Botanicare kind question

OGMMJ said:

Hey rkyman as I mentioned I'm just now starting to get the hang of ppm and ec and have a few different meters to compare contrast with and until today I was running off ppm of a conversion rate of what I'm assuming is .5 but now I have a meter that measures both ppm and EC in us/cm and my ppm is measuring 365-375 and EC is measuring ~0715 which is .715 EC correct?

Question is using RO water I was under the impression that 3-400 ppm for 3-4 week old plants or so was a little on the low side of what I see most people running, plants are nice and green, am I headed the right direction? Thinking once they get 3-4 nodes I will up it to more of a 700-750ppm so an EC of roughly 1.5.

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i do EC for just that reason. EC is EC. ppm depends on what conversion it is based on .5, ,.7 etc

this is roughly what i go by for my EC:
seedlings 0.2 to 0.3
early veg 0.5
veg, transition,almost all flower 1.0 to 1.2
late flower 0.7 to 0.9

RO is great to use in that what is in the water is what you put in the water.

what nutes/additives do you use?

ThaMagnificent said:

EC stays the same. My tap ppm is usually ~230 and ph 7

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EC staying constant is great.

i personally like to see my EC drop a little every day. that way i know the plant is eating. EC can stay constant if you are nute locked and they aren't eating. which is bad.

ThaMagnificent said:

That was my first build. I built the veg system and then figured out it would be a hard to fit to put 3 of them in a 9x5 for flower so I switched to a 3x3 ebb and flo for veg and ebb and gro buckets for flower

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Nice sounds like a good system! Yeah I will not be able to run 3 flowering systems either, actually I will most likely only end up running 2 rails all said and done with 7-8 sites per rail. So I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time with vegging plants with no where to go which is okay during the spring summer because I have land but for the winters I will have to take the good ones to a buddies to finish, and just toss out all the others,

good thing is I will always have a huge selection of plants to send to flower, I'm hoping I can fit 3 rails in the space some how but don't see it happening with me still getting in there to garden (and empty the damn 5 gallon bucket the ac unit makes every week, it's in the far back corner fml)

I plan on framing up and lining my own flood table to fit my space if I can't get this system down (fingers crossed, really don't wanna do anymore rebuilding, already built 3 vegging units before I was happy, and 3 flowering rails before I found the 5x5 fence posts!) here's a peek at my tiny flower area that I'm going to make the most of, been running it for the past month or so fine tuning root zone temps/water temps/ canopy temps/ hot spots,

rkymtnman said:

EC staying constant is great.

i personally like to see my EC drop a little every day. that way i know the plant is eating. EC can stay constant if you are nute locked and they aren't eating. which is bad.

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The nute locking is what I'm afraid of.

With Botanicare isn't it recommended to do the silica first and then anything following for this reason?

rkymtnman said:

i do EC for just that reason. EC is EC. ppm depends on what conversion it is based on .5, ,.7 etc

this is roughly what i go by for my EC:
seedlings 0.2 to 0.3
early veg 0.5
veg, transition,almost all flower 1.0 to 1.2
late flower 0.7 to 0.9

RO is great to use in that what is in the water is what you put in the water.

what nutes/additives do you use?

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I am running botanicare kind
Liquid karma
Silica blast
Hydroguard
Pure blend pro tea
And base and grow of course
Also add pondzyme for the hydroguard relationship

So here's my confusion with your recommendations

My EC/ppm meter is reading 700ish in us/cm which I read you divide that by 1000 to get true EC. So my EC is .7 ish... That being said my ppm is only ~350, so if I were to run even a 1.0 EC in late flower that's only 500 ppm, you see my confusion? I believe it is in that I am not getting the true EC reading to begin with, I don't see 350 ppm worth of nute in RO water being almost the max I would run in late flower seeing as the plants are only about 3-4 weeks old and are not burning at all. So as they age I was going to increase nutes so before long I would be at 600-700 ppm which my meter would read as <1.0 EC I'm guessing it would read around 1200 us/cm being 1.2 EC (higher then you are recommending for fully matured plants) so my question... Is my meter not accurate? Is the conversion for dividing us/cm by 1000 to get EC not accurate? I really want to run off EC and not ppm but this is becoming a pain, I have 3 ppm meters and 2 ph meters and a meter that claims to readout in ppm and EC. Which is the one that reads 500ppm at 1000 us/cm (1.0 EC?)

rkymtnman said:

EC staying constant is great.

i personally like to see my EC drop a little every day. that way i know the plant is eating. EC can stay constant if you are nute locked and they aren't eating. which is bad.

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If the plants are locked out they will still drink which would lower your water level, as that water level lowers wouldn't that cause the EC to rise? If the plants are drinking and not eating how would the EC of a solution stay constant if water is being used but the food is not?

ThaMagnificent said:

The nute locking is what I'm afraid of.

With Botanicare isn't it recommended to do the silica first and then anything following for this reason?

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silica should always be added first. not that it locks out but because it precipitates in the water if added after nutes.

i'm not familiar with the botanicare kind. is it organic? or 100% synthetic?

OGMMJ said:

If the plants are locked out they will still drink which would lower your water level, as that water level lowers wouldn't that cause the EC to rise? If the plants are drinking and not eating how would the EC of a solution stay constant if water is being used but the food is not?

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if water level is dropping and EC is constant, that is fine. usually nute lockout they won't eat or drink. or if they drink, it's not nearly as much as normal.

OGMMJ said:

I am running botanicare kind
Liquid karma
Silica blast
Hydroguard
Pure blend pro tea
And base and grow of course
Also add pondzyme for the hydroguard relationship

So here's my confusion with your recommendations

My EC/ppm meter is reading 700ish in us/cm which I read you divide that by 1000 to get true EC. So my EC is .7 ish... That being said my ppm is only ~350, so if I were to run even a 1.0 EC in late flower that's only 500 ppm, you see my confusion? I believe it is in that I am not getting the true EC reading to begin with, I don't see 350 ppm worth of nute in RO water being almost the max I would run in late flower seeing as the plants are only about 3-4 weeks old and are not burning at all. So as they age I was going to increase nutes so before long I would be at 600-700 ppm which my meter would read as <1.0 EC I'm guessing it would read around 1200 us/cm being 1.2 EC (higher then you are recommending for fully matured plants) so my question... Is my meter not accurate? Is the conversion for dividing us/cm by 1000 to get EC not accurate? I really want to run off EC and not ppm but this is becoming a pain, I have 3 ppm meters and 2 ph meters and a meter that claims to readout in ppm and EC. Which is the one that reads 500ppm at 1000 us/cm (1.0 EC?)

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either go with EC or ppm. now i'm getting confused. lol.

let's stick with EC. 0715 is 0.7EC. EC is generally between 0 and 2.0

so with my feeding, at it's highest, it's 1.2EC (about 600ppm on 0.5 conversion)

it really boils down to your plants and what they need. if you see tip burn, your EC is too high obviously so you want to back it off a bit. if you start seeing nute deficiencies, then you'd want to up your EC a bit. this just takes time to learn and observe your plants. then when you get it dialed in for one strain, the next strain might need more or less nutes. also depends on lights too. leds tend to need less nutes than hps in my observations.

rkymtnman said:

if water level is dropping and EC is constant, that is fine. usually nute lockout they won't eat or drink. or if they drink, it's not nearly as much as normal.

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Hmm good to know, I figured if they were not drinking they would wilt almost instantly, especially in a hydro system.

In early veg the plants don't drink much anyway, what signs do you watch for to detect a lockout? And yes EC staying constant and water level dropping is ideal correct? That means the plant is drinking as much as it is eating and vice versa?

I'm actually wondering the same thing about bontanicare kind as well; from my research it is maybe kind of half and half? It's synthetic to a degree because I believe you could run it in a sterile res as well as a "live res" but I believe it is also on the organic side. And seeing as I am adding pure blend tea and liquid karma and running bennies, and it is marketed as almost the same as pure blend pro just with the ca boost in the base, I'm going to use the term organic.

As far as the silica blast I did not add it to the water first; and saw no direction from bontanicare regarding that so hopefully no ill effects from that, I will change the res tonight possibly still, but I checked it earlier and no slime and not to much sediment at the bottom other then what could come from the pondzyme and stuff floating in the nutes.

OGMMJ said:

In early veg the plants don't drink much anyway, what signs do you watch for to detect a lockout?

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that's why i like to feed lightly. less chance of nute lockout.

also depends on your hydro system: ebb/flow can handle higher EC since they aren't being fed all the time like they are in dwc/rdwc/etc where the roots are constantly in nute solution

rkymtnman said:

either go with EC or ppm. now i'm getting confused. lol.

let's stick with EC. 0715 is 0.7EC. EC is generally between 0 and 2.0

so with my feeding, at it's highest, it's 1.2EC (about 600ppm on 0.5 conversion).

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SORRY! I was confusing myself as well I believe.

Okay well I am already running high so I'm going to stick with it seeing as the plants are probably already accustom to it, so as they get larger I will bump up the ppm/EC, next round im interested to try your super low levels, (would only save money and make nutrients last longer) not that I mind spending dough on nutrients.

(Where I confused you and myself I believe)

I guess there was no inaccuracy in my meters or conversions or math but just in that I already started with a solution much higher then you would have, no signs of burn though so im Rollin with it, when they get to 3-4 nodes I'll try bumping it up to 700ish ppm 1.5ish EC or maybe just wait for the plants to show deficiencies. But I wanna make sure I'm getting maximum growth as well ya know.

Buttttt maybe there's a good rule of thumb hiding in there between nodes and nute strength based on your recommendations, something like

1st node .2-.3 EC (10-100ppm)
2nd 3nd nodes .5 EC (200-300ppm)
3rd 4th nodes (rest of veg/most of flower)1.0 EC (400-500 ppm)

Anyways probably unnecessary but might be an easy rule of thumb for a newbie to follow, might follow it myself over the next few rounds and see if it's fool proof, basically "seedling/clone" "early veg" and "veg" already speak that to the more expirenced growers.

rkymtnman said:

that's why i like to feed lightly. less chance of nute lockout.

also depends on your hydro system: ebb/flow can handle higher EC since they aren't being fed all the time like they are in dwc/rdwc/etc where the roots are constantly in nute solution

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Ahhh I now can clearly see the benefit to the lower feedings thanks @rkymtnman !

Now I question if I'm experiencing a lockout as we speak... Guess I'll take pics every day and we can monitor the growth rate and determine from there ?

I am running stinky methods, so sprayer assembly's so closer to ebb/flow then dwc, roots get showered every 5 minutes for a minute.

OGMMJ said:

SORRY! I was confusing myself as well I believe.

Okay well I am already running high so I'm going to stick with it seeing as the plants are probably already accustom to it, so as they get larger I will bump up the ppm/EC, next round im interested to try your super low levels, (would only save money and make nutrients last longer) not that I mind spending dough on nutrients.

(Where I confused you and myself I believe)

I guess there was no inaccuracy in my meters or conversions or math but just in that I already started with a solution much higher then you would have, no signs of burn though so im Rollin with it, when they get to 3-4 nodes I'll try bumping it up to 700ish ppm 1.5ish EC or maybe just wait for the plants to show deficiencies. But I wanna make sure I'm getting maximum growth as well ya know.

Buttttt maybe there's a good rule of thumb hiding in there between nodes and nute strength based on your recommendations, something like

1st node .2-.3 EC (10-100ppm)
2nd 3nd nodes .5 EC (200-300ppm)
3rd 4th nodes (rest of veg/most of flower)1.0 EC (400-500 ppm)

Anyways probably unnecessary but might be an easy rule of thumb for a newbie to follow, might follow it myself over the next few rounds and see if it's fool proof, basically "seedling/clone" "early veg" and "veg" already speak that to the more expirenced growers.

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just keep your eye out for tip burn and then back off if needed.
i've never done ebb/flow but i'm thinking instead of making nutes stronger, wouldn't increasing feed frequency also accomplish the same thing? if they are deficient at 1.5EC for example, instead of going up to 1.7, what if you went from feeding 4 times a day to 6 for example? interesting...

but those EC ranges are pretty good in my opinion that you posted.

one other good thing about light nutes is there is no need to flush during the grow or at the end.

OGMMJ said:

Ahhh I now can clearly see the benefit to the lower feedings thanks @rkymtnman !

Now I question if I'm experiencing a lockout as we speak... Guess I'll take pics every day and we can monitor the growth rate and determine from there ?

I am running stinky methods, so sprayer assembly's so closer to ebb/flow then dwc, roots get showered every 5 minutes for a minute.

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the best thing i ever learned about hydro is if you ever see anything weird happening (leaves canoeing, getting really dark green, tips burning, etc), the best thing you can do is give them just 0 EC water for 24hrs. after that, start back on half the nute strength you were feeding at and slowly work back up. it works everytime. and you'd be amazed at how much they drink and eat those first few days after you give them a 24hr flush.

heres my nute regimen if interested: flora duo A&B, silica, cal/mg, chlorine for sterile res. that's it. dont' get pulled in by all the snake oil additives. they aren't needed.

My ph climbs with kind as well. I usually have to adjust at least once.

tommy217xxx said:

My ph climbs with kind as well. I usually have to adjust at least once.

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A day? A week? Do you ph it down and let it climb the day after a res change?

How do these look? 2 weeks from seed. I know i started them a little early

I usually do a Rez change every 2 weeks or so. I also have to top my flower Rez off at least once or twice In that 2 weeks. I check it every day b/c I have a meter in each Rez. It usually needs to be ph'ed down.

tommy217xxx said:

I usually do a Rez change every 2 weeks or so. I also have to top my flower Rez off at least once or twice In that 2 weeks. I check it every day b/c I have a meter in each Rez. It usually needs to be ph'ed down.

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So you typically have to ph down once a day running the kind line?

Just wondering because I have Ben experiencing roughly a .1 climb every day but was just wondering if it was something I was doing, I'm going to ph all the way down to 5.5 and see how it acts lower just didn't want to jump it to much in one day, checked my cloner today and it was at 8! So do did a change and ph'd it down to 6.5 but ideally I would like to run like 5.8 in everything (of course if the plants seem to be happy)