How to adjust my Coco A + B ratio?

[Weaselcracker]

So are those amounts in the mass (g) column - are they ones that HB came up with- or did you enter them that way yourself?

There are two options- you can make your own mix by entering a ‘g’ weight for each substance- or you can let HB spin the wheel and try to match the targets as best as it can.

Skybound explains better than I could how to do both those options.

TBH I find HB doesn’t do the greatest job mixing and matching when you enter a whole bunch of bottles and substances in the ‘to be used’ box and then let HB decide the amounts.
Not sure why that is. The program may be giving priority to certain ingredients over others which leads to a skewed outcome.
Not sure. I’m going to see sometime if SkyB has any thoughts on it. I have some other questions re the program too -only just finished learning the basics of it myself.

Usually I have to do some tweaking myself - maybe only include three or four bottles then see wht HB gives me- then vary the amounts myself a bit till I hit a sweet spot. If possible.

 

[Weaselcracker]

As for the ratios you can see that by looking at the targets Skybound has posted early on in the other thread, entering those targets to yours and adding them to your database.

Very very simplified - the targets for the macros should look close to this. Give or take maybe 20

N-100
P-50
K-150
Mg-50
Ca-100

Another way to put it -would seem like the ideal NPK would be ‘around’ a 2-1-3 ratio in flowering. But obviously that’s a ballpark as it varies.

 

[TorturedSoul]

TBH I find HB doesn’t do the greatest job mixing and matching when you enter a whole bunch of bottles and substances in the ‘to be used’ box and then let HB decide the amounts.
Not sure why that is.

Well... Here's one possibility: It's a free application - but the developer states on his website that he offers an hourly consultation service for $120 per hour. Also "A service for the formulation of a specific hydroponic nutrient recipe for your particular needs coupled with guidance in preparing this formulation" and "An on-going consultation service where you will have me available to answer questions and help guide you through your nutrient needs as your crop or hydroponic project progresses." For the latter two of those services, he doesn't even mention a price (and there's an old saying about how if you need to ask the price, you probably cannot afford it...).

A cynic might wonder if he's set the application up to allow users to do exactly what they want to manually, but when having the application to take care of things, produce a good but not excellent output in order to encourage people to buy (rent?) his services.

Not that I have any particular reason to believe this is how it is; I'm merely offering one possibility.

Hey, a question: I think I read something about having people add the (net) weight listed on the bottles for density(?) calculations. Is that likely to introduce any unknown (or non-quantifiable, I suppose) rounding errors? Seems like it would be better, for those who have accurate scales (or at least... scales) to measure an exact volume of the substances, then weigh them.

 

[Weaselcracker]

It sounds like the maker of the program isn’t really doing much with it- so I doubt he’s trying to make a million off it. If he was he’d develop a phone app and add a bunch of glitter- it would probably be very popular with growers.

I suppose there may be slight errors with the density calculation. Presumably when a bottle says it’s 1 L in volume and 1.1 kg in weight, either one/both of those could be off slightly. But the density factor with these bottles isn’t very large. Many of them weigh only slightly more than water and most no more than 10% more. So there’s only so much room for error.

Also, IMO, the amounts listed on the back in the guaranteed analysis could be off. Guaranteed analysis only represents a guaranteed minimum. Perhaps we will have to rely on the forces of greed to keep the overall weight, volume, and amounts of ingredients as close to the stated levels as possible

My guiding principle is that the program has been working for Skybound, who clearly is much more meticulous and grows much better plants than I do. And he got his info from a bunch of other people who have also been using these numbers with great success. So I do have faith.
If nothing else it’s a great baseline or starting point to experiment with the feeding mix, and I do know that before HB I was basically completely clueless what I was feeding the plants. A bunch of bottles on the shelf but no real way to know how to feed the plants from them- like I may as well just throw darts or flip coins when it came to solving nutrient issues.

Throwing darts could get counterproductive. Ha ha. I’d have no coins left to flip...

 

[TorturedSoul]

It sounds like the maker of the program isn’t really doing much with it

Like all open-source code that's distributed freely, it's a "work on it in your free time" kind of thing. And, like most of them, he appears to have originally wrote the thing for his own benefit, because he wasn't satisfied with the commercial alternatives that were available.

so I doubt he’s trying to make a million off it.

Nah, lol, from the looks of that "$120 per hour" consulting fee, he's already got that "million" planned out.

If he was he’d develop a phone app

Perhaps it's true that developing for a platform that you don't actually want to work on... ends up being too much like work? Might also be that he wasn't deriving an appreciable percentage of his income (directly) from Hydro Buddy, so it could have gone from "in his free time" to "when he couldn't find anything else to do." Maybe he just hates Google but feels that Apples requirements for having an application in its App Store are too restrictive. Or some other reason entirely, who knows?

I think I might have seen a comment somewhere on his website that he wasn't currently taking new clients for consulting, so maybe he's just a lot busier (with paid work or life in general) now than he was back in 2011. If so, that'd probably end up meaning he didn't develop the app for any additional platforms (which is not always an insignificant undertaking) and only does maintenance/bugfix releases (if we're lucky) for the platforms that he's already released versions to run under.

I've seen a lot of open-source stuff that seemed really promising when it was being actively developed/maintained end up fading into obscurity when the developer found other things to do and no one else stepped up to fork it (or at least maintain the developer's original version). It happens.

and add a bunch of glitter- it would probably be very popular with growers.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), that's not always important in the developer's mind. The guy who does my linux distro-of-choice doesn't even really have a clue how many people use it, because he has never added in any kind of "phone home and report" code to it. And, since it IS free software, and distributed via many channels, he can't even really track the number of downloads.

We try to remember to thank him for his work on a semi-regular basis, lol.

Also, IMO, the amounts listed on the back in the guaranteed analysis could be off. Guaranteed analysis only represents a guaranteed minimum.

Huh. Learn something every day, I guess. (On a good day, I can manage to do so before noon - and then kind of coast the rest of the day .)

Perhaps we will have to rely on the forces of greed to keep the overall weight, volume, and amounts of ingredients as close to the stated levels as possible

Lol. Er... The fact that I chuckled does not mean that I discount that theory, BtW.

My guiding principle is that the program has been working for Skybound, who clearly is much more meticulous and grows much better plants than I do. And he got his info from a bunch of other people who have also been using these numbers with great success. So I do have faith.

I'm not positive, but I read a comment or two on his website that gave me the impression that there is (or was, circa 2012) some kind of nutrient database. One that came with the application (or might have been available via his website, IDK), maybe. Someone asked him if he would recommend a set of products "from the database" or something like that.

before HB I was basically completely clueless what I was feeding the plants. A bunch of bottles on the shelf but no real way to know how to feed the plants from them- like I may as well just throw darts or flip coins when it came to solving nutrient issues.

I once ran General Hydroponics products almost exclusively, and at the time, the GH website had a nutrient calculator of sorts. Not in the same universe as Hydro Buddy, but it was helpful for a while. Then I started... you know, paying attention to the plants, lol. And, later, acting like grandma cooking dinner (recipe? what recipe?). Got careless and didn't always bother to take the meters out of the drawer, didn't always bother to change the reservoirs, stuff like that. I was at least making notes of what seemed to work and what seemed NOT to. That notebook was destroyed back around 2011 or 2012 when I "went dark" after that former sponsor managed to get his computers examined by the federales, Louisiana state LEO, something like that due to them finding an extremely high number of cannabis plants either on his property or right next to it. I forget the particulars, and didn't really stop to try to determine exactly what they were at the time after I read conflicting reports (by the guy) in regards to whether his customer database happened to be on one of those computers. Better safe than sorry (that you're behind bars), I thought.

I wish I'd kept my notes from back then. As you're undoubtedly aware, not every strain has the exact same nutritional requirements, and I noted when "the usual" wasn't working with something. I, uh... burned my share of landrace sativas to create those notes (and then, later, was able to... burn my share of landrace bud ).

It's been so long since I was really serious about growing/production that now I just sort of muddle through and end up being slightly bemused at harvest time.

Throwing darts could get counterproductive.

Yeah, but throwing grenades seems like it could be fun .

 

[tokeycones]

[QUOTE="Weaselcracker

So i've been having a play with the bottles i have available and this is what i've come to, Hard job getting the P levels any lower than that without sacrificing other micronutrients, you think this will do me better for bloom then the mess i've been putting in?

 

[Weaselcracker]

I’m messing around with it now.

It seems to me that for the purposes of getting the nutrient levels right- we could remove Fulife, Root nectar, Crystalic, Bud burst, and Cargo boost from the equation. I’ve taken them all off the list for now.

Those are all just pretty much water. Fulife has humic acid. Crystalic is mainly molasses.
It’s possible to use them to help balance things- but because they’re so watery you’d be using large amounts and emptying the bottles pretty quick.


Also PK heavy is a problem. If it had a good ratio of P to K then we’d so much better off. But instead it has almost equal amounts. There’s no real way to get around that.

The other main issue is the nitrogen.

I’m trying to see if I can add or substitute one of the bottles I have on my shelf and come up with something better.

What you have there looks pretty good though -better than what I’ve managed.

 

[Weaselcracker]

By the way where are you finding the sulphur? I understand it to be contained in a bunch of those bottles because there are sulphates- but it seems to be unlisted.

 

[tokeycones]

My sulfur is coming from the potassium sulfate/Epsom salts.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Cool - yeh at that point I didn’t know you’d started dipping into other nutrient sources. Out of curiosity could you post the page where it shows what nutes you used?

 

[tokeycones]

Yea i figiured that after posting the reply realised it was a while ago. i can't be bothered messing around with the weights again right now but i have it saved to csv. Couldn't get the app to sort me a mix at all so everything i found was just manually changing amounts.

 

[Weaselcracker]

I’m glad you got it figured it. I find that as long as I stick with three or four substances HB can come up with the best possible mix- once I input a whole bunch it seems to go screwy.
As I also said before - I think many of those bottles you’re using aren’t making much difference. But I’m sure you can see that yourself now. May as well use em up.

 

[tokeycones]

Yea i even tried 3-4 stil no luck ae strange, Yea totally see that now but at the same time there has to be some bits and bobs in there that aren't on the guaranteed analysis ? definitely going to start making my own soon and atleast for now i have the 2 raw forms of what my schedule was lacking.