Making Your Own Nutrient Concentrates

Thanks Daniel. This is what you were talking about when you first showed up here before but it got deleted it before I had time to come back and properly digest it. I will have to seek out your blog and try to get more info.
There’s no way I’m paying $150 US just to sample a bottle of nutrients I already had to pay for ha ha
 
This would explain why my mixes created by HB using bottled nutrients, have a much higher EC than if I try to hit the same targets using raw salts.

To some extent does this apply to purchased raw hydro salts as well? For example- is the data from Custom Hydro reliable? I’m guessing the margin of error is way way smaller, if nothing else.
 
Weaselcracker said:
This would explain why my mixes created by HB using bottled nutrients, have a much higher EC than if I create the same mix using raw salts.

To some extent does this apply to purchased raw hydro salts as well? For example- is the data from Custom Hydro reliable? I’m guessing the margin of error is way way smaller, if nothing else.
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Pure raw fertilizers will also under report a bit - because they need to ensure all batches are above the min guaranteed analysis - but this will usually be for a significantly smaller value and will be fairly similar among all products. You can see this in the Oregon database where pure raw salts - which are also registered - will have really small errors Vs lab analyses.
 
Dang. Those bastards :D As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough for the average clueless grower like me flailing around in the dark trying to get my plants to grow nicely ...
 
danielfp said:
Exactly. This is because they will always under report, sometimes very heavily, and often very heavily on S, which contributes significantly to EC.
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I assume there's no way to see the difference between ammonical or nitrate and is why N is referred to as Total N?

Also, does the variances between the GH test done years back vs the newer one shown in this side by side indicate that GH has been changing their blend slightly?

GH Both.JPG
 
In the Oregon tests they did not make the additional effort to split nitric and ammoniacal nitrogen sources, so they only evaluated total N for the most part.

About the variances in the GH tests, these are normal variations due to changes in the batch - not changes in the formulation - they are within the normal errors I would expect from the errors in the weights and volumes in the preparation of a batch of concentrated nutrients, which is around +/-5% of the value for a process of this type. These errors inherent to the process are the reason why it is normal to underreport fertilizer compositions by around 5% of the intended target so that you're sure you always are above what you promised the customer, regardless of the variance of your process.
 
I noticed an additional issue in your HydroBuddy videos. When you're adding liquid fertilizers into the HB database, you're adding them using the label compositions (which are %w/v) as if they were normal salts (which are % w/w). Although HB does have a checkbox to allow you to specify whether something is a liquid or a solid, note that the % composition is not converted to %w/w from %w/v. The software is vague in this respect - it is never specified what the % calculation type is - so I will add a note for this in future versions.

What this means in practice is that whenever you put a value into HydroBuddy for a liquid, you should divide that by the density so that you can have the correct composition. This can make a big difference. For example in the case of the GH Flora Bloom:

P as P2O5 is 5% w/v, density is 1.162g/mL
P as P2O5 is 4.31% w/w

This means that you're probably over-estimating composition by around 10-20% depending on the density of each fertilizer you use. Percentages, as almost all dimensionless units, can be pretty tricky to interpret :confused:
 
danielfp said:
I noticed an additional issue in your HydroBuddy videos. When you're adding liquid fertilizers into the HB database, you're adding them using the label compositions (which are %w/v) as if they were normal salts (which are % w/w). Although HB does have a checkbox to allow you to specify whether something is a liquid or a solid, note that the % composition is not converted to %w/w from %w/v. The software is vague in this respect - it is never specified what the % calculation type is - so I will add a note for this in future versions.

What this means in practice is that whenever you put a value into HydroBuddy for a liquid, you should divide that by the density so that you can have the correct composition. This can make a big difference. For example in the case of the GH Flora Bloom:

P as P2O5 is 5% w/v, density is 1.162g/mL
P as P2O5 is 4.31% w/w

This means that you're probably over-estimating composition by around 10-20% depending on the density of each fertilizer you use. Percentages, as almost all dimensionless units, can be pretty tricky to interpret :confused:
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Do you mean the part where I say that the Set Weights in ml instead of grams? Does this mean we need only multiply the dose in ml by the density to realize the number needed to enter into the grams box? Or we must work out the problem element by element? I'm looking at a liquid nutrient the same way I would a salt blend like Jack's 5-12-26, ie a collection of elements into a blend, so that's why I assumed they were interchangeable.
 
Skybound said:
Do you mean the part where I say that the Set Weights in ml instead of grams? Does this mean we need only multiply the dose in ml by the density to realize the number needed to enter into the grams box? Or we must work out the problem element by element? I'm looking at a liquid nutrient the same way I would a salt blend like Jack's 5-12-26, ie a collection of elements into a blend, so that's why I assumed they were interchangeable.
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I mean when you added FloraGro to the Substance list. Minute 9:04 of your video "How To Use Hydro Buddy To Make Nutrients". You copied the exact % values on the label to the % values in HydroBuddy. This is inaccurate because you're copying a nutrient label specified as % w/v to HydroBuddy's percent fields, which are %w/w. You need to divide those values by the density of the liquid before you copy them, either from the label or from the lab analysis values provided by Oregon or another company. Liquid labels are always specified as %w/v, you always need to convert them to %w/w or your errors will be large.

Besides the above, whenever you define a weight in HydroBuddy, it always needs to be a weight. So for a liquid you should always multiply volumes by density to get a weight value.
 
danielfp said:
I mean when you added FloraGro to the Substance list. Minute 9:04 of your video "How To Use Hydro Buddy To Make Nutrients". You copied the exact % values on the label to the % values in HydroBuddy. This is inaccurate because you're copying a nutrient label specified as % w/v to HydroBuddy's percent fields, which are %w/w. You need to divide those values by the density of the liquid before you copy them, either from the label or from the lab analysis values provided by Oregon or another company. Liquid labels are always specified as %w/v, you always need to convert them to %w/w or your errors will be large.

Besides the above, whenever you define a weight in HydroBuddy, it always needs to be a weight. So for a liquid you should always multiply volumes by density to get a weight value.
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From a coding standpoint, I presumed that because there is a field to enter Density when the Liquid box is ticked that it meant the app does this math. If it's not already, please add this to the suggestion box for future versions of Hydro Buddy. Perhaps a Set Weight/Volume button in the Substance Selection window?

To better understand, how are saved liquid solutions supposed to be used in Hydro Buddy?
 
Skybound said:
From a coding standpoint, I presumed that because there is a field to enter Density when the Liquid box is ticked that it meant the app does this math. If it's not already, please add this to the suggestion box for future versions of Hydro Buddy. Perhaps a Set Weight/Volume button in the Substance Selection window?

To better understand, how are saved liquid solutions supposed to be used in Hydro Buddy?
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You're right, the software is ambiguous in this respect, since it asks you whether something is a liquid or not, it is understandable you would assume that it does % conversions as required. In reality the percentage values are always % w/w and all other values are exactly the same for solids and liquids.

The only way HydroBuddy makes a distinction between a liquid and a solid is that if you check the "calculate liquids in mL" checkbox, HydroBuddy will display results for liquids in mL instead of grams (which is where it uses the density). However in terms of the "set weight" the percentage values and everything else, liquids and solids are treated equally so you must convert all volumetric properties to mass ones.

Now that I've noticed how all this can be problematic I will fix it on the next release. In the meantime, make sure you always do the conversions.
 
All good... Miss J's home and now I have to get off my lazy ass and get some weeds growing..

All good with you?
 
All is as good as it can be I guess. I got 6 tough weeks ahead transitioning back to hydro, but as soon as peat moss is in my rear view, it will make for a good summer I suppose. That's awesome Miss J is home where you can care for her needs.
 
sid said:
Just dropping to thank Daniel for his exceptional work and assistance and SkyBound for making it easy for us to understnad!
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Are you making your own nutes too?
 
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