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Sodium carbonate aka washing soda & soda ash for pH up

slashroot

slashroot

I tried to search on google for a while to find out if there are any answers to my question, didn't find anything specific.

Question is: Can washing soda be bad for the plants when used as pH up? What if you end up adding a lot of it, damaging?

It sure has worked good at bringing the pH up.
 
i use my tap water as ph up :rofl: it has like 200mg/l of carbonates! i only use baking soda when i try to dose acid without a pipette and mess up.
baking soda is just sodium bicarbonate, it disassociates in water to.... bicarbonate and sodium ions. plants can tolerate like ... alot of sodium, i think its even considered a nutrient. the only damage i can see somene doing with baking soda is adding so much that it pushes the ph waaaaaaaay up, which plants will not like.

but i dont think you are going to add so much baking soda that they will disagree with the added sodium. keep in mind tho, sodium is super conductive, so adding alot will throw off your ec readings.
 
queequeg152 said:
i use my tap water as ph up :rofl: it has like 200mg/l of carbonates! i only use baking soda when i try to dose acid without a pipette and mess up.
baking soda is just sodium bicarbonate, it disassociates in water to.... bicarbonate and sodium ions. plants can tolerate like ... alot of sodium, i think its even considered a nutrient. the only damage i can see somene doing with baking soda is adding so much that it pushes the ph waaaaaaaay up, which plants will not like.

but i dont think you are going to add so much baking soda that they will disagree with the added sodium. keep in mind tho, sodium is super conductive, so adding alot will throw off your ec readings.
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Thanks for heads up about baking soda pushing the EC, didn't think about that! So I should be fine pushing from 5.8 to 6.1 with baking soda. Sure tap water would increase the pH but also decrease the nutrient strength, right? Don't want to dilute my nutrients at the cost of increasing pH.
 
yea absolutly, you would have do dump like box into your fertilizer to damage your plants with excess sodium i bet.
5.8 to 6.1 is like nothing, probably like 50mg per liter... personally i wouldnt bother, 5.8 is what i aim for in a peat mix.
yea tap would dilute your nutrients, you are alot more fastidious than myself i guess lol. whats an extra gallon here or there? :party:
 
queequeg152 said:
yea absolutly, you would have do dump like box into your fertilizer to damage your plants with excess sodium i bet.
5.8 to 6.1 is like nothing, probably like 50mg per liter... personally i wouldnt bother, 5.8 is what i aim for in a peat mix.
yea tap would dilute your nutrients, you are alot more fastidious than myself i guess lol. whats an extra gallon here or there? :party:
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I'm still not exactly sure what difference it does between 5.8 and 6.1 pH. Just heard some people say 5.8 was too acidic for hydro and that 6.0 to 6.2 is a good range. Maybe that's wrong, I have no idea. Just following their advice haha
Some also say you should change pH depending on the plant stage, vegging or flowering and so on. I dunno about that, true or not.

I just got really paranoid noticing dry spots on some leaves, thought maybe it was the washing soda doing it. Now I am pretty sure it was only water on the leaves while the growlight was on, making the water like a magnifying glass burning a hole.
 
I wouldn't use it, as it only dissolves unnecessary salts in the hydroponic solution, that are not in a form which plant could benefit from. Buy a usual potassium hydroxide and it will do a 100x better job.
 
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