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water My Tap water ph is 9.0, is this ok?
- Thread starter Jeffcontonio
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They are flushing out the pipes city wide, I'm sure that's not helping
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Took me a while but I found this:
http://www.greenhousegrower.com/production/fertilization/understanding-plant-nutrition-irrigation-water-alkalinity-ph/
Essentially, water with a pH of 9 does not contain enough alkalinity to make a difference
"To compare the effect of water pH or alkalinity on the ability to raise pH (or neutralize acid) in a medium, 50 ppm alkalinity (which is a low alkalinity) would be similar to having a water with pH 11 (i.e. an extremely high pH). A water with a pH of 8.0 would have the same effect on substrate pH as an alkalinity concentration of only 0.05 ppm (i.e., almost nothing).
Don’t ignore water pH, though. Water pH is still important for crop management because it affects the solubility of fertilizers and the efficacy of insecticides and fungicides before you apply it to the crop (Figure 2). Generally, the higher the water pH, the lower the solubility of these materials."
http://www.greenhousegrower.com/production/fertilization/understanding-plant-nutrition-irrigation-water-alkalinity-ph/
Essentially, water with a pH of 9 does not contain enough alkalinity to make a difference
"To compare the effect of water pH or alkalinity on the ability to raise pH (or neutralize acid) in a medium, 50 ppm alkalinity (which is a low alkalinity) would be similar to having a water with pH 11 (i.e. an extremely high pH). A water with a pH of 8.0 would have the same effect on substrate pH as an alkalinity concentration of only 0.05 ppm (i.e., almost nothing).
Don’t ignore water pH, though. Water pH is still important for crop management because it affects the solubility of fertilizers and the efficacy of insecticides and fungicides before you apply it to the crop (Figure 2). Generally, the higher the water pH, the lower the solubility of these materials."
8.80 today
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My tap water is also a high PH.
The reason tap water is slightly alkaline is so that it does not rust pipes, taps & fittings etc as much.
Test it if you want. Place something in straight tap water, and something else in water which you have PH downed and see which rusts first
You can lower the PH of your water with citric acid or similar. (can be found in bulk @ some food/baking shops).
IMO you are better off sprinkling a little bit of flowers of sulphur ontop of the soil though. Saves you from mucking around mixing water all the time.
Just FYI - heres' a document on water treatment in Auckland, NZ. See I deal with the same things you do.
it says what they add to the water and why. and what PH they aim for.
https://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/water/13B.pdf
extract "Step 5 - Final water treatment The water is disinfected with sodium hypochlorite to destroy organic and nitrogenous matter, to precipitate out iron and manganese and to destroy bacteria and viruses. Lime is added to bring the pH up towards 8.0 (so that the water won't corrode pipes) and fluoride is added to reduce tooth decay in those who drink the water."
The reason tap water is slightly alkaline is so that it does not rust pipes, taps & fittings etc as much.
Test it if you want. Place something in straight tap water, and something else in water which you have PH downed and see which rusts first
You can lower the PH of your water with citric acid or similar. (can be found in bulk @ some food/baking shops).
IMO you are better off sprinkling a little bit of flowers of sulphur ontop of the soil though. Saves you from mucking around mixing water all the time.
Just FYI - heres' a document on water treatment in Auckland, NZ. See I deal with the same things you do.
it says what they add to the water and why. and what PH they aim for.
https://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/water/13B.pdf
extract "Step 5 - Final water treatment The water is disinfected with sodium hypochlorite to destroy organic and nitrogenous matter, to precipitate out iron and manganese and to destroy bacteria and viruses. Lime is added to bring the pH up towards 8.0 (so that the water won't corrode pipes) and fluoride is added to reduce tooth decay in those who drink the water."
Would cause an iron deficiency if it's made to precipitate the iron?nzchili said:My tap water is also a high PH.
The reason tap water is slightly alkaline is so that it does not rust pipes, taps & fittings etc as much.
Test it if you want. Place something in straight tap water, and something else in water which you have PH downed and see which rusts first
You can lower the PH of your water with citric acid or similar. (can be found in bulk @ some food/baking shops).
IMO you are better off sprinkling a little bit of flowers of sulphur ontop of the soil though. Saves you from mucking around mixing water all the time.
Just FYI - heres' a document on water treatment in Auckland, NZ. See I deal with the same things you do.
it says what they add to the water and why. and what PH they aim for.
https://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/water/13B.pdf
extract "Step 5 - Final water treatment The water is disinfected with sodium hypochlorite to destroy organic and nitrogenous matter, to precipitate out iron and manganese and to destroy bacteria and viruses. Lime is added to bring the pH up towards 8.0 (so that the water won't corrode pipes) and fluoride is added to reduce tooth decay in those who drink the water."
Should I just look into filtering my water right at the garden hose?
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Jeffcontonio said:
Depends if your soil needs to be supplemented with iron.
Soil is very rarely deficient in iron. An iron deficiency in a plant is almost always due to a high PH situation locking the iron out. As opposed to an actual lack of iron in the soil.
I like to think of iron as..well metal that's in the soil. If your PH is too high, it wont rust and break down so will be unavailable to plants.
Are you growing in containers? I would say just put a teaspoon or so of sulpur on top of the soil on each pot. Once a season. (say 20L size pots / normal bucket). Its not enough to really mess with the soil PH but should provide a good buffer against the water.
You could filter it straight from the hose. Im not sure what products are available to do that but it would work.
I just got sick of having to mix and test large quantities of water daily and my solution is sulphur. (elemental sulphur / flowers of sulphur. Very finely ground)
cheers