Nutrient Ratios Information

[Skybound420]

What is your preferred ppm for each of the micros? That's what I'm having the toughest time researching right now. I suspect that what I can produce with Peter's Professional 5-11-26 and S.T.E.M. doesn't leave me with ideal balances, at least not for canna.

Is a milliMole always 24mg, or multiples thereof? That's cool that you can pinpoint the resulting PPM of each element in the math. I can only presume that Hydro Buddy uses the same math to result the way it does, some of which derived from saved values of certain things like nitrates and sulfates and phosphates etc. It's all new to me, I'm still getting used to seeing things listed in chemical compositions. My eyes still cross when looking at compounds like K2SO4 which I assume is potassium sulfate? Kinda rhetorical as I'll look it up regardless cause I hate not knowing, lol.

 

[Skybound420]

Here is my mid bloom regimen for after stretch till late bloom. I targeted the macros and secondaries, but only targeted Fe in the micros to ensure I get my 2ppm of iron. I also wanted to target Mn=1, Zn=.3, B=.3, Cu=.2 and Mo=.05, but doing so caused Hydro Buddy to consider those targets which resulted in my Fe dropping to 1.7. I now want to tweak the STEM to have more Fe to lower the rest a piece.



Edit - Hydro Buddy had most of those compounds in it's library, but I found the percentages didn't match the percentages given on my product labels, so I chose to create my own custom solutions in hydro buddy to get the most accurate results. Aside from that minor Ca deficiency, and also a minor P deficiency that I've since corrected, my Triple Cheese loves this regimen.

 

[HydroLynx]

i actually havnt found one, and Im using sulfate salts for my micros except iron, which i use EDTA.

I took high school chemistry and when I was 14 I read my mom's chemistry college books because I wanted to make gunpowder and rockets lol, so i learnt the language young.

It's tricky i confess. Yes, in the sense that if I have say 1 milli mole of Magnesium Sulfate 1MgSO4, because the Mg bit weighs 24mg, you can think of it in terms of multiples of 24 if you incriment your 1milli mole of MgSO4 up to 2 milli moles, which would give 48mg of Mg, and 3 milli moles would be 72mg of Mg. The sulfur goes up in multiples of 32 because 1 milli mole of sulfur gives us 32mg. This means that sulfur is always higher than Mg if using just MgSO4 salt in your mix. 2 milli moles of MgSO4 gives 48mg of Mg but a bigger 64mg of S!

When I was saying 1mM MgSO4 i'm talking in terms of Molarity which is slightly different. It's a concentration thing, meaning final solution volume is involed, and thus ppm by extension (our goal). Take 1 milli mole of say MgSO4 dissolved in 1 liter of water, you can now speak of concentration. But moles per liter doesn't say much for our end purpose, that's why we convert the milli mole per liter, into milligrams per liter of water. Just follow the same process of looking up the molar mass value for each nutirent element (like Mg = 24, S=32 according to wikipedia, rounded off). So 1 milli mole of MgSO4 dissolved in 1 liter of water, will give us 1 milli molar mass unit or 24, ie 24mg per liter in our case. Why? Because we can super easiliy convert mg per liter of water into the ppm scale, here they both equal each other, that's why 1mg per liter water = 1ppm. Because 1 thousandths of a thousand parts = 1:1000000, or 1 part per million. Check out manicbotanix.com for a great tutorial.

Sulfate (sulphate older spelling) has 1 sulfur atom stuck to 4 oxygen atoms. Sulfate means SO4 and sulfite would be SO3, with just 3 oxygen atoms. It's like a language anyone can learn, and does get confusing with other salts like nitrate which is NO3 (not NO4), nitrite being NO2. Also sulfate has a charge of -2 and potassium has a electric charge of +1, so when they combine it's always is in the ratio of 2 potassiums to 1 sulfate to make the charges balance, hence K2SO4 (not KSO4). Subscripts for the numbers help to read the formula. Try read up and watch khan academy stuff on basic inorganic chemistry, will help maybe.

 

[HydroLynx]

Are you not having problems with the silica in your stock solution? I hear various things about this

 

[Skybound420]

Are you not having problems with the silica in your stock solution? I hear various things about this

I've been visiting manicbotanix a lot lately and I'll make it a point to peruse the Mm tutorial(s). I've been using silica for years, but upon switching from wet nutes to dry nutes, I discontinued it briefly and quickly regretted that choice b/c my nugs got a bit of mold for the first time in my growing life (about 5 years), plus also once the buds fatten up, some branches were snapping due to lack of flexibility. I've obviously started using it in my stock solutions again, and I do admit it's tricky to use. It's my current experience that when mixing up a new res for the week, the PH settles usually in the area of 6.0, but after about 12 hours and a feeding or two, it shoots up to 6.5, so every second day I need to beat it back down to about 6.0-5.9 with PH down, but then it climbs back up and after the third day of beating it down it stays in the range for the rest of the week. I plan to experiment with a slightly lower PPM of not less than 25. I'm also hoping to stumble on some information how to better buffer my stocks to account for that. I think AN buffers their PH Perfect line with chelates and aminos, but good luck to me finding exactly how.

Edit - FYI, I don't mix A/B solutions, but rather keep each product in their own very mild concentrates to be used to make weekly res changes. I have 6 different nute regimens, and having 9 bottles to build them with, I'm able to efficiently tweak the macro targets and as you can see, hit them all spot on. I mix 1 gram to 10ml of RO or 378.54 grams per gallon of RO. This keep precipitation to a min, plus makes it stupid easy to extract something like 0.04 grams per gallon of something, first by shifting the decimal, then multiply that by the size of the res. So in a 10 gallon res, that 0.04 grams per gallon would be a simple 4ml dose.

 

[HydroLynx]

Intresting sounds like the Silicate acts as a alkaline buffer or is eating up your acid buffer. Most people don't know what a buffer really is. It's not just a pH downer. Sulfuric Acid drops the pH, but Phosphoric acid is a buffer system per se, so it drops the pH not too far, but it keeps it down for longer using chemical reactions, basically it secretes more acid only under alkaline conditions, kinda like feedback control. I love the concept, only found this out few months back.

Yeah I like the 2-bottle control most, I use bottle A to control N and bottle B to control K and also P. I did think of maybe adding all nutes separetly to the res, for more control like you say, but i find that the control isn't really much more because the salts come with a parnter, like MKP has P and K, so you can't give one without the other. And i rate that there is a way to add all nutes in balanced ratios in just 2 bottles, juts takes some rubix cube puzzle fun time lol. That's juts me maybe.

 

[Skybound420]

I believe you are correct, I just haven't yet excelled enough in my learning to that level yet.

In my regimen, MKP is used to control the P, even though K is also raised, but because K is the most used element, the additions never overdo it, likely because the Peter's Hydroponic also has K, Potassium silicate obviously and potassium sulfate, though I've not been able to get the app to factor that one in except for the final week when I jack up the S and K, just prior to flush.

It seems that most content I've found on the web most steers clear of attempting to pinpoint ideal ppm ranges of the trace elements, especially as it relates to cannabis. There's even less options for micro mixes. There's STEM, MOST which I think might be the same with different names, and also Kelp4Less has something called Micro Nutrient Pack, and that's all I was able to find, but I honestly don't like the levels of any of them even though I'm using STEM. I was able to narrow those down when comparing Hoagland, Steiner and GH, then another RIU user shared his custom micro line that's in perfect agreement with the ranges I've found, but I was hoping to find more information I guess.

 

[Billy Liar]

Interesting discussion... Here's something I'm playing around with.. It's a start to finish recipe using a top-off solution without reservoir change-outs. This was devised by Bruce Bugbee for Tomatoes, seed to harvest using the minimum amount of water. He used leaf, stem and solution analysis to ensure healthy plants. This recipe is for low humidity, high transpiration, higher humidity would require a higher concentration. The 1/2 Hoagland is just a comparison, you're looking at the starter, veg and fruit columns.


Peace
BL

 

[HydroLynx]

Interesting discussion... Here's something I'm playing around with.. It's a start to finish recipe using a top-off solution without reservoir change-outs. This was devised by Bruce Bugbee for Tomatoes, seed to harvest using the minimum amount of water. He used leaf, stem and solution analysis to ensure healthy plants. This recipe is for low humidity, high transpiration, higher humidity would require a higher concentration. The 1/2 Hoagland is just a comparison, you're looking at the starter, veg and fruit columns.
View attachment 4246150

Peace
BL

I have slight feeling that the Hoagland solution has too much K for Cannabis. Antagonizes Ca and Mg uptake. Tomatoes apparently just need more K tho.

Intresting that you running starter solution and then use a different refill solution. I read a paper by Voogt (1992), on reusing nutrient solutions, he seemed to add just NPK and Manganese Mn in the refill, as those were actively transported into the plant (uses ATP and is much faster than passive nutrient uptake). Run a year-round tomato crop on a single initial res change at beg of crop

 

[HydroLynx]

I believe you are correct, I just haven't yet excelled enough in my learning to that level yet.

In my regimen, MKP is used to control the P, even though K is also raised, but because K is the most used element, the additions never overdo it, likely because the Peter's Hydroponic also has K, Potassium silicate obviously and potassium sulfate, though I've not been able to get the app to factor that one in except for the final week when I jack up the S and K, just prior to flush.

It seems that most content I've found on the web most steers clear of attempting to pinpoint ideal ppm ranges of the trace elements, especially as it relates to cannabis. There's even less options for micro mixes. There's STEM, MOST which I think might be the same with different names, and also Kelp4Less has something called Micro Nutrient Pack, and that's all I was able to find, but I honestly don't like the levels of any of them even though I'm using STEM. I was able to narrow those down when comparing Hoagland, Steiner and GH, then another RIU user shared his custom micro line that's in perfect agreement with the ranges I've found, but I was hoping to find more information I guess.

Sorry for late reply, been building a grow room, what a distraction that is for my existing crop. Anyways, I added K2SO4 to my res now as she is nearly done (thanx for the reminder).

Yeah micros is a whole other issue, why I had separete formula for dealing with them. The plant will get what they want from most products, they adapt. I was using Fe EDTA and non-chelates for the rest and didn't seem to have too a problem. I do want to use chelates tho, found this site that can ship down to me https://phygenera.de/Reagents-and-Chemicals

I added a pic of my crop, exodus cheese, I rate the necrotic leaves are from over feeding. It is summer here and roasty, res temp 25 degrees C (77F). Running Samsung LED strips at about 1200 umol/m2.

 

[Billy Liar]

I have slight feeling that the Hoagland solution has too much K for Cannabis. Antagonizes Ca and Mg uptake. Tomatoes apparently just need more K tho.

Intresting that you running starter solution and then use a different refill solution. I read a paper by Voogt (1992), on reusing nutrient solutions, he seemed to add just NPK and Manganese Mn in the refill, as those were actively transported into the plant (uses ATP and is much faster than passive nutrient uptake). Run a year-round tomato crop on a single initial res change at beg of crop

Cannabis plants that grow big flowers can use all the K in Hoagland and more I've found, I've run over 300mg/L to good effect, but the plant must be using it IMO. And yes you're right keeping K high in the active parts of the recirculating system can inhibit Ca uptake. But K is removed quickly from the solution, so if its fed through the top off solution Ca uptake will be increased as there's never much K in the active parts of the system, it's all in the plant within a few hours of being in the system.

I'm working on a decent top-off solution for cannabis, using the recipes I've posted above as a base for experiments. Already Ca seemed low under higher lighting levels.

I can believe that it's possible to run a top off solution with just NPK and Mn, they're the group of active uptake elements as you say. But I'd prefer lower levels of all other elements in the active system, especially Ca as it will drive up EC and would be affecting osmotic pressure. Cannabis doesn't seem as tolerant to salinity as tomatoes.

Peace
BL

 

[Billy Liar]

Not sure what country you're in but I use solufeed TEC for all micros.

https://uk.solufeed.com/products/chelates/solufeed-tec

I use a bit of 7% Fe EDTA too.

Peace
BL

 

[Skybound420]

Here's 2 other related threads on RIU;

https://www.rollitup.org/t/jacks-jr-peters-nutrients.850683/page-40#post-14518827

https://www.rollitup.org/t/jacks-321-questions.974851/page-9#post-14631616

I spent some months picking the brains of experienced growers to nail down safe ranges to build out from and aside from a minor calcium issue, my plants are growing perfectly. You'll notice the macro ranges are nowhere near Hoagland's. The approach is to give as much of what's needed without overdoing it because then you'll be seeing deficiency, yet in reality it's a lockout due to toxicity. I'm just about to start flush on a Triple Cheese and she looks downright lovely across the board. Here are the ranges I've been using. I have a few regimens to target certain macros depending on growth stage, albeit Early Veg, Late Veg, Transition, Stretch, Mid Bloom and Pre Flush/Finisher.

 

[Skybound420]

2 weeks prior, I had 9 big ass donkey dicks standing tall, but the fattening caused all but 2 to flop out to a wall or onto other branches. The cola in the back/left with the yoyo had snapped itself under it's own weight. I found it the next morning hanging and got a yoyo on there fast as I could. This is my first time with this strain too and I have 2 cuts of her in other bloom rooms, one half done the other just started. I'll likely jack the calcium up 5 or 10 more ppm throughout.

 

[Billy Liar]

Hoagland is specific to a certain amount of water per plant. And I don't think they topped up with full strength solution. Maybe 1/3 strength.. I'm not sure.

Yours look great there..
Not too sure about that yellow growth near the bottom center of the picture lol..

You can easily go at least 10mg/L more Ca IMO, especially if you're confident the plants are using it, and that it's the cause of your deficiency. I get a Ca deficiency with the 115mg/L in the Jack's recipe. Plants don't always need the N that comes with Ca in CaNO3 when well into flower, so I have a calcium chelate for times like that.
You can also drop most of that P once past say half way flower or so. I've dropped to 15mg/L for the final 3-4 weeks with great results. I just don't think as much P is needed as most recipes call for. You'll not see effects of excess P by the time you harvest IMO, but surely the end product will be nicer for the consumer if it's all been used up...?

The best way is to work it out for yourself, I think. The Jack's recipe seems to work different for me in my room than it does for others I see on the net. So I have to tweak.. Also I like to express the control I have by being able to reduce or increase certain elements as the plants grow and mature.

Peace
BL

 

[Billy Liar]

Buds like this one will use up over 320mg/L K in my experience. P reduced to around 15mg/L from mid flower.



Peace
BL
Edit to add pic

 

[Skybound420]

That "yellow growth" you see is a yoyo hanger. For the sake of comprehension, does mg/liter directly translate to ppm? All of my ratios are expressed as ppm as I didn't yet learn the math needed to convert and solely rely on hydro buddy to do all the math. Just after stretch and I changed to the mid bloom feed with slightly reduced N and elevated P and K, I began to see signs of the start of a P deficiency and that was at 65ppm. I since raised it to 70ppm and the signs abated. My finishing mix reduces P to 50 I think and N to 75 while jacking up the K to 160, but as I said, this is my first go with this strain and I'm also very new to mixing my own nutes and am still working out the best regimens based on what I see in the plant and will definitely require a few more rounds before I can better dial it in.

I also use a 3rd source of calcium called Biomin Chelated Calcium that is a different kind of cal nitrate, except the Biomin has much more calcium to nitrogen than regular cal nit.

 

[Skybound420]

The chelated calcium I use.

https://customhydronutrients.com/biomin-calcium-powder-amino-acid-chelated-fertilizer-c-1_47_570.html

 

[bearded.beaver]

I'm a soil grower, growing earth boxes. But I still find this really interesting. If I could use those numbers and customize an organic soil to match those numbers. I would be GOD. Or the male version of mother nature.

 

[Billy Liar]

Yes mg/L is parts per million!

Not just saying it because I'm British, but it's much better and easier to work in the metric system where nutrients are concerned. Litres, and grams directly relate to Mg/L which is PPM. No conversion factors or any other things to be misinterpreted.

I thought it was a rubber duck at forst lol.

Peace
BL