HI775 Fresh Water Alkalinity Checker- How to Use for Hydroponics

This is a cool meter for a very important and often overlooked water quality parameter. Check your freshwater alkalinity using calorimetry in minutes. Find out if your RO filters need servicing or just know what your alkalinity is if using one or more water sources for your garden.

NOTE* chlorine in samples will affect the measurement, so a carbon pre-filter will need to be used for certain municipal water sources.

HI775 is sold in the aquarium industry but has a lot of value for hydroponics. If using RO(Reverse Osmosis) water, your alkalinity is zero and pH will be easily adjusted, even unstable to a degree.
For no-till or hydroponics, base water alkalinity can cause pH to drift up over time. Conversely, low alkalinity can cause soil or media to become acidic over time affecting nutrient availability and reducing yields.

Alkalinity also tells you how much acid you will need to add to adjust pH and if you use dosers to take care of this task, you'll need to monitor and adjust frequently. Also, if using RO, this water will have an affinity for ions until it reaches equilibrium.

Some gardeners with very soft or RO water are using "calcite chargers" running the base water through Calcium and other Minerals to preload the water before supplementing other nutrients. This is a newer concept to me but it makes sense. Here's a chat from the Nectar of the God's folks:    • Starting the conversation about alkal...  

"Alkalinity refers to the capability of water to neutralize acid. This is really an expression of buffering capacity. A buffer is a solution to which an acid can be added without changing the concentration of available H+ ions (without changing the pH) appreciably." -https://www.water-research.net

And here's an in-depth explanation of Alkalinity from Greenhouse Grower
https://www.greenhousegrower.com/prod...

Certain municipalities, Boulder County Colorado for example, use different reservoirs and the water quality can vary greatly in a day having really hard water one day and soft the next.

You can find this and a few other of my favorite GroLine meters and solutions at https://deeprootedhemp.com/collection...

Music Credit: KT and Oatmeal Music!!    / @kenthomas8181