General Hydroponics PH Down Dry Acid for Gardening, 2.2-Pound

This product has very limited information on the label or the listing and is unsuitable for many uses. If you are using this for hydroponics, the label should really be telling you how much of the various fertilizers are in it so that you can account for them in your program.If you are using this in an aquarium/aquaponics system, the lack of labeling information on the nitrogenous ingredients will quite possibly cause a deadly nitrite spike long before you see any change in pH. This is what happened to me, but thankfully it was before I put fish in my system. Since adding this stuff to my system resulted in me needing to recycle it, I missed the window on getting fish shipped in before the winter. I could have predicted the results of using this product had they printed useful information on the package. There isn't even adequate safety, disposal, or emergency information on the package. One reviewer stated that they placed it in the trash after trying it and likely didn't realize how dangerous that was because there is so little information on the package.If you buy this, know that it is not simply "powder that makes the pH go down". As far as I can make out from the label, it contains ammonia, urea, sulfur, phosphorus, and citric acid. If you are of the belief that adding lemon juice to a fish tank will kill off your biological filter ( many people believe this, I don't personally know if it's true and suspect the preservative sodium bisulfite ), then you should know that citric acid is the ingredient in lemon juice cited for this effect, and this pH Down powder uses citric acid. If you are buying this because you think you need to lower your pH when you really have a salt buildup, nitrogen overdose, or phosphorus lockout, this powder may quickly put an end to that attempt of gardening without giving you the information that should have came with the purchase.Be aware that this can quickly cause salt buildup in your system. After using this to lower my pH from 8 to 7.8, the surface of my media formed white salt crust that didn't taste like table salt, and then all plant stems that touched this salt while whetted turned black at the point of contact, and died. A bunch of purple leaves leads me to think that this powder caused a phosphorus overload, but the package states that it's up to the user to determine how to use the product and gives no instructions besides "slowly lower the pH". My water tests indicated a large climb in ammonia, with nitrate and nitrite readings above the limits of the test kit. I was using one scoop every other day for about a week and a half in a 200 gallon system. The pH barely moved at all. I lost several plants, and if I had fish in the system, they would have been wiped out.In the end, this crap did lots of bad stuff and barely did anything to the pH ( which went right back up after I stopped using it). I still don't have fish because they don't ship in the winter, but my water characteristics are now safe for fish and plants with my pH slowly coming down to where I want it... I put 2 cups of urine in the system every morning and I'm producing good vegetables without deadly salt building up or wild nutrient swings. This pH down did nasty things to my system, while a daily whiz seems to be all that I needed (the biological conversion of urea into nitrate is what is naturally lowering the pH as the plants remove the nitrate for growth).I think the only way to use this product correctly is with reverse osmosis water, and only then after sending a sample of the powder for chemical analysis so that you can factor in the other ingredients that the manufacturer chose not to detail.

This Ph reducer works very well and in the times I used it seemed stable and properly processed. Be warned - I tried an offbrand citric acid ph down crystals and paid a dear price. Here's the problem, the off brand ones are usually being made in someone's 'home business' and the crystals arent properly processed and so sugars are left in them, so when I used it for a while I couldn't figure out why my Ph kept going up (I mean up to like 8.0 or higher), then after a while I noticed little clear like discs in my reservoir, pulled it out and it was filled with them in the water....what happened was this...the cheap ph down I used had the sugar in them still and the sugar provided food for cultures in the water which then went haywire and of course as the Ph went up I would add more crystals to bring it down thereby providing them another burst of food. I went back to this one, the General Hydroponics, and no problems at all. Lesson learned.

I received this product as a solid brick which was...let's say, less than what I expected. However, I assume that it will still lower the PH of my water so i'll give it four stars. This is definitely a better buy than the PH down liquid as many others have stated. the bang-for-buck meter is going off the wall with this deal. My only caution to buyers is make sure you handle this stuff with gloves because i guess it can be pretty corrosive and make sure you have an extra baggy to put it in because you won't be able to use the original one if your package is anything like mine.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION: "Ingredients: pH DownTM Dry Concentrate contains ammonium sulfate, citric acid, and urea phosphate. The exact concentration of each chemical ingredient is a trade secret."Boy was I surprised when I found out my tap water was 9.47 pH! About 1/8 teaspoon per gallon levels me out to 6.0 to water the plants. Wow that's concentrated!While I'm not sure of the volume of this container it looks like just over 3 cups (I don't feel like 'playing' with acid to get it measured), which for me is roughly 1200 gallons of pH'd water. My PPM went up by 10 if I remember correctly, while other acids I have used raised me by 40-100. It may take me 2 years to use this bag but I'll definitely be buying some more.

Previously, I had been using vinegar and lemon juice to drop my pH, but no more!!It would normally take 10 - 15 ml of vinegar to drop my pH to 6.0, now it only takes1ml of this pH down to drop it to the same level. This formula also has a pH buffer in it, which helps maintain the correct pH over a few days. The chemical buffers work by detecting pH increases, and then it releases pH down molecules to decrease the pH back to a good level. This is a great price for 2 lbs of this solution, it'll last until the end of the season.I highly recommend this item..Thanks!!C. Cole PhD

Although this 2.2 lb bag will last you a very long time compared to the liquid bottle, it WILL cloud up your nutrient mix and cause a PH spike! I Lost an entire grow because it this very reason. I thought it was some kind of algae or bacteria causing the water to turn cloudy. Numerous water changes ( 70 gal ) also switched nutrients but water would still turn cloudy in a matter days. Eventually the plants became to sick to save from the insane PH spike. When I started over, I PH'd the fresh water in my system and let that ran over night. About 36 hours later, I went to add nutrients and that's when I found the water cloudy again. I drained all the old water and added new water. This time I used the liquid bottle to PH it down to 5.6. 4 days later water was still clear. Added Nutes and plants to the system and everything went smooth as it did before I used the powdered bag. Lesson learned. I hope to take my mistake into consideration....