Jacks (JR Peters) nutrients

EC goes down ph goes up = good things
EC goes up and or ph goes down = over fertilizing or root disease

I'm very shitty when it comes to note keeping. A few years back, I sought to create and build a fully automated system like a growbot, but DIY, just to defer the note keeping to a machine. It's a weakness I've come to accept about myself many moons ago. That aside, I do keep decent notes in my head and am mapping things there. So here's the basic run down in days,

Early bloom - 2 15minute feeds spaced evenly, about week 4, kick that up to 3 times daily, and finish with 4 times per day. I also use ACT with Great White about twice weekly till about week 6-7.

day 1) dump last week's, fill with 10 gals RO, mix silica first, then nutes, add the fulvic last. I'll soon stop using that mix due to the kelp, but generally that product is either being consumed in 2 days, or settling, but not staying suspended. Ironically, after mix and maybe 5 mins recirculating (look at my plumbing in pic) PH lands very near 6.1. If I mix the res before first feeding, I just wait, but if in between the 2, I'll send some through the media, then test the runoff PH and EC to acknowledge any difference, but there's never, not since GH.

day 2) I try to get at it before first feed, but either way, PH is up above 6.7. I beat that back with about 10-15ml of PH down and all's well

day 3) PH is about 6.3 or 6.4. Still a tad high for my liking so I add 3-5ml PH down.

day 4-7 all's fairly stable. Go back to 1.

With GH, I used to practice flushing with 2.5 gallons of RO just before starting transition in 1212, and also at mid bloom, otherwise the tops of the RW cubes would look like Frosted Mini Wheat's cereal. But with Jack's I haven't had to do that ever. On my TDS pen (.5CF), after mixing everything and circulating for a while, It's about 730-750, so about 1.4-1.5 EC more or less, but Hydro Buddy will tell me it's 1.0 or 1.1. I'm assuming the difference in elemental percentages in the guaranteed analyses and 100 is some inert materials that aren't soluble or conductive. At least that's I sleep at night.

I used to use silica as a foliar, but then put it in the tank and sort of never stopped. I also used it as a PH up with GH, but generally, especially with Kush, I needed flexibility in the stems because they grow long and thin. I assume the cheese is the same way as I just yesterday found my first in bloom to have split and a major top went down. That happened some time during the night, I think I was able to save it. Still, I need to work more silica into veg and maybe less in bloom? I feel that would've prevented the Cheese split.

I know, lots of speculation in my grow. I'm a fan of fake it till ya make it. I taught myself far too many skills and I will step my grow skills up, but till I get there, I have to wing it some times.

Regarding my automation project, I got about 90% there, but I need to find or design a printable valve, then I'm golden!

Edit - those air pots are 7 gallon

ok

theres a lot of extra info in there to sift theru to get the answer to my question

am I understanding correctly your saying you start at ph 6.1 on a new reservoir
and by the next day its 6.4 to 6.7

if I understood that correctly

heres my adivise


and id pre soak your medium longer
soak the medium in 5.0 solution after 24 hours test the ph of the solution the medium has been sitting and and make sure its under 6.0 the next day

when you set up a new reservoir
id start at a lower ph of 5.3 to 5.5 to begin with

omit the silica in the reservoir or use a very miniscule amount if you feel you must! (10ppm si)
silica adds K and the extra K will throw out the ratio between K,Ca,Mg so if you do use it make sure you formulate the added K so your mix doesn't end up out of balance

keep a log of the reservoir changes
it can be daily or every three days

right the results down with dates so you can track the reservoir changes and see trends over weeks or months

manage your reservoir with these rules in mind

EC goes down ph goes up fast = raise EC
EC goes down and ph goes up slow = perfection
EC goes up and or ph goes down = lower EC

if your EC goes down and ph goes up theres no need to flush, EVER!
only flush if the EC is trending up...if its trending down don't ever flush

I run dtw in rockwool and my EC sweet spot is between 1.2 and 1.4 depending on environment

I don't have a reservoir so I test my waste
ideally I like to see the Ph of the waste to be under 6.2 and the EC close or just under the feed EC

also
frequency of watering and duration can play a huge roll
make sure when you watwer you get 25% run off... so if your pushing 1 gallon in you should get 1 pint out from the bottom with each watering
watering more frequently will also decrease the ph swing so you could consider doing some testing on run off vs duration and see if you can irrigate less volume and increase irrigation frequency (provided you maintain the 20 to 25% run off)

another consideration is the reservoir size
if the reservoir is sized too small for the plant count or plant size your going to get big spikes in the reservoir
a small reservoir will change the content faster than a large one
I don't have the info to determine that but its something for you to consider

assuming the reservoir is sized properly and the solution EC is in proper range and in a perfect world
id like to see a reservoir start at (hypothetical) EC 1.4 PH 5.3 and over a 5 to 7 day span it might change to EC 1.2 PH 6.0
this would indicate a well balanced fertilizer solution at peak or ideal EC

or something like that
if the swing is faster id consider making some adjustments

You comprehended my long winded post about right. I didn't want to give not enough. I've been using RW for about 4-5 years, and only began having the PH spikes since I started using Jacks and other salts. I reckon Jacks and others are not buffered to be mixed with silica, whereas GH is. As I said, I'll soon get what I need to blend into Jacks or make my own PH down and chase this issue out (assuming it's not deficiencies). On Grodan's site, they say only a half hour soak is needed which I'll go back to that practice to maintain my grow better, but I'm not convinced that a soak is needed if the nutrients are buffered good, and in my past only noticed negligible PH movement after transplanting. Because I use a recirculating system, I run a lot more liquids through the pots several times per day. Ever since stopping the GH, I don't need to flush with plain RO periodically because what goes into the pot is near identical to what comes out.

When in veg, I only feed once a day for 2 minutes, unless prepping to go to bloom, then it's twice. I veg for at least 2 months, and only 1 plant per ~4x4~ space, perpetual with offsetting light schedules to spread out electric current draw. I top as much as possible in veg and get inner/lower branches removed there as well to prep for success in bloom. I'm slowly dialing it all in and adopting better practices and will try to keep better physical notes to assist with diagnostics.

Hydro Buddy factors in the contents of the silica when computing my ranges. I'm using 20ppm of silica and the K results are ideal, it just lessens other stuff. It's a wicked cool program now that I know how to use it. I could spend hours trying other products in place of Jacks just to see if the others will easily conclude within your numbers and my findings. Of course, I'll keep looking for better products and hopefully soon have it so I aint gotta buy too much. Less is more, right?

http://grodan101.com/faq/soaking-grodan-proper-ph-growing

FWIW, your values when mixed per full gallon resolve perfectly and give my plants just enough of everything and the RW likes it too. no salt build up, Even when I finally reigned in GH, anything 800 on the meter would climb to 950. With Jacks it tops out at 750 and falls to 730. I just need to buffer it better.

I know the manufacturer says 30 minutes

ive been using RW for 15+ years

take a fresh un used cube.... soak it in 5.5 for thirty minutes like the manufacturer says

then wait 24 hours and squezze the water out of the cube and test it

youll see

I'll give that a whirl, but it wouldn't be a fair comparison because that would be a small qty of PHed RO that has no other EC to influence the PH aside from what's in the cube. When recirculating, just in the course of a week I can safely estimate that I pushed hundreds of times the volume of the pot which would quickly wash out anything that can get washed out.

Edit - I timed my pumps when writing code that toggles a relay for that amount of time, It takes my pumps 33 seconds to produce 1 gallon, so 27+ gallons is sent through the pot no less than twice per day in bloom, and a little more than 3 gals per feeding in veg.

nxsov180db said:

EC doesn't matter without a plant. The rockwool will raise the ph on you. I've been having these problems myself.. I've actually had my runoff come out .4ec higher than the feed and the ph be higher also..

Click to expand...

When comparing how the liquid PH will behave when test A has 005 TDS and test B has 750 TDS, obviously the 750 will stand it's ground with 150 times more resistance to the upward draw of the residual lime still embedded in the RW. I guess the only way to test is to test both and observe the swing from both. I predict the 005 test will spike, but I predict the 750 will blip.

Can I get opinions about the different results from 2 different micro nutrient supplements?

I didn't set the weight, I set most of the targets, and the app did it's best to give me my targets, but asI found out, Jack's 5-12-26, when used at lower doses, is lacking on micros, so I reinforced with GH Flora Micro, so I want to get a soluble micro mix for when it's gone. I'm still trying to locate more ideal ranges for each micro nutrient and wanted to hear people's thoughts about the results. Most targets have 0% error, so spot on, but the only micros I targeted were 2ppm for Iron and 0.2ppm for Zinc. The remaining micros are relative to those numbers. Like in the Nutrient Pack, the copper looks a bit low, yet in the STEM, Manganese and maybe Zinc might be high. I have little knowledge to feel safe about wingin it, but I basically want help choosing between S.T.E.M. or the Micro Nutrient Pack from Kelp4Less.

nxsov180db said:

I’ve used stem without any problems. Micros can vary quite a bit between different brands. I think as long as they’re getting micros you should be ok.. I know sometimes if you’re anything like me you want to hear a more definitive answer..

Click to expand...

I'm mostly concerned that nothing is toxic, then hopefully down the road collect more information to refine the ranges of each like im4satori has shared for N-P-K-/-Ca-Mg-Fe.

what best choice for soil anyone?

i was pick one Jacks Classic Citrus Feed 20-10-20 ( For veg )
Jacks AquaGold Finisher J.R. Peters 7-15-30 ( for bloom )

is good choice?

I'm going to try this finish formula on my cheese before flush. I got to looking at GH's finish formula, considered I bought 5 pounds of potassium sulfate that I'd like to one day use, and also considered im4satori's numbers and stretched them to within reason to give a final bump of K and elevate the sulfur. This formula will only be used for a week or less, just before flush. Any thoughts, experience or just something you read in passing?



GH Finish

nxsov180db said:

I don't really understand the reason to change your nute's for only a week before the flush.. If you want to use your potassium sulfate just use it all through bloom like I do. 1 week isn't going to do anything..

Click to expand...

As I said, I got to looking at GH ....

Can I see what your feed chart looks like?

I definitely agree with being all over the map, but I can only base my decisions on what I know, which currently isn't a whole lot. im4satori has been very gracious to share his experience with the macros and their ranges for veg and bloom, so I saved all of that info and merged with the things I've learned in my years, reverse engineering feed lines and a few other sources of info. But just as I wasn't all that satisfied when looking at the 321 plants I've seen in threads or on YouTube, that carries into my suspicion that blanket feed schedules throughout. Don't misunderstand me though, all I want to know is the truth, irregardless of who has it. So I will continue researching the topic to flesh out exactly what's needed and when. The numbers you've shared do look great based on satori's numbers and other things I've learned, but I'm still going to dig through your posts to see what your plants have looked like so I can add or subtract credibility but generally speaking here's my train of thought.

• Transition into 12/12 high N, but lower than N in veg. Ramp up P a little and K too. Elevate sulfur as well
• stretch still needs a lot of N and Ca
• as bud sites begin to develop, gradually raise P and K to the safe max
• around week 5 or 6 reduce N and P and leave alone or slightly elevate K

Is any of the above wrong, if so what and why? I'm not trying to be too pushy and a lot of times I type way too much in search of the best info, so I per-apologize for that, but as said, I just want the truth and I don't care who has it.

nxsov180db said:

I've only started running bloom nutes from day 1 of bloom the last 2 rounds, for me it's just easier because I use nutrient injectors and I have multiple stages of bloom happening, that's also a big reason why I run the same mix from day 1 to harvest. I also ran pretty high P for a couple runs, I did a 1:1:2/NPK ratio, I didn't have an issues but I can really say anything grew better either. Before that I did a 2:1:3 ratio and again everything grew fine. Now what I'm using is kind of something kinda inbetween a 1:1:2 and a 2:1:3..

Click to expand...

I aim to take a pound per plant to keep my plant count low, so I have 1 plant per bloom room, each under about 400 wall watts of Vero29 COBs (x6) and a 10 gallon res, top feed over potted rock wool cubes or chunks. When I was feeding P @ 65ppm, I was having minor P deficiencies so I bumped it up to 70 and so far it's responding well. Thankfully my setup affords me the luxury of correcting imbalances on a single plant. I hope to really dial in the most advantageous ranges for all the macros and major micros (secondaries?), and I have a fairly wide variety of products to help me get there. Yourself being an ex GH Flora grower should know that even though that line is hot as balls in the EC dept, I bet you still took down some majorly fat plants regardless of that mix adding quite a few different problems from the gate. I sure have. I got to the point where I was adding more than full strength supplements, and thinning out the 3 part so not to exceed 900 TDS by the end of bloom, and still after all of that nonsense, I still got hefty harvests, even though my leaves were expressing every def/tox/lockout imaginable. That said, I assume GH isn't too far from the mark. Their macros are hot as hell, but everything else ins't too far out of range (IMO). I'm using Flora Micro now to back build what Jack's lacks. I have a pound of STEM that I might use, but those levels rub me the wrong way and I'll keep looking for a more evenly balanced line so I can safely target Iron and not get too much of something else.

As to my post from last night, I call it a pre flush regimen because I am raising K to harden the buds, sulfur for the smells, but also am depleting everything else so half of the work is done in flush, much like stripping out the inner branches in veg to prep for bloom. GH calls the final week "Finish", but I don't think that accurately describes what's achieved.

nxsov180db said:

now I'm mixing my own micros.

Click to expand...

That's where I'm heading, but I may have found a really good liquid micro mix last night by SNS called Perfect Mix. The ratios to each other look very balanced IMO. Your thoughts?

Also, what are your custom micro PPM levels?

https://sierranaturalscience.com/micro/

Yeah, IDK why I was so mesmerized last night, maybe the evenness got me giddy and made me overlook that.