I also use pH Up to adjust my watering, but I don't know what it is. I use RO water that changes from 7.0 at output to about 5.2 while sitting in the collection barrels. After adding fertilizer I was down to 4.2 or so. I had switched to RO when the county started adding sodium hydroxide to increase the previous 6.5 pH up to 8.4. I definitely wouldn't recommend that as an answer. But nearby in San Francisco, they add potassium hydroxide to raise the pH. People I know using the water may lower the pH, and the potassium hydroxide doesn't seem to have any adverse effect.
If you make a stock solution of fertilizer with pH Up, one thing you might want to watch out for is the precipitation of minerals from the fertilizer solution. I finally went to dual injector pumps because I started having what appeared to be mineral deficiencies. If you are just making up the dilute fertilizer, I was told to add the pH Up first, mix well, and then add the fertilizer. Marni -- Marni Turkel Stony Point Ceramic Design 2080 Llano Rd 1B Santa Rosa, CA 95407 Phone 707-579-5567 Fax 707-579-1116 Web http://www.marniturkel.com Barrel Rims: web http://www.BarrelRims.com _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
