Hydroponics Questions - Algae, Beneficial Bact, Enzymes, Sterilization, etc

[Aqua Man]

Common practice is silica is added first. Then nutes. Then pH adjustments.

No .. silica then ph to 6 then add nutes and ph to target or atleast that's what I would do. Adding nutes to just silica I'm all but sure will cause precipitate

 

[RFT]

No .. silica then ph to 6 then add nutes and ph to target or atleast that's what I would do. Adding nutes to just silica I'm all but sure will cause precipitate

If so, then precipitate is what I got. Assuming that is what this brown sludge is.

I gotta remove the silica from the mix then. Because adjusting the pH and THEN adding nutes isnt feasible in this situation.

Weird that no silica mfg’s suggest adjusting pH before nutes.

 

[Aqua Man]

If so, then precipitate is what I got. Assuming that is what this brown sludge is.

I gotta remove the silica from the mix then. Because adjusting the pH and THEN adding nutes isnt feasible in this situation.

Weird that no silica mfg’s suggest adjusting pH before nutes.

I would listen to the manufacturer but I was asking if you could ph the silica doser

 

[RFT]

My bigger concern at the moment is these randomly droopy plants.

This is very weird.

 

[Deadstill]

My bigger concern at the moment is these randomly droopy plants.

This is very weird.

Any updates on this? Curious to hear how it turned out.

 

[RFT]

Any updates on this? Curious to hear how it turned out.

Turned out to be a pathogen. The Liquid Kool Bloom had severe mold growing in the concentrate. Contaminated batch from the manufacturer. Which has been occurring a lot. I keep getting Floraduo A & B’s from the growshop that have fully solidified crystalization in the concentrates. Softball size chunks in a brand new bottle.

As for the LKB, it killed half the crop. I’ve completely removed it from the program. Especially since General Hydro has admitted to me that they’ve been having problems with its stability & it reacting negatively to nitrates in a recirculated hydro system. And this appears to be a universal problem with many PK booster products.

LKB seems to have only been tested on drain-2-waste before it was brought to market.

Since removing the LKB, guess what, no more pH drops either. Way healthier plants in all zones. Better yields. LKB sucks.

 

[marshallannie]

I like natural methods. I came across this free booklet which actually talks about natural extracts
From what I can tell algae is natural, (even though we don't want it) I never heard of using extracts
or cleaning uvc lights until I saw this