FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, I've been busy. For those of you that have already seen the Media Experiment I thread, then you are familiar with the picture below and the text that went with it:




I really was not happy with that experiment while I was doing it, afterwards...or even when I posted it. RODI water can settle with a pH anywhere from ~5 to ~7. The whole point of the experiment was to check the difference between the water and the various items. How can we honestly tell the difference when the starting point is subject to such variability? We can't really, so it seems like worthless effort and information...to me anyway. In short, it's been bugging me.

So, I decided to do something a bit different and more extensive. Hopefully this will provide more useable results over time.

First, I took a gallon of RODI and added 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda to it to give it a buffer. After multiple mixes and checking the pH multiple times...it settled on 7.14:




So, now we actually have a starting pH.


Realizing that that will effect the ppm...it needed to be checked:



102 ppm

So, we now have a liquid base of pH 7.14 and 102 ppm.


I have some 4 oz mason jars that I picked up for another purpose...decided not to use them for that, so they have been collecting dust for a little while. Now they have a purpose:



In short, I've decided to expand the pine jar experiment. I only have 12 of these jars to work with, so I came up with 12 variations:

Buffered water

Peat
Pine
Eco Earth
Procoir
Coffee

Peat + Coffee
Pine + Coffee
Eco Earth + Coffee
Procoir + Coffee

Peat + Pine
Procoir + Pine

Each jar has 1 teaspoon of each component in it + 3 oz of the buffered water. In other words, single components, for example: peat have 1 teaspoon of peat + 3 oz of buffered water. Jars with 2 components have 1 teaspoon of each component (2 teaspoons total) + 3 oz of buffered water.

^^^^That left me with a dilemma that I went back and forth on: Should I have maintained the 2 teaspoon total...even for single component items...or do it the way that I did it. I can see it both ways, so I had to choose and did it the way described above.


So, I loaded up each jar with the appropriate media, labeled them, and went outside to get the pine components. I got some more needles, a small pine cone, a couple small branches and some bark from a large branch. Then proceeded to chop it up:





I added a teaspoon to each of the appropriate jars and then kept moving forward. I used a 3 oz solo cup to measure the water for each jar:






Filled them all with the buffered water:




Then started vacuum-sealing them:




Got them all vacuum-sealed, ringed, put back in the box and the box back on a shelf:




I don't have any results, except for the buffered water, but the intent here is more long-term anyway. I don't plan on checking them the first time for at least 10 days, but I would like to check them 3 different times...say: 10 days, 30 days, 6 months...or something along those lines.

The point here is simply to see the difference between the starting points of the buffered water and the effect of each component(s). A pH of 7.14 I think shows that the water has only been slightly buffered, but enough to establish a fairly stable reading. Starting with "pure" water in a closed system...I think it will remain stable, but I saved a sample to check.