The importance of a pH pen

[Naycha]

No worries man. There are plenty of members here who have English as a second language or it's their first language and they just aren't as literate as some people. They still have plenty to contribute and should feel welcome.

[BigBudSpencer]

not always, pool PH strips are probably a bad idea, but you can get a very accurate liquid PH test kits I've been using one for all my grows and a few others use it as well.

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41okQ6eVM-L._AC_UL320_SR218,320_.jpg

People say you need an EC pen / tester as well, but you can get away without it either.

 

Ph strips with testers will work, but it's a shit load of fucking around to get a round about somewhere between 6 and 6.5 reading.

You have to handle the tube , add the drop and then try and compare to the colour to another colour in a grow room.

WHat a pain in the arse.

Ph pen you stick in, and 10 second later you have an extremely accurate reading.

 

I went through my first one and half  grows with no problems without a ph reader and did ok.

Hell I got 16 ounces average with a 600hps in a 1m by 1 m room.

 

Things chance, water changes and situations change, like in another post I just posted where my tap water has gone from 6ph to 7.5ph or more.

7.5ph didn't kill them, but it effectively stopped the growth for a week, so that's a week of electricity and my time lost.

I probably would have had to wait 4 weeks for the ph to drop back to 6, so I would have lost that amount of time, and I did in the second grow, that's when I bought a PH pen. 

 

The best thing I ever did.

EC reader again, not necessary BUT if you want to grow the fatest buds, with the exact amount of nutes( not wasting money or over feeding which slows them down as well and maybe burn them which slows them down.

 

In short you don't need either BUT, without them you're almost certainly wasting power, wasting nutes and taking longer to grow.

I like to turn it over as fastly and efficiently as I can, and without a PH pen and Ec reader you just can't do it.

 

 

 

 

[micmac]

A $12 dollar ph soil tester from bunnings will read water levels as well this will also tell you the reading in your grow medium