shift that the small amount of ferts
causes....

I think this is all in "Big Toke's Water Thread" but guineapig has his own water thread
called "Water Water Everywhere......"

He (sproutco) might be reading from agricultural textbooks, but actual experiments
verify it....

kind regards from the guineapig

 

[MynameStitch]

Hey guinea send me a link to your thread i wanna read it