(Fatman's) DIY nutrient mixing guide

[PhatNuggz]

wondering what FMs set up is. He was posting to a journal I have elsewhere, but got himself banned.

My system is TAG 2.0 (I coined the 2.0) but have mistakenly began calling it HPA, which I think Fatman (among others) pointed out it is not.

My system does use a Aquatec 8800, high pressure mist heads, and dtw, but the rez is open (no accum to keep nutes under pressure).

As a personal use grower (smoke ~ an oz a year) I do not feel the need to invest in an accum, consequently, I have been tweaking my open system over several grows/journals (posted elsewhere under UN PetFlora).

I am definitely curious as to his rig, but it probably uses an accumulator, and very short feed/pause cycles. In my open system I am still tweaking my feed/pause cycle. Until last week I was using cycle times closer to HPA, but was not achieving root hairs; currently 4 seconds feed/3:30 pause in a 18G rubbermaid tote with 2 @ 0.9gph mist heads.

First time using DM Gold full line A/B. Happy with the product, but their customer service and web info sucks. In flower I only use 600 ppms

Looking at the various formulas here, FMs seems on the hot side for HPA. JKs seems better suited. Any thoughts?

 

[Bobby Smith]

bobby: i don't believe in magic.

You ever seen David Blaine?!?!?!

JK bro........I didn't mean "magic", just the additives that you'd have to use a chroma-thingy-graph to find out, as opposed to the simple chemical compounds that you could get a simple $40 lab analysis for.

PetFlora, not sure anybody's really gonna know the answer to your question, although Fatman did fully descibe his setup in the following link:

http://www.invalid.com/hydroponics-aeroponics/334355-fatmans-medium-pressure-large-tube.html

FYI, JK runs LP aero in his tanks so his nutes are probably going to be a little hot for a "true" HP aero setup.

Just my $.02; already designing some 100 gallon tanks for my HP aero tree run :)

 

[PhatNuggz]

Bobby, thanks for hooking me up over here. These guys seem to be more on the level where I want to go.

Spent the last 3 days reading through this thread. From what I have gleaned here, seems what we (aero growers) want/need is a DM Gold (Silica/Zone/Add.27/A&B-V&F) knockoff.

I am on my first grow using these. 3rd week of flower, I was beginning to see a few purple stems. My rez is ~ 4 G, so I added 1tbs of Neptune Harvest Seaweed Plant Food (0-0-1); the purp stems have mostly turned back, seems like this strain can use a PK bump near the end.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Sorry everyone,

Squarepusher:After a lengthy reply to your PM, I was unable to send it due to my newness here. You can find my grows on IC/420/RIU under UN PetFlora

Hopefully we can pm soon

 

[Snowblind]

if they knew that their base nutes were calcium deficient in most cases, why didn't they add a few cents' worth of calcium nitrate, instead of packaging it separately and charging 1000x more? is there integrity in that? it may be a quality product, but there's very little value for your money. they're marketing products to cash croppers and med growers with a 400w light alike. http://scienceinhydroponics.com/2010/08/iron-sources-in-hydroponics-which-one-is-the-best.html

Perhaps it is an issue of floccultaion with the creation of ferts by the companies. To high a concentration of Calcium from one soluble source and a Sulfate from a different source could form an insoluble precipitate. That is why Calcium Nitrate is part B of a 2 part mix to me. I could be wrong though.

Calcium and Sulfur combine to form Calcium Sulfate not easy accessed by the plants. When you leave out Calcium you leave out Magnesium, as it needs Calcium to help buffer it. I might be wrong about all of this. Im trying to figure it all out...

I hate the nute companies though and wish the cannabis community would wake up to the games!

 

[Crysmatic]

phatnuggz: fatman's bloom is 2.81-1-4.4. DM gold is 2-1-3, which has the same K/N ratio, and since P is relatively higher, K should be a little higher too. maybe 2-1-4? jalisco kid's uses 2-2.3-5.3, which is very close to many nutes. it seems that there is an ideal K/N ratio (around 3-4:1), however, P suppresses K, so the more P you have, the higher the K - and hence the K/N ratio goes UP with increasing P. you just have to use a fert and observe how your plants yield.

it just occurred to me that to dial a grow in, you have to turn the dial.

i've been hooked on 'house' lately (season 3 atm) and a negative result is still a result. if you can measure something, and change it with accuracy, you can influence the outcome. you also have to understand WHY it caused a change. i'm running experiments through other growers. selling ferts will allow me to compile a tonne of info. the guy that tries the most things and makes the most mistakes learns the most :)

 

[kuz]

[allegedly] synthetic chelators aid heavy metal uptake (edta, dpta, eddha) while organic chelators do not (citric acid, glycine). organic ferts can have higher heavy metals, and synth nutes shouldn't be chelated.

I was going to mention that article when you were talking about all the contaminants in Pureblend Pro. Because of the article I'm a bit more careful with the phdn, dont let it go below 5.8 anymore. I'm using synthetic chelated micros, and really dont know how pure the chemical are in the other nutes. The downside of buying them repackaged into small quantities, no label on the bags.

 

[Crysmatic]

sad but true. my biggest disappointment was finding out that epsom salts supplies all the cobalt a plant needs from the impurities. i also thought israeli salts (haifa) were the cleanest, but (according to AN) some chinese salts are cleaner.

perhaps it's more futile worrying. that link also said there was no significant difference between indoor and outdoor grown plants. i will follow up on those links in the future.

 

[Crysmatic]

MOAB: 1-52-34 is mathematically impossible using only MKP and MAP. it's probably closer to 1-52-31. there's also 0.01% B1 which works out to 0.5 g.

MKP 457g
MAP 43g
npk ppm 8-180-204 @ 3 g/gal

or alternately,
MKP 456g
ammonium nitrate 44g
npk 1-52-34 ppm 8-178-225 @3 g/gal

total cost should be less than $6, and not $50. you could also add 8 ppm N to your base fert and use straight MKP.

 

[Donkdbz]

Just to clarify that last post, I wasn't talking about getting base A and B formulations, but rather getting analysis on the Roots Excelurators and other products that are pretty impossible to reverse engineer without a lab test.

General Hydro reversed Roots excel. There rep came into shop I am at and gave out samples. Its called rapid start. Not suprising was it has Alflafa extract for the triacontanol

 

[PhatNuggz]

phatnuggz: fatman's bloom is 2.81-1-4.4. DM gold is 2-1-3, which has the same K/N ratio, and since P is relatively higher, K should be a little higher too. maybe 2-1-4? I must be missing something here, or you have a typo "and since P is relatively higher...". been there, done that. Also to clarify, I am using DM Gold A&B, not sure what that NPK works out to

jalisco kid's uses 2-2.3-5.3, which is very close to many nutes. I thought I saw him tagged with much lower NPK on this thread it seems that there is an ideal K/N ratio (around 3-4:1), however, P suppresses K, so the more P you have, the higher the K - and hence the K/N ratio goes UP with increasing P. you just have to use a fert and observe how your plants yield.

it just occurred to me that to dial a grow in, you have to turn the dial. True Dat, but only if you are growing the same strains over and over.

i've been hooked on 'house' lately (season 3 atm) and a negative result is still a result. if you can measure something, and change it with accuracy, you can influence the outcome. you also have to understand WHY it caused a change. i'm running experiments through other growers. selling ferts will allow me to compile a tonne of info. the guy that tries the most things and makes the most mistakes learns the most :)

That sounds like me

 

[Crysmatic]

i was reading big mike's great phosphorus myth again today. bear with me...i literally took the hashplant elemental % and turned it into npk. it's roughly 4.1-1.0-4.5 elemental npk, which is 4.1-2.3-5.4 compound npk. i worked out the ppm in hydrobuddy, and it's identical to fatman's bloom formula save for slightly more P :) big mike's calcium and magnesium are way below fatman's (1.8-0.5 vs 4.0-1.25).

the 'ideal' grow formula works out to 3-1-3.6 :) i wonder why big mike is still jacking his products with P?

you can continue growing a bunch of strains well, or grow one strain really well...then you can grow other strains really well. jmo

 

[Crysmatic]

kushie kush
8 ml/gal
i guessed 1.1 g/ml
23-30-154 ppm
KNO3 18.5 g
K2HPO4 18.3 g
makes 1L of 100x solution
~0.3 mS @ 10 ml/L

 

[Puffntuff]

just wanted to stop by and give thanks to everyone on this thread for the hardwork. im going to be ordering from cropking in the next week fatmans bloom and veg dtw. to anyone of you guys thats ordered from there do they mix it for you or send it all unmixed and ill mix it?? Also do i just order the amounts in oz or how does that work?? THanks again

 

[pikes peak 69]

Haven't ordered directly from them so this is just general info that is pretty standard.

You'll order by pounds for most of the ingredients. There may be a few that are in smaller quantities.

For a small order (less then couple hundred lbs.) they will send salts separate and you'll mix them yourself.


HTH
pp69

 

[Mmmmasonite]

General Hydro reversed Roots excel. There rep came into shop I am at and gave out samples. Its called rapid start. Not suprising was it has Alflafa extract for the triacontanol

Is this gh's answer to Roots Excel?

 

[PhatNuggz]

DM Gold A/B questions
I am using the full line of DM Gold for the first time in my VPA rig. First, the pH is very stable, a most welcome benefit.

The grow went as well as could be expected, but the bud phase is blowing me away. Literally in 3 days trics easily quadrupled since SATURDAY!
New Pics will be up on my thread Saturday.

Mixing instructions for A&B are 1:1. My questions stem from reading this thread and basically understanding that NPK 'should' be ~ 3-2-1 in veg, and ~1-2-3 in flower.

Supposedly Gold NPK is as follows

Grow
Part A 3.5 -0.0- 1.5
Part B 0.5 -0.5- 2.5
Add.27 1.0 -1.0- 4
total 5.0-1.5-8.0 (K seems 700% hot )

Flower
Part A 4-0-4
Part B 0-3-5
Add.27 0-2-2
total 4-5-11 (N seems 50% too high)

Questions:
1. Is there anything in ADD.27 that I really need?
2. Instead of mixing 1:1 can I use a ratio in Grow A/B. Example...

Would mixing 75 % Part A reduce the ratio of N from 3.5 to 2.8... and K from 1.5 to 0.9? If so, then when adding 75% of Part A + B would I end up with 3.3 - 0.5- 3.4, but if I include ADD.27 then 4.3- 1.5- 8 or 3-1-5.3? This seems closer to what Big Mike's analysis was saying about P.

Is there a better (fairly priced) grow & flower formula

 

[kuz]

Grow
Part A 3.5 -0.0- 1.5
Part B 0.5 -0.5- 2.5
Add.27 1.0 -1.0- 4
total 5.0-1.5-8.0 (K seems 700% hot )

[/COLOR]

Thats interesting, didnt realize the P was so low in the DM grow. I only use the ratio's to compare, too confusing, unlike Crysmatic, I think he does the conversion from ppm in his head and spits out the ratios.

My veg nutes came out.
N 265 P 82 k 292 mg 93 Ca 268 S 117
DWC, I thought this was close to Fatmans veg formula. EC came to 3 with that formula, so I diluted to EC 2. I want to adjust it to come out at EC 2 and use less P. The plant looks happy. I thought I might be pushing too hard considering the small amount of roots in the water.

 

[Crysmatic]

stop it kuz, i'm blushing :)

phatnuggz: with any fertilizer, it was designed to work optimally at a certain ratio. get through one run and assess the results before you go tweaking the schedule. after you finish your bottles of dm gold, do you plan on mixing up your own with one of the recipes in this thread?

when asked about organic chelators i.e. aminos, citric acid, molasses, fulvic acid, et al., Daniel Fernandez had this to say:

"To the best of my knowledge there is no research which demonstrates any advantage to their use in hydroponic culture in general. They however do hinder the absorption of many micronutrients as they are very efficient chelators of certain metallic species. For example zinc gets very easily chelated by citrate ions so usually if you add a lot of citrate you’ll eventually get a zinc deficiency (this is what I have experienced on my experiments with this acid). An additional problem is that this chelating agents are “food” for microorganisms so they will increase the chances of outside microbe contaminations (including fungi and bacteria). Additionally plants do secrete oxalic, citric and similar acids through their roots so the little chelating benefit these substances could provide is probably already being “taken advantage off” within your plants micro-root environment. In the end I believe that most people use these things due to pure hype as experimental evidence up until now seems to suggest no significant difference from a nutrient availability point of view (at least in hydroponics). In the end a well-balance nutrient solution is all you need for very healthy plant growth."

so if you use aminos, you need beneficial bacteria to prevent brown sludge...or you can just omit both :P

I just read a paper on raising chickens and varying the micro nutrients in their feed. The alleged 'benefit' of using chelates is using less micros, and achieving higher uptakes. The paper concludes that aminos are NOT as important as optimal micro concentrations; and they don't double or triple bioavailability.

 

[squarepusher]

stop it kuz, i'm blushing :)

phatnuggz: with any fertilizer, it was designed to work optimally at a certain ratio. get through one run and assess the results before you go tweaking the schedule. after you finish your bottles of dm gold, do you plan on mixing up your own with one of the recipes in this thread?

when asked about organic chelators i.e. aminos, citric acid, molasses, fulvic acid, et al., Daniel Fernandez had this to say:

"To the best of my knowledge there is no research which demonstrates any advantage to their use in hydroponic culture in general. They however do hinder the absorption of many micronutrients as they are very efficient chelators of certain metallic species. For example zinc gets very easily chelated by citrate ions so usually if you add a lot of citrate you’ll eventually get a zinc deficiency (this is what I have experienced on my experiments with this acid). An additional problem is that this chelating agents are “food” for microorganisms so they will increase the chances of outside microbe contaminations (including fungi and bacteria). Additionally plants do secrete oxalic, citric and similar acids through their roots so the little chelating benefit these substances could provide is probably already being “taken advantage off” within your plants micro-root environment. In the end I believe that most people use these things due to pure hype as experimental evidence up until now seems to suggest no significant difference from a nutrient availability point of view (at least in hydroponics). In the end a well-balance nutrient solution is all you need for very healthy plant growth."

so if you use aminos, you need beneficial bacteria to prevent brown sludge...or you can just omit both :P

I just read a paper on raising chickens and varying the micro nutrients in their feed. The alleged 'benefit' of using chelates is using less micros, and achieving higher uptakes. The paper concludes that aminos are NOT as important as optimal micro concentrations; and they don't double or triple bioavailability.

Fat Mike would like to have a word with you! :character0029:

So, it seems that Daniel is basically saying the same thing that Fatman said, wrt aminos/citric hooplah. I believe it too, and I bet a bunch of snakes just breathed a sigh of relief