Help me understand PPM (EC) levels please.......

Hello fellow RIU members...

I have read that the ideal PPM levels for seedlings are 100-250.....

does that only account for N-P-K nutrients? or is that TOTAL PPM?

i have 0PPM RO water, meaning that i should add some CalMag...

so my best looking seedling (23 days) which seems to be in the early stages of vegetative growth.. i gave her about 1/10 strength of the NPK Boost and Grow dose which is about 120PPM (according to technaflora), i then added about full strength of GH's CalMag supplement (13mls to 4 gallons of H2O, full dose would have been 16ml) and half strength of SugarDaddy (7ml)

the total PPM of the solution was about 350-360 PPM after, but the breakdown was like this:

WATER: 0PPM
NPK (Boost Grow) : ~120 PPM
CaliMagic + SugarDaddy: ~ 140 PPM

SugarDaddy: 1.6% Mag, 1.7% Sulfur no NPK.
CaliMagic: 1%N, 5% Ca, 1.5% Mg

i looked today and her second set of leaves seems to be BURNED! FML... what am i doing wrong?
i drained some water from the bucket and added about 1.5 gallons of fresh RO water... that dropped the PPM to about 250 which i hope is a better range........ thanks in advance for the help

You are looking for a total of all the additives you put in you water. in other words once you've added all, you should have a toal of 100 to 200. you must also include the ppm of your water if you're not using ro water. at least that's how I do it.

Boost grow?? Idk what that is but keep it simple for your babies.......at that stage I would add 60-80 ppm of cal mag first then another 80 ppm of grow and that's it....when and only when your plants start showing signs of slight deficiencies I would bump up the grow by 100-200 ppm.As far as Cal mag I never go over 120 ppm.......and no sugar daddy yet either.....

jcdws602 said:

Boost grow?? Idk what that is but keep it simple for your babies.......at that stage I would add 60-80 ppm of cal mag first then another 80 ppm of grow and that's it....when and only when your plants start showing signs of slight deficiencies I would bump up the grow by 100-200 ppm.As far as Cal mag I never go over 120 ppm.......and no sugar daddy yet either.....

Click to expand...

thanks man i guess i was just looking at the whole recipe.

full strength was about 1100PPM for the vegetative formula so 1/10 would give me about 110-120PPM and then add a little bit more calmag since im using RO water...

when should i bump it? just when they show a mild deficinecy?

Yup, only feed when they ask......keep it simple, give them what they need not what you want and you'll see how much easier your grows can be : )