pH in S/H

[sailor]

I am starting garden plants in S/H and will be setting up a true hydro system soon. The hydro sites all talk about the importance of maintaining a slightly acidic wetting solution to improve nutrient uptake and to eliminate salt adhesion to the clay media. This might help explain some of the recent complaints about Prime Agra in another thread. I have searched, but have not found any discussions about lowering pH for S/H.

There are tons of good info sites, but here is start:

Simply Hydroponics - pH

And an exerpt:

WHY IS pH IMPORTANT?

When the pH is not at the proper level the plant will lose it's ability to absorb some of the essential elements required for healthy growth. For all plants there is a particular pH level that will produce optimum results. This pH level will vary from plant to plant, but in general most plants prefer a slightly acid growing environment (between 6.0 - 6.5), although most plants can still survive in an environment with a pH of between 5.0 and 7.5.

When pH raises above 6.5 some of the nutrients and micro-nutrients begin to precipitate out of solution and can stick to the walls of the reservoir and growing chambers. For example: Iron will be about half precipitated at the pH level of 7.3 and at about 8.0 there is virtually no iron left in solution at all. In order for your plants to use the nutrients they must be dissolved in the solution. Once the nutrients have precipitated out of solution your plants can no longer absorb them and will suffer (or die). Some nutrients will precipitate out of solution when the pH drops also.