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I’m on my 2nd grow (7th week w/ autoflowers) and I’m running into pH issues. First grow I was using about 300-400% more pH down per gallon of water. Things are getting so acidic now the next time I water I’m going to use pH up. I’m wondering, is carbon filtered city tap water (not well water) known to fluctuate with the seasons?  To make it simple, my tap water comes from Lake Michigan.  Does Lake Michigan become more acidic in the winter?  Is there something I’m not thinking of that happens when it’s cold out that makes tap water more acidic?

I tested with an Apera PH20 digital meter multiple times and calibrated it every time. I also used the pH test kit drops that come with the pH kit you can get on Amazon and everything lines up.  pH down gets added last so it’s not that newbie mistake.

I have a plan to bring the pH up, I’m just wondering how the pH of my soil (FFOF) got so low (5.8ish) when I always test pH and whatever I’m feeding has never been below 6.3. Up until ~2 weeks ago the only other thing besides water that went into the soil was Recharge and maybe 1 ML total of cal/mag.

I know you’re supposed to wait to see the effects of pH down when using hydroponics but I didn’t think that was the case when you were just putting it into a gallon of water. Are you supposed to let it sit for 30 minutes or something before you test pH?  Like it’s showing 6.5 right after I put it in but 30 minutes later when it’s sitting in the soil it’s actually at 5.5 or something?

Thanks for any advice.  My first grow wouldn’t have been a success had it not been for the DGC 🙂