120-60-300-120-60-177.2 Nutrient Tutorial, or, My Thread Can Beat Up Your Thread.

[El Cerebro]

ok so then how is dangling roots in the dydro section affecting all this^ compared to just straight chow dtw?

 

[El Cerebro]

Lost was a funny one, gave me some good laughs when i was really sick and there weren't that many to be had. Hope that cat is still enjoying life..

another thought, how will the dtw-rate affect these isssues JK just brought up?

i'm currently at 3min when they wake up, then 1min every hour until bedtime, manifold valves adjusted for slight runoff each time to hopefully make for ~10-15% total.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

Lost was a funny one, gave me some good laughs when i was really sick and there weren't that many to be had. Hope that cat is still enjoying life..

another thought, how will the dtw-rate affect these isssues JK just brought up?

i'm currently at 3min when they wake up, then 1min every hour until bedtime, manifold valves adjusted for slight runoff each time to hopefully make for ~10-15% total.

At one min feeds how much is actually going in what size bucket?

 

[Capulator]

I personally am running 20 seconds on 1 min off during lights on in a 12 gallon container with 50/50 perlite coco. I dont check run off anymore. On my 4th round of reused. it comes out to about 2-3 gallons a day per site... something like that. The mix stays moist all the time and the plants blow up.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

I personally am running 20 seconds on 1 min off during lights on in a 12 gallon container with 50/50 perlite coco. I dont check run off anymore. On my 4th round of reused. it comes out to about 2-3 gallons a day per site... something like that. The mix stays moist all the time and the plants blow up.

Times ratios are good to know but the amount running through is what we are after. different mediums dictate the amount of moisture. If I remember right you feed somewhere around 1700 ppm (i assume conv .5) Using coir that long it really absorbs moisture and holds it longer. You say your plants blow up but have you run some side by sides. I would think in my room if I feed a plant like that at night(lights out) with a 600 ppm at 6.0 pH for 2-3 days you would see better growth. Roots action is a 2 way street. Sometimes you need different pressure. Keeping track of a plants internal pH would help in this, if you have a few hundred fun tickets to play with. JK

 

[Capulator]

Times ratios are good to know but the amount running through is what we are after. different mediums dictate the amount of moisture. If I remember right you feed somewhere around 1700 ppm (i assume conv .5) Using coir that long it really absorbs moisture and holds it longer. You say your plants blow up but have you run some side by sides. I would think in my room if I feed a plant like that at night(lights out) with a 600 ppm at 6.0 pH for 2-3 days you would see better growth. Roots action is a 2 way street. Sometimes you need different pressure. Keeping track of a plants internal pH would help in this, if you have a few hundred fun tickets to play with. JK

hmmmmm. I am at 700-1000ppm on a .5 scale. I have not run side by sides yet. I just started working with coco less than a year ago. DO you mean 600ppm at night, and higher during light on, or just lower ppms, nightly drench only.

I think I have some fun tickets laying around. How can I spend them, and on what kind of fancy pants equipment?

 

[El Cerebro]

Times ratios are good to know but the amount running through is what we are after. different mediums dictate the amount of moisture. If I remember right you feed somewhere around 1700 ppm (i assume conv .5) Using coir that long it really absorbs moisture and holds it longer. You say your plants blow up but have you run some side by sides. I would think in my room if I feed a plant like that at night(lights out) with a 600 ppm at 6.0 pH for 2-3 days you would see better growth. Roots action is a 2 way street. Sometimes you need different pressure. Keeping track of a plants internal pH would help in this, if you have a few hundred fun tickets to play with. JK

^kind of what i was getting at. the ones i mentioned are just small 1gal testers, haven't checked exact daily volume, maybe drinking .5-1gal each. just gave that rate as an example, doesn't really mean much without the other variables.

thing i'm curious about is how smaller container size interplays with nute ratios, esp K. above are in ~60/40 chow, happy up to ~2ec at 80F with no co2. I recently bumped them a little higher during pk-boost wk6/7, and started seeing Ca lockout from the high K (running close to Dankworth's ratios but diluted to ~.67). for this setup i'll prob run ~1.5ec next time with lower K ratio, then bump to 2ec with P/K and drop N completely (haven't decided exactly when yet). but not drop the Ca, will adjust that with CaCl2 instead of the calnit. might also play-with Ksulf vs Mgsulf while lowering the K.

if i had co2 in this tester-gig, ppms might be ~20% higher or so based on prev experience (closer to what i run for bushes/trees). with 70/30 chow in 10G smarties dtw i was used to running ~3ec, peaking around 3.5 (hoping to reduce this significantly as i progress with balancing the salts, while running tricks like iba/triac/bap6/fulvic/act/crobes/sar/etc)

 

[ttystikk]

^kind of what i was getting at. the ones i mentioned are just small 1gal testers, haven't checked exact daily volume, maybe drinking .5-1gal each. just gave that rate as an example, doesn't really mean much without the other variables.

thing i'm curious about is how smaller container size interplays with nute ratios, esp K. above are in ~60/40 chow, happy up to ~2ec at 80F with no co2. I recently bumped them a little higher during pk-boost wk6/7, and started seeing Ca lockout from the high K (running close to Dankworth's ratios but diluted to ~.67). for this setup i'll prob run ~1.5ec next time with lower K ratio, then bump to 2ec with P/K and drop N completely (haven't decided exactly when yet). but not drop the Ca, will adjust that with CaCl2 instead of the calnit. might also play-with Ksulf vs Mgsulf while lowering the K.

if i had co2 in this tester-gig, ppms might be ~20% higher or so based on prev experience (closer to what i run for bushes/trees). with 70/30 chow in 10G smarties dtw i was used to running ~3ec, peaking around 3.5 (hoping to reduce this significantly as i progress with balancing the salts, while running tricks like iba/triac/bap6/fulvic/act/crobes/sar/etc)

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I never noticed CO2 making a difference in how my plants respond to nutrients. On the other hand, humidity did, Big time- higher humidity really made my girls want their nutes at higher EC values. Higher humidity (following VPD theory) made a big positive impact on the results I got from CO2 supplementation, as well.

 

[El Cerebro]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I never noticed CO2 making a difference in how my plants respond to nutrients. On the other hand, humidity did, Big time- higher humidity really made my girls want their nutes at higher EC values. Higher humidity (following VPD theory) made a big positive impact on the results I got from CO2 supplementation, as well.

sorry wasn't clear - for my setup, venting fresh air vs sealed/co2 forces lower rh and less than optimum vpd. hence my higher feed rate when co2 is on.

i haven't compared exactly how high can push ec with vs without co2 (vpd kept constant), could be an interesting experiment. would you adjust for temps? too many variables for me..

 

[ttystikk]

sorry wasn't clear - for my setup, venting fresh air vs sealed/co2 forces lower rh and less than optimum vpd. hence my higher feed rate when co2 is on.

i haven't compared exactly how high can push ec with vs without co2 (vpd kept constant), could be an interesting experiment. would you adjust for temps? too many variables for me..

IME I haven't noticed much if any difference in EC needs relative to CO2 augmentation. Temps yes, but that's accounted for in VPD theory; follow the guidelines to increase relative humidity as temps rise and you're golden.

Not sure if plants want more EC when they're getting extra CO2, but they definitely EAT more, at least when humidity is within VPD. Not a shocker; the whole idea of VPD was to provide the ideal range for stomata to remain open for business, thereby allowing the CO2 to get in and do some good.

 

[El Cerebro]

for academic purposes: checked res and the 1gal dtw testers i mentioned above actually drink about 1-1.5gal each @night total (w/o co2)

 

[dankworth]

Times ratios are good to know but the amount running through is what we are after. different mediums dictate the amount of moisture. If I remember right you feed somewhere around 1700 ppm (i assume conv .5) Using coir that long it really absorbs moisture and holds it longer. You say your plants blow up but have you run some side by sides. I would think in my room if I feed a plant like that at night(lights out) with a 600 ppm at 6.0 pH for 2-3 days you would see better growth. Roots action is a 2 way street. Sometimes you need different pressure. Keeping track of a plants internal pH would help in this, if you have a few hundred fun tickets to play with. JK

Thanks for that insight. I will need two res's then to accommodate that.
JK, may I ask how you manage ph in an automated fashion? What device are you fond of for that task?

 

[Capulator]

Thanks for that insight. I will need two res's then to accommodate that.
JK, may I ask how you manage ph in an automated fashion? What device are you fond of for that task?

he never clarified by answerign my question. DO you only feed a lower ppm at night, or do you feed low at night and high in the day?

 

[dankworth]

I had a sneaking suspicion at one point that simply due to the metabolic rate change (day vs night) that they wanted to be fed a light solution at night. I got all baked and tried to find a practical solution for this, but couldn't. I suspect if you were trying to operate on one nute res, you could have a secondary RO res, and incorporate a doser/ppm controller to automate. Then pump from there. Or some shit.

Hey Cap, iron falls out of my solution in res progressively, what do you think for solutions? A pump that somehow does not operate magnetically? Oil-filled or whatever? Back to airstones?

Iron falling out means my iron/boron and iron/manganese ratios are not what I wanted them to be.

he never clarified by answerign my question. DO you only feed a lower ppm at night, or do you feed low at night and high in the day?

 

[El Cerebro]

feeding at night huh? i thought he was being sartastic?

been wondering about the iron/pump thing too, but haven't noticed much fallout yet (maybe going through my smaller res quicker?) how long does it take from mixing before you see it? maybe you should just stir constantly with big wooden spoon..

 

[Quantrill]

the iron in yer res(Fe+++ and/or Fe++) is not attracted to magnets.

if it is precipitateing, it is probably pH related. once it precipitates and becomes an oxide, it is then attracted to the magnet.

 

[dankworth]

the iron in yer res(Fe+++ and/or Fe++) is not attracted to magnets.

if it is precipitating, it is probably pH related. once it precipitates and becomes an oxide, it is then attracted to the magnet.

Thanks Quantrill. Been making it as a concentrate(veg) and running a pump in the res to circulate. Started out at like 4000 ppms for the res or something. Thinking I need to run lower EC to mitigate this. Of course been diluting this before feeding moms.
My flowering res I replaced about every 2 days or so last run, some fallout from that. Ph wanted to stabilize in like low 5s before adjustment. Someone was saying something at some point about MKP dropping ph, maybe the high MKP values later in flowering accounted for the increased tendency of fallout.
Seeing how some include Mag Phosphate in their formulas. I need to get a computer that I can download Hydrobuddy on or something, I would like to use different salts so that the solution will want to self-balance around 5.9 or so. That hopefully would address the fallout as well to some degree.
I think my high EC values in flowering promoted more fallout. Having to run around 4 EC for most of flowering, down to 3.5 or so as RH went down, was higher strength than I want to run. When I have the time I will look more into JK's salt recommendations to see if there is a formulation that keeps the plant happy at a lower EC than I have run.

Thanks again Quantrill, this has been bugging me for a bit.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

I water at night at lower ppms as the plants are sucking up some moisture to replace what they are transpiring at night. If they feed on high ppms they are absorbing nutes thru the roots because of the pressure imbalance,even though they just want water. I find doing this keeps the internal chemistry from getting gaked up.I feed higher doses when the lights are on when it can be absorbed,transformed,and moved easier.
Dankworth what does your root ball look like at the end of a run. I can not see my plants sending out fresh roots into that kind of environment. Thats higher then I feed my tomatoes at the ranch with killer rh and sun. And they are the biggest nute whores I have every run across.
What I shoot for is a simple premise I learned from Krusty. Stress Free growing will give you more bang for your buck then a lot of toys... Suerte JK

 

[Capulator]

I water at night at lower ppms as the plants are sucking up some moisture to replace what they are transpiring at night. If they feed on high ppms they are absorbing nutes thru the roots because of the pressure imbalance,even though they just want water. I find doing this keeps the internal chemistry from getting gaked up.I feed higher doses when the lights are on when it can be absorbed,transformed,and moved easier.
Dankworth what does your root ball look like at the end of a run. I can not see my plants sending out fresh roots into that kind of environment. Thats higher then I feed my tomatoes at the ranch with killer rh and sun. And they are the biggest nute whores I have every run across.
What I shoot for is a simple premise I learned from Krusty. Stress Free growing will give you more bang for your buck then a lot of toys... Suerte JK

brilliant. Thanks JK. Time to double up on reservoirs.

What about aero and RDWC? I only run 6-800 ppms all the way through now.. DO you think it is still necessary to water at lower ppms at night. That would be a real PITA. the coco no problem, but the RDWC woudl require more valves, solenoids, and a lot more space. I agree with you on DW's high EC. That seems way too high to me too. Isnt it true that plants only take in what they need anyway regardles of what is in the root zone? At least thats how I though it worked with soil.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

I do not think I ever grew a crop on one rez. I have always wondered if a different solution would be better. That and with more rez's you can dial in a plant that much faster. Plus if shit get in one rez you still have the other to get you through the hard times. Manufacturing my own tanks and rez's helps. JK

Plants strive to take in what they need,but when there is an imbalance in pressure what can come thru the casparian barrier,will to a certain extent. Its like all filters, they work but there is always imperfections. You can do some reading here.
http://horttech.ashspublications.org/