How long can you "keep" nute water?

I've been mixing my Technoflora nutrients (B.C. Boost, B.C. Grow. Thrive Alive, Magical, Sugar daddy) by the gallon. I don't quite use both gallon of nutrient. How long will this keep? Can i use it the following day or even the day after?

I always use mine up within a week but I hear others say they use it throughout a month period.

I trow out mine if I don't use it in a week. The problem is that some of the water evaporates, which makes the fert mix stronger. Try to watch the water line to get an idea of how much evaporation occurs.

I use mine within three or four days, never had a problem.

You never have to change that water if you dont want to. Many using a reservoir will go 3-4 harvests before actually breakin down and cleaning a reservoir. As long as you have a good cleaning additive and H2O2 life is good for Ebb and Gro'ers!

The big worry here seems to be "Oh, water evaporates, so it'll screw up your nutrient mix". Truth. But the fix for it is simple. ADD WATER and maintain the same ppm. You can manage pH too right? When ppm gets too high, consider water your "ppm down". =)

researchkitty said:

You never have to change that water if you dont want to. Many using a reservoir will go 3-4 harvests before actually breakin down and cleaning a reservoir. As long as you have a good cleaning additive and H2O2 life is good for Ebb and Gro'ers!

The big worry here seems to be "Oh, water evaporates, so it'll screw up your nutrient mix". Truth. But the fix for it is simple. ADD WATER and maintain the same ppm. You can manage pH too right? When ppm gets too high, consider water your "ppm down". =)

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U made the assumption that it was a DWC or a soiless grow....sounds like he talkin bout soil tho...

I throw mine out after a week. Well used to.. I have enough plants that i use everything I make up now..

just keep it in the fridge

anonymuss said:

just keep it in the fridge

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I dont agree with this..what do u do when ure ready to use it to warm it up? Cuz u cant use refrigerated nutes. The cold temp may shock the roots.

cORRECTO........Besides the bigger the res the more time u have inbetween nut changeout..

The main issues (assuming sealed container so no evaporation) with storing nute water is precipitation of nutes out of solution and combination of nute compounds. If given long enough various chemicals in solution will combine with others to form compounds the plant can't use or compounds that will solidify out of solution. This is one reason you don't see many liquid 1-part nutes because it is not a trivial task to make it stable and have a decent shelf life.

If you're using old nute water the first thing to check is if there are solids collecting in the bottom. If so, toss it out. However, the plant usable compounds may have split/combined with others to form compounds the plant can't use, so there is still a chance the water is bad.

If you're just storing for a week you're probably fine. If you want to pre-mix the nutes with water well in advance you can, just keep the nutes separate. For instance instead of adding 10 ml gro and 10 ml bloom to 1 gal water add them to separate 1/2 gal containers. Then use equal amounts of each of these dilutions at watering time. This way is more complicated (especially with lots of different nutes), so make sure you double check your math for watering amounts. If you're using dirt you still want to mix all the premixes together before watering, for hydro it doesn't matter since they'll mix in the reservoir.

Remember: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Thanks everyone. I have been using some covered drinking containers, and i have noticed the water getting "cloudy" and some kind of light film on the surface. maybe the refrigerator idea isnt too bad if I pulled it out to get to room temp an hour before.

Oh, and about never changing water and just watching PPM levels. Unless you have some fancy-ass equipment, you're probably just using a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter which doesn't tell you anything about individual concentrations. This means unless your plant uses up the nutes in the exact same proportions as you add them (which won't happen) you're nute ratio is going get more and more off as you keep topping off the reservoir even if you keep the TDS PPM dead on.

Maintaining TDS PPM will allow you to change the reservoir less often, but you still need to do it occasionally. Certainly at least between crops.

Personally, I don't own a TDS meter. I just top off my reservoirs with water as needed and then change them every 2 weeks. This may result in low nute levels towards the end of the 2 weeks, but it lets me have more control over the nute ratios, and I know that no nutes are accumulating because they aren't being used quickly enough.

Thanks for the hydro tips, i am using this nutrient solution on soil for clarification. checkout my journal