Hey Medfinder! I'll post a pic of the vegetable based soap I use tomorrow night. I will be using a top feed system with pressure compensated drippers to insure everything gets watered evenly.
As far as ppm goes: I use RO water that comes out about 30 ppm while leaving the Merlin. I have found over the years that my preferred PPM for MAXIMUM growth is 850-950 of my base nutes. This seemed to hold true until I used
House and Garden Aquaflakes or as I call it "Aqua BullShit"! LOL...it's the only nutes I have ever used that I felt had a dramatic negative affect on the garden.
Anyway 850-950 ppm of the the base nutes (Sensi Bloom, CNS17, Dutch Master Gold, GH, Cutting Edge,
Heavy 16, etc). I then use a very limited recipe including Epsom Salts (1TBSP/5 gals),
CaliMagic (3ml/gal), and whatever Bloom Booster (
big bud, etc at 50%). As long as I use my additives at recommended dosages or LESS I think of them as insignificant to total PPM and EC. After all, most of us only really care about PPM or EC in an effort to avoid burning from overfertilization. So...I only worry about my base and bloom booster's ppm because nothing else is used over the recommended dosage from the manufacturer. Besides the biggest culprits of burning is Phosphorous and Nitrogen. I regularly follow a "FEED, FEED, FLUSH" regimen. (I hope all of this rambling made sense.)
Lastly, I follow a line of thinking that by adding "carbon" to the media one could actually use less nutes in most cases. I'm a big fan of HUMIC shale added to my coco. The results of additional smell and vigor is undeniable. Also, Plants are much more oily and shorter with more nodes.