Is it really necessary to buffer RO water with base nutrients

[Kushizle]

I've had a couple people tell me that buffering makes no difference if you are using nutrients like Floraflex and Athena as these already have calcium and magnesium built in. I've had other people swear up and down that you need to buffer the RO water with calmag before adding any nutrients. Can anyone with experience shed some light?

 

[Moe.Red]

Without getting hella deep into the science and just trying to answer your question, Cal and Mag are food that needs to be in the right proportions to the stage of the plant. Getting these out of whack causes all sorts of issues with your grow. For that reason, I do not think of them as buffers. They are food.

Lets say you have trouble keeping your PH in line due to lack of buffering capacity of your water. Are you going to add more cal-mag to chase PH and possibly cause a lock out? Not me.

Silica is a better source of buffering capacity, especially in Hydro. You don't mention your grow style, that would be helpful to answer your question better.

But yes, some nutes claim to buffer out of the can. YMMV with that approach.