I have been reading about water Ph and the need for a slightly acid water Ph for most Bonsais. What is the Ph range that is best and does Mirai alter its water Ph? My water seems to run around 7.3-4+_ Should I adjust it?
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Ryan has talked about one of the main reasons he chose the property for Mirai being the fantastic water quality that does not require altering of the pH, so they do not alter theirs.
7.3ish sounds just barely higher than ideal, but in my opinion fine. I alter mine in the summer or droughts here when it gets over 8. I did not take steps to reduce pH at my previous house where it was closer to 7.
I agree that 7.3-7.4 is probably OK, but 6.5-7.0 is probably better. I reduce mine from 8. There was a fairly long thread about this and methods to reduce the pH on the forum about a year ago so you might look for that.
Tds I find is a higher concern than 7.3 water. How hard your water,total dissolved solids is also something to really consider
My water ph was the same as yours however once I reduced it to around 6.2 I noticed far better health in my trees and a lot of dissolved solids being removed from the containers. Ie calcium
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My water is listed as a hardness of 152 mg/L and total dissolved solids of 148 mg/L before treatment. I agree the tree health improved, but I don’t recall seeing any difference in calcium deposits.
Where is ‘West Linn’. Chlorinated water?
I bought a pH meter in November. Not had a chance to check pot / soil relative pH yet. Water is about 7.8
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My major mental issue is the chlorine they spuriously put into the drinking water here, especially in the fall. The deap aquifer well water here is some of the finest int he US. Barring the minor hardness. Pure. (The local housing developers refuse to install backflush valves. Fall blowout of irrigation systems push fecal coliforms into the main system…)
Big city culinary water is ALWAYS chlorinated to kill bacteria. Mandated.
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Don’t like it at all. Trees do wonderful all summer, and the start looking down in the fall… Working on best scheme to deal with it. Simple filters will NOT remove it. Maybe reverse osmosis. Then you need to supliment the lost ions some way…
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I’m also suspicious of the bonsai soil components I’m buying. Ryan had a batch of lava rock that was high in elemental leachable BORON. Horrible on bonsai cultivation. Displaces calcium… Wish I had a X-Ray fluorescence spectrophotometer… to check ALL of my soil, pots, and water… Only $30k. 
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Never seems to get easier.
This isn’t rocket science. That I understand… 
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Bonsai On!
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