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Hi Fellow Gardeners,

 

I'm on my second grow. Using Cana coco and DTW feeding via hydro halos from a pump sitting in a 45 litre container under a 400w HPS. I use H&G nutes A+B only. I've got a cheapie ebay PH pen (the yellow one for $12). I think I'm suffering from some type of PH issues at the moment coming into the 4th week of flower but am not sure hence my suspect is the cheap ebay PH pen. I've not calibrated it since I got it about 2 months ago. My PH according to that pen is usually anywhere between 5.3 and 6.6 so according to what I've read that is ok.

 

Tossing up 2 options now and would like to know what members think. 1) stick with the ebay cheapie PH pen and buy a bottle of PH7.0 buffer solution and calibrate regularly OR 2) buy a better PH pen (most likely still need to buy the buffer solution unless its got a factory reset which recalibrates to PH7.0 as I noted some do).

 

My question - Why invest in a more expensive PH pen (I've seen they can get up to $200)? Whats the benefit over just manually recalibrating the cheaper one a bit more often? What does the extra cash give me? Does it only save me from recalibrating so often? I can buy a 1 litre bottle of PH7.0 test buffer for $20. 

 

I find that I need to use it once every 10 days or so as once the 45 litre container sets at a PH it pretty much stays stable.

 

Would like your opinions on why its good to invest in a quality PH pen and which brand is good - I've read about BlueLabs.

 

Thanks!

 

MLG.

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Thanks all for your replies. As usual I've done a lot of overthinking about this in the past week. I've also pulled the trigger and bought a HM Digital ph meter, PH-80. This pen is sold at a big Sydney hydro shop which I've noted sells quality stuff so hope should be ok - it was $80 (discount from over $100). I also bought both buffer 7.0 solution and the storage solution both at $7.50 for each. So hope that is ok. 

I'll be interested to see how my ebay cheapie stacks up against it over a few months. I'll update here when I do.

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Just a quick update on this. Using both pens side by side now. New one (exy one) came about a day after my last post so about 2 weeks ago. The cheapie is now reading 0.2 less than the exy one. This is in line with my previous observation as the ebay pen I found was 0.4 out (less) than the true reading according to the 7.0 buffer solution.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using OZ Stoners

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