Reverse osmosis and calmag

intenseneal said:

Yeah it took very little ph down like 3 drops in a gallon. Yeah 240ppm was just ro and tap water no nutes this watering, i feed nutes every other watering. So 200-250ppm is too high iyo? I though you wanted a base water at about that ppm before adding your nutes?

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I do 150. I'm not mad-scientist about it--adding drops of tap water, measuring the PPM change until I get exactly 150. But, I try to be close. Say, 135-165.

I don't do water-only feedings. I believe people feed/water/feed to let the soil biology recover from synthetic nutrients. If I did that, I would add so-called inoculates to the water. (Myco? a tea? I'm not as familiar with these things as I'd like to be.). Without stuff like that, I don't see any reason to do strong/zero/strong nutrients. I think it's preferrable to spread those nutrients across each watering, affect the soil microbes less all the time instead of more/none/more. But, maybe I'm wrong and there's a reason to do it the way people do. You might try spreading the nutrients across each watering and see how it compares, if you haven't before.

I don't know if 200-250ppm would be different than 150. I know GH Flora 3-part is designed for 200 or less. If a user has > 200, GH recommends a "hard water" version of their Micro product. 150 is recommended by one of the "how to" authors. Rosenthal I think.

I've used gh 3 part regular with 230 starting point on my well water for years.Never really had any problems with it.Most of what you find in tap is calcium and magnesium,small amounts of iron(in most places).

I always bring my RO water to 30 ppms of potassium silicate, and 70 ppms of cal-mag plus bringing my starting water to 100 ppms in hydro.

DesertGrow89 said:

My opinion is that doubling suggested doses of micronutrients, especially on a frequent basis, is generally a badbadnotgood idea. Large amounts of Ca can interfere with the absorption of K and vice versa. Note that a if K is locked out it can't be fixed by adding more K, but reducing your amount of Ca supplementation.

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Ca and Mg are both macro nutrients needed in abundant quantities. Plants need more Ca than they need P.

Ca can lockout K, but it's very hard to lockout K since it has a +1 charge. Ca is more likely to block out Mg because both of them have a +2 charge. Fe can have a +2 or a +3 charge and can also be locked out easily by Ca.

What matters the most with a hydroponic formula is the ratios between metals... K:Ca , Ca:Mg , Ca:Fe , etc.

Here's a screenshot of mix #18 in hydrobuddy (for hard water only! 500ppm tap!):



Substances go in A or B stock solutions:



The stock solutions are used in equal parts, 10mL of each per gallon of reservoir solution. I can't fit the nitric acid in part A, so I use that separately.

Also... Notice that calcium nitrate is the main ingredient! It's the key to feeding plants nitrogen and calcium in hydro.

weedemart said:

calimagic calcium source is carbonate so I recommand you follow the dosage and never more. carbonate are insoluble , they are usually used as buffer in RO... this is not really intended to increase available calcium. Too much carbonates will interact with other element and might cause lock out/deficiency

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Couldn't say it better. Fuck calcium carbonate as a calcium source. Calcium nitrate is the preferred method for me.

The bottle of calmag should have calcium nitrate, magnesium nitrate and iron EDTA.

Igotthe6 said:

I've used gh 3 part regular with 230 starting point on my well water for years. Never really had any problems with it.

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I'm sure GH's 200ppm isn't a firm cutoff. Probably the best answer to @intenseneal is to try one way or the other for awhile, then try the other way and see how more starting tap ppms compare to less. I've used 120-180 over time and it seems to work fine. It's probably not too touchy.

Igotthe6 said:

Most of what you find in tap is calcium and magnesium, small amounts of iron(in most places).

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That's a good point. In the desert, my water may be more sodium than others. Maybe 240ppm would be less problematic for neal. I should try adding epsom and gypsum (or dissolved eggshell if the combined sulfur of those two is too much) to RO water instead of tap water. I might not be getting enough Ca and Mg in my water due to how my ppms are dominated by sodium and sulfates.

Pretty sure my water is supplies by the Colorado River, thats what my water company reports. I have not fou d any good water reports with a break down of everything in the water, only a report on basically ppb of harmful compounds in water like mercury, arsenic, lead, harmful bacterias ect bht none of the good stuff like cal mag iron potassium silica ect. As i said before my tap water 500+ just checked my jug of tap watrr that sat open over night and it is 550ppm. We have very hard water here and i do know there is a lot of cal and iron in it.
Az200 you make yet another good point about feeding less more often. I am not doing nearly as much nutes this time. With a base of 200-250ppm i end up at 350ppm after veg nutes and some boiroot that u only use in the first few weeks of the plants life. Im leting the plants teel me what they want instead of pushing the limits of feeding nutes.

Oh figured i would add what my nute line up is. Growing in soil with bacterial additive like Mykos, using Roots Organics OrganismXL this time. Botanicare pro grow and pro bloom, General Hydroponics kool bloom, Gerneral Organics bioroot, my calmg is General Organics calmag plus and in the past i have used Botanicare berry and raw sweets in veg and beavy in flower. I got more berry sweet but not sure if i even need or want ti use it. Guess i should add i use t5ho lighting and will be adding blurpul leds in flower.