Making Your Own Nutrient Concentrates

[Weaselcracker]

Totally. Well I’ll be pushing people towards HB whenever I see a likely victim. I’m very surprised more people aren’t using it. I think the creator could do well if they put some marketing into it- created a phone app and tossed in some smoke and mirrors and glitter.

Re buying salts. That would make sense. It’s one more thing to learn and manage though. I’m taking things one step at a time. Not sure how much of a future my grow has. I may move out in the bush in the next couple years, and with the grow at this point all I’m doing is spending money. Seems like bud is so plentiful here now I might have to use mine for garden mulch or stuffing pillows or something.

 

[Skybound]

I'm honestly surprised that you're not a soil grower considering how far out you are. I'd bet you're surrounded by all that you need. Shit, you even collected seaweed from the beech. Emilya has a crazy cool blog entry for making microbes out of some distilled (RO), a little bit of white rice and some sacrificial milk. If I was away from people, I would definitely make that stuff, But the way she explained the process, it's super duper stinky as it involves intentionally rotting milk.

 

[Skybound]

Here's my PC still in my Stretch routine which is targeted as follows;

N - 100
P - 60
K - 180
Ca - 120
Mg - 75
S - 100
Si - 25

She's been eating that for 24 days so far and I'm giving her another week with it. It looks like she's skimming the threshold of P def, though I don't want to challenge P too much as every other routine/feed chart has their P no more than 40, so I always try to consider everything when making choices to exceed. FWIW, I remember seeing the same semi reddish petioles with 65 P. In my mid bloom I have it up to 70, but I think the K or Mg might be too high so it's hard to know if 70P is good or not. I also don't like that none of my new growth is lighter green which implies NO3 might be too much. FWIW, in Mid Bloom, I drop NO3 to 95 and this gives me good coloring, but the elevated N is needed in the beginning of bloom to stretch and make leaves.

 

[Coolbananas]

Hey skybound and weasel,
I had to join this site so I could be a part of this thread. I formulate my own and use hydrobuddy too, like you guys I’m amazed more people don’t use hydrobuddy. My current progress has me around the exact same formula as you. N, P still unsure, K, Ca, Mg etc the same or there abouts. 4ppm of Fe will get you another point in brix....

 

[Weaselcracker]

Welcome! Speaking for myself I’m super glad to have your company Mr/Ms Banana! Yes, finding out about Hydro Buddy has been like turning on a light switch for me. I’ve been wishing for years I could see what I was feeding the plants. But much too lazy and busy to do the research it would have taken me to actually find out
Now I’m amazed everyone isn’t using it. And -
also amazed at the level so many of us growers are operating at- buying large amounts of expensive magical potions. The average witch doctor could only dream of being as successful as these canna-nutrient businesses are.

 

[Coolbananas]

Yes mate, my feelings exactly! I was also sick of not really knowing what I was feeding my plants but I knew that bloom boosters were bogus but I didn’t know why! I’d never go back to hydro nutes and snake oils..., need I say anymore. Self formulating is an experience not just a feed.

 

[Coolbananas]

I use this to top off my Ca skybound. Seems to work fine.
Lime-Life Organic™
And this so I can control my sulphur instead of just using K2S04

K-Rich™

Elevate Potassium Uptake with K-Rich™: pH-Buffered Liquid Potassium Complexed with Citric Acid. Address pH-related potassium uptake challenges potassium citrate. Clear foliar spray fertiliser for fruit, vegetable & grain crops during crucial growth stages. Enhance plant growth, fruit/flower...

shop.nutri-tech.com.au

And this if I need to top up N

Amino-Max™

A potent amino acid fertiliser for protein building, immune support, plant growth promotion and enhanced quality and shelf life. ACO organic certified.

shop.nutri-tech.com.au

Also this for my 25ppm Si, which works out to 10ml per 100 litres

Potassium Silicate

A Liquid Source of Potassium and Silica for Plant Vitality. Strengthen Cell Walls, Enhance Photosynthesis, Reduce the Impact of Excess Aluminum, Sodium, and Manganese, Improve Taste and Shelf-Life, and Support Reproduction with Potassium Silicate.

shop.nutri-tech.com.au

This would be a great micro package Nutri-Key Shuttle Seven™
I use Yara Rexolin APN for my micros. I add some Fe DPTA and some B but if you plug that shuttle seven into hydrobuddy and run it through the recommended rates you’ll see what Nutri Tech suggest for micro rates. They’re a switched on company and know what’s going on.

 

[Skybound]

Welcome to the thread Coolbananas! I'm glad to have met another Hydro Buddy user. I spent a few months when entered into salts using branded blends, but the problem with that is that I wasn't free to explore any ranges and always had to assume that I would miss my targets to do my best to keep all the micros in certain ranges. As soon as I committed to mixing my own blend, my life changed and I began hitting my targets 100% of the time with 0% error. I am still exploring ideal ranges for micros too while constantly researching these things to the best of my ability to make informed decisions.

I've read that Fe can start getting toxic once you approach 3ppm, but I will definitely flesh out whether I can add a point to my brix because that metric is also important to me too. I've also read about how different forms of Fe are available at different rates so for example Mix A might have 6ppm of Iron Sulfate, while Mix B might have 1.5 of DTPA and 1.5 of EDTA, and maybe also a few other sources of Fe. Just yesterday though I added a touch of Fe into my foliar spray.

Not really having anybody else's experiences to collect insights from, I've been kind of feeling around in the dark. Doing a lot of research yes, but at the end, I must take small leaps of faith, and then only a minimal deviation from my current measure of success, all just to learn more. I about have my macro ranges dialed in and will get to exploring new micro ranges. I use Iron DTPA, EDTA for the other metals. I realize other brands that use chelated micros like to use several sources of Fe to improve availability, but I'm on a budget so had to settle to start off with DTPA only.

Do you have access to soluble salts to mix with? If you can find a source for salts, you'll save hundreds of percent from your nutes expenses while gaining in level of control. I saved so much that I can fully commit my future spending into organics due to not having to buy more salts for at least several more months. I feel like getting salts really opened up my budget exponentially.

At any rate, I'm glad you're here, on 420 as well as this thread. I wish my hydro growers would get into using HB too. People will get on board as their needs or curiosity dictates. It seems lots of people are migrating towards high brix soils though. I'm hesitant to make my own high brix soil kit. I even saw a thread here on 420 the other day where the guy makes his own Pro Mix HP. That's right up my alley. If soil yielded better, I would give more credence to those thoughts/whims. At any rate, I am confident I can improve hydro brix levels, i even to only establish a better baseline. My current baseline is like 7 brix which is ass compared to any soil, even the worst soil, lol. My studies strongly suggest that I need to dial in my Ca:K ratios while also lowering my nitrate and slightly elevating the ammonical N Ca:K I have about worked out, maybe 1 or 2 more minor feed revisions. While doing that, I am also walking my NO3 back. I do need to find a source of NH4+. It's a work in progress.

 

[Coolbananas]

I’ve been following your work for a bit now skybound. Very concise and informative, helpful and well written! Most of my info was garnered from other sites with particular attention paid to Yosemite Sam, Glow and spurr to name a few and just copious amounts of study and trial and error. Just recently I’ve also come to the conclusion that 100ppm of N is enough. During the 2nd week of flower I dropped my N to 90ppm and my plants literally exploded. From 100ppm first week flower to 90 for the second, 95 for the third and 100 again for the 4th week but by week 6 it’ll be around 80-85 ppm. I work in the lower EC with 1.3 being my max so I can practice frequent fertigation. I’m also finding around 70ppm P to get rid of the red petioles but I’m still testing. Ca at 100, Mg I’m running about 45 and I’ll be hitting around 160ppm K in late flower. K-N of 2:1. Still a work in progress but with our combined efforts we may be able to nail it! I’ll post some pics and more info re, micros etc. this is awesome!

 

[Coolbananas]

Also I use MAP for my NH4. Running a bit higher than 10% total N atm. They like it in late flower.

 

[Skybound]

I’ve been following your work for a bit now skybound. Very concise and informative, helpful and well written! Most of my info was garnered from other sites with particular attention paid to Yosemite Sam, Glow and spurr to name a few and just copious amounts of study and trial and error. Just recently I’ve also come to the conclusion that 100ppm of N is enough. During the 2nd week of flower I dropped my N to 90ppm and my plants literally exploded. From 100ppm first week flower to 90 for the second, 95 for the third and 100 again for the 4th week but by week 6 it’ll be around 80-85 ppm. I work in the lower EC with 1.3 being my max so I can practice frequent fertigation. I’m also finding around 70ppm P to get rid of the red petioles but I’m still testing. Ca at 100, Mg I’m running about 45 and I’ll be hitting around 160ppm K in late flower. K-N of 2:1. Still a work in progress but with our combined efforts we may be able to nail it! I’ll post some pics and more info re, micros etc. this is awesome!

I'd like to see your targets in progression of the grow. It's hard to fully comprehend when you explain them individually and adjust up and down the ppm. I'll show mine, but understand that my targets right now are extremely fluid in that I am changing my targets almost weekly in effort to map out a more ideal feed regimen that produces higher brix levels. Before I got into that, my EC was a nice cool 1.0. Lately I'm up near 1.5 and I noticed a loss in overall growth vigor. I managed to learn I needed to tighten up my K:Ca ratio and after a bunch of failed attempts at finding a viable second source of Ca, I finally settled on gypsum, so I intend to reign in my K, already reigned in my N, elevated my Ca and am still unsure what I want to do ultimately with my Mg. I recently began foliar spraying my plants and have concocted 2 sprays, one to feed macros and a shit load of organics, the other with trace minerals and some organics too. My studies are leading me to consider putting my max efforts into going moderate on the foliar sprays and reigning my reservoirs back down to EC 1.0. I bet at 1.0, I would have an easier time building up some microbial activity in my root zone.

At any rate, here's my targets, or the last they were a few weeks ago.

I must've deleted my high brix targets. Here's a regimen I ran before that, and is pretty close to my current targets. My K is up to 180 by Stretch, Ca is 120 and Mg is 60 for now. My P is 65, but I intend to up it to 70 with the next revision. Ca I may raise up to as high as 150. I want to identify the happy range for K:Ca. Once those are proper, my studies indicate that P usage will blast off. For me, CalNite is my only source of NH4+, and I am considering getting MAP for that, but still want to read more about how much is needed. It seems most articles I read tend to only glaze across the NO3/NH4+ divide.

Oh, I am also just about to whip up a new batch of micros. The plan is to leave Fe at 2, up the Mn to 1.2, Zn and B up to 0.5, Cu to 0.3 and Mo to 0.1. I'd love it if you could link me to info suggesting 4ppm of Fe will up the brix by 1 point.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Pretty late in the game to be posing this question but it won’t seem to stop bugging me.
How much margin of error does Hydro Buddy give, are you figuring? Apparently pretty small judging by the margins you’re tweaking things.
I understand the ratios you’re using are working for you, and you can scale up or down accordingly, and it works out in a relative sense. And it sounds like it’s worked for others so this is probably just another stupid question.
For one thing, my understanding is that the guaranteed analysis of nutrients in bottles just means it’s the guaranteed minimum.
Another small area of error it seems to me would be the ‘density’ factor since most all my bottles work out to a density factor of 1.1 which is much too round of a number for me to trust.
I can see a bunch of other areas where basically I’m just flying blind and trusting this program. Which is fine as long as it’s working for you guys. There’s no way in hell I would have been the first Guinea pig to base my grow on it though.
Any thoughts?

 

[Skybound]

I also learned from others that did this with their nutes, in fact, I joined RIU just to talk to them like coolbananas did here, lol. The info is out there if you're willing to go find it.

When I was crunching products, or branded blends, I found myself frequently cheating my own targets to trick HB into resolving closer to my wants, but I always had to make peace with "close enough" or "closer than it was". That said, I went through that gauntlet. This is why I ditched ALL branded blends and make my own desired micros and can hit my targets with no errors, but if I were still in that nightmare, I would tolerate as follows,

+/- 30-50ppm
S

+/- 20ppm
K, Ca and to a minor degree, NO3

+/- 10ppm
N

+/- 5ppm
P, Mg

The micros you pretty much have no say in their individual levels so it's pointless to try and change them. Commit to making your own micro blend or let go of that thought and accept what your blend is. It's most likely that this doesn't even matter. I may have over reacted, and though I'm glad I did as I can experiment with ideal micro ranges too, it may not be that big of a deal. It's just that it's my experience that most micro blends have a lot of one of the macros too like N or K which can screw with the end counts, which then puts you kind of back on square one.

I find it hard to believe that your micro nutrients also weigh 1.1, but it's not unheard of. If memory serves me, I think GH has a heavy mix. Did you try to crunch products you don't own?

Also, as to the guaranteed analysis, you are correct, it is the guaranteed minimum, but then again the same rule applies to the salts that are used to make the nutes that you buy. All we can do is take it on good faith that the discrepancies in those tolerances aren't close to catastrophic. Perhaps the tolerances I listed above would afford you a little more mental breathing room. I'm finding that even moving my targets around 20 points only has minimal impact on my leaves. As long as your changes are subtle in nature, you'll do next to no damage, but sadly you'll have to accept that your level of control is limited by how much you can alter things. I suggest treating yourself to a 25lb bag of Cal Nite to start you off. If you're growing something in any media, you'll use the calnite. Shit, Doc Bud uses cal nite.

 

[Coolbananas]

Pretty late in the game to be posing this question but it won’t seem to stop bugging me.
How much margin of error does Hydro Buddy give, are you figuring? Apparently pretty small judging by the margins you’re tweaking things.
I understand the ratios you’re using are working for you, and you can scale up or down accordingly, and it works out in a relative sense. And it sounds like it’s worked for others so this is probably just another stupid question.
For one thing, my understanding is that the guaranteed analysis of nutrients in bottles just means it’s the guaranteed minimum.
Another small area of error it seems to me would be the ‘density’ factor since most all my bottles work out to a density factor of 1.1 which is much too round of a number for me to trust.
I can see a bunch of other areas where basically I’m just flying blind and trusting this program. Which is fine as long as it’s working for you guys. There’s no way in hell I would have been the first Guinea pig to base my grow on it though.
Any thoughts?

Yeah I find HB to be fairly accurate Weaz and I use salts mainly. I use a liquid calcium carbonate to hit my Ca targets when needed and a potassium citrate if I’m aiming for sulphur targets. Specific gravity or density is important with the products I use stating it clearly on the label. If I can’t find that info on a product I won’t use it.

 

[Coolbananas]

This is what I’m running as of week 6 flower:
N03: 70.5
NH4: 9.5
Total N: 80ppm
P: 65
K: 160
Ca: 100
Mg: 40
S: 65
Si: 20
Fe: 4
Zn: 0.52
B: 0.4
Mn: 0.96
Cu: 1
Mo: 1
All chelated micros with Fe DPTA
and Fe EDDHA.
I set may target for 650ppm,
(1.3 EC) and I subtract my water ppm, silica ppm and my micro ppm,(which comes to around 145ppm) which leaves me with 505ppm to play with. Then I just play with N P K Ca Mg S until they add up to 505ppm and away we go. Is it perfect? No way. Does it work? Yes it does but so do a lot of other formulations. Is it close? Buggered if I know but that’s why we’re here!!!

 

[Skybound]

Yeah I find HB to be fairly accurate Weaz and I use salts mainly. I use a liquid calcium carbonate to hit my Ca targets when needed and a potassium citrate if I’m aiming for sulphur targets. Specific gravity or density is important with the products I use stating it clearly on the label. If I can’t find that info on a product I won’t use it.

It's my experience that the Density of liquid nutes must be calculated to render correctly. I just picked up a QT of phosphoric acid and that shit is 1.68. Had I left that at 1.00 which is the default, I would be way off. Fluid weight divided by volume in ml.

 

[Coolbananas]

I'd like to see your targets in progression of the grow. It's hard to fully comprehend when you explain them individually and adjust up and down the ppm. I'll show mine, but understand that my targets right now are extremely fluid in that I am changing my targets almost weekly in effort to map out a more ideal feed regimen that produces higher brix levels. Before I got into that, my EC was a nice cool 1.0. Lately I'm up near 1.5 and I noticed a loss in overall growth vigor. I managed to learn I needed to tighten up my K:Ca ratio and after a bunch of failed attempts at finding a viable second source of Ca, I finally settled on gypsum, so I intend to reign in my K, already reigned in my N, elevated my Ca and am still unsure what I want to do ultimately with my Mg. I recently began foliar spraying my plants and have concocted 2 sprays, one to feed macros and a shit load of organics, the other with trace minerals and some organics too. My studies are leading me to consider putting my max efforts into going moderate on the foliar sprays and reigning my reservoirs back down to EC 1.0. I bet at 1.0, I would have an easier time building up some microbial activity in my root zone.

At any rate, here's my targets, or the last they were a few weeks ago.

I must've deleted my high brix targets. Here's a regimen I ran before that, and is pretty close to my current targets. My K is up to 180 by Stretch, Ca is 120 and Mg is 60 for now. My P is 65, but I intend to up it to 70 with the next revision. Ca I may raise up to as high as 150. I want to identify the happy range for K:Ca. Once those are proper, my studies indicate that P usage will blast off. For me, CalNite is my only source of NH4+, and I am considering getting MAP for that, but still want to read more about how much is needed. It seems most articles I read tend to only glaze across the NO3/NH4+ divide.

Oh, I am also just about to whip up a new batch of micros. The plan is to leave Fe at 2, up the Mn to 1.2, Zn and B up to 0.5, Cu to 0.3 and Mo to 0.1. I'd love it if you could link me to info suggesting 4ppm of Fe will up the brix by 1 point.

I haven’t got a link for the 4ppm Fe skybound as it was from a conversation with Yosemite Sam and another experienced grower on icmag. Yosemite Sam was using a refractometer and found that 4ppm of Fe gave him one whole point in Brix. It was confirmed by the other grower and highly recommended by both. The micro levels they were using was very close to what we’re both using atm. At the higher end. Sorry it’s not concrete but it definitely works but unfortunately I can’t confirm as I don’t have a refractometer so I’m just winging it lol.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I downloaded this a while back, but then promptly forgot about it. It wasn't until I recently found Dr. Daniel Fernandez's Science in Hydroponics website that I started thinking about it again. The developer of this application has some serious... Well, one assumes he knows his stuff, lol.

My name is Dr. Daniel Fernandez. I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a masters and Ph.D. in nanoscience and nanotechnology. I have a strong interest in plants and hydroponic crops. When I started my degree I became fascinated by the fact that plants could be grown without soil with the mere use of synthetic chemicals and that I could perfectly control the concentration and the nature of all the nutrients I gave to my plants. Perhaps the most incredible thing about hydroponics is not only that you can imitate the plant's natural environment but that you can improve it to obtain higher yields, better tasting crops, less water use and less run-off pollution. I honestly think that hydroponics are the true solution to world hunger and that the massive use of cheap hydroponic passive systems in third world countries -especially in those without a lot of water or arable soil - will mark the start of a new era for the world's starving population.

My blog attempts to educate people about hydroponics and the many scientific aspects of this type of plant culture. Through my posts I attempt to share my knowledge about hydroponics and the way plants work as well as how to prepare your own solutions, additives and growing systems for your hydroponic crops. As a chemist I have acquired an in-depth understanding of how things work within a hydroponic crop and I will do my best to share this knowledge with as many people as possible.

I don't want to post a link to his website because he isn't a forum sponsor and I'm unsure off the top of my head whether his services would be considered to be in competition with one of our sponsors. But it's worth a search to find it, probably. Here is a list of the blog article titles from 2017:

18. November DIY Warm white LED lamp PAR measurements, not so exciting after all!
03. November Cheap DIY high power LED grow lights: Introducing the Zip-tie lamp
27. October Potassium concentration and yields in flowering plants
21. October Five reasons why a dedicated hydroponic testing room is a great idea
03. October The use of phosphites in plant culture
26. September Five things you should know when mixing your own hydroponic liquid nutrients
13. September Humic acids in hydroponics: What is their effect?
03. September How to prevent problems with powdery mildew in hydroponic crops
26. August Five important things to consider when doing foliar spraying
16. August Creating a robust pH/EC monitor for hydroponics using Atlas probes and an Arduino
06. August Comparing the conductivity of two different solutions
02. August Controlling aphids in a hydroponic crop. Part 1.
18. July Five ways to increase your seed germination rates
13. July Making your own DIY plant rooting gel
06. July Building your own DIY high power LED lamp: Part One
30. June What is the ideal nutrient solution temperature in hydroponics?
22. June Are High Pressure Sodium (HPS) Lamps better than LEDs?
10. June Five dos and don’ts for automated pH control in hydroponics
07. June Using triacontanol to increase yields in hydroponics
01. June Salicylic acid and its positive effect in hydroponics
22. May Using titanium to increase crop yields
14. May Phosphorous toxicity and concentration in higher plants
03. May A simple Arduino based sensor monitoring platform for Hydroponics
17. April What is the effect of amino acids in hydroponics?
11. April Calibrating your digital humidity sensors
10. April Probes for constant immersion in hydroponic nutrient solutions
09. April Five things that will damage your pH probes
08. April Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in hydroponics
07. April Maximizing yields per area in hydroponics
06. April A few basics of leaf tissue analysis in hydroponic crops
05. April Managing a Run To Waste (RTW) hydroponic crop from a nutritional perspective
04. April Using coco coir in hydroponics
03. April Measuring ion concentrations in hydroponics using electronic tongues
02. April Using Peat Moss in Hydroponic Culture
01. April Automated media moisture monitoring in hydroponic crops
31. March Hydrobuddy v1.60: A new update with important changes
30. March Do you really need to be using RO water?
29. March Hydroponic micro and macro nutrient sufficiency ranges
28. March What is the effect of chloride in hydroponics?
27. March Some things you should know about sodium in hydroponics
26. March Using UV sterilization in your recirculating hydroponic crop
25. March What is an ORP meter and why is it useful in hydroponics?
24. March How to prepare your own solutions for EC meter calibration
22. March Preparing your own buffer solutions for pH calibration
21. March Automating a hydroponic system: Sensors and monitoring
20. March Is ortho-silicic acid worth the additional expense in hydroponics?
18. March Nitrate, Ammonium and pH in hydroponics

I do not foresee switching to bulk dry nutrients soon; although it's probably the cheapest way of feeding plants in terms of per dose, the initial buy-in looks a little expensive. But I'm definitely interested. To be honest, I've been interested since some point in the 1980s when I found a thin book in my local library (copyrighted 1972 ) that was about creating your own (homemade) hydroponics setups, and saw that it included a chapter on mixing your own nutrients. I barely even remember that book now; soon after I found it, someone decided to steal it . But it's probably why, when I started growing cannabis indoors, I got into hydroponics. It doesn't have to be complicated, expensive, or complicated and expensive to work really well.

Now I just need to find a handy app that will allow me to enter in the names of the (estimated) 43 different partial bottles of nutrients and supplements from (estimated) nine different companies, and that will then spit out a "recipe" telling me how to turn the mess into a workable nutrient program. My cupboard looks like Newbie Cannabis Grower Central, lol.

 

[Skybound]

Now I just need to find a handy app that will allow me to enter in the names of the (estimated) 43 different partial bottles of nutrients and supplements from (estimated) nine different companies, and that will then spit out a "recipe" telling me how to turn the mess into a workable nutrient program. My cupboard looks like Newbie Cannabis Grower Central, lol.

IDK if you intentionally did not mention it, but the app that I use, the reason why I made this thread to instruct others to use, was created by Daniel Fernandez, ... Hydro Buddy. Weaselcracker is on the same wavelength and just uses the app to get more mileage from his collection of bottles. I mix matched wet/dry when I transitioned to salts. I believe in the first post of page 4, maybe page 3, I left a Bill of Materials and the before shipping cost of the concise assortment was just under $200 and that will last any full time hobby grower 5 years easily. The more in tuned I become to my feed routines, the more I find myself reverse engineering various soil routines in hopes of gleaning the principals for success and I come to find that all of my salts can also be used in organic soils, to be used hand in hand with time release elements like rock phosphates, azomite or volcanic deposits. So for $200, IMO, you're buying freedom from ever having to task the budget again.

That aside though, Hydro Buddy is an AMAZING app that will allow you to nearly get from your bottles what I get from my salts merely by inputting the info from your bottles, then inputting your desired elemental ppm targets. This will allow you to tailor fit your feed the way you want it so that after going through a few cycles, you will have already worked out all of the little kinks and deficiencies or any other genetic defects that require special needs from your feed, you can get all of that control for free with Hydro Buddy. Dan Fernandez is an awesome dude to put that out there, and yes I read his archives ALL the time. It was his article (07.June) about Triacontanol that coaxed me into trying it out. Daniel is skeptical of everything, so when he expressed optimism about tria, I had to give it a whirl. That is panning out well BTW.

 

[TorturedSoul]

IDK if you intentionally did not mention it, but the app that I use, the reason why I made this thread to instruct others to use, was created by Daniel Fernandez, ... Hydro Buddy.

I thought I mentioned it pretty clearly, actually. When talking about a piece of software, the term "developer" is generally taken to mean "the person who created it." Or at least the person who is actively maintaining the thing, if the creator no longer does so.

Weaselcracker is on the same wavelength and just uses the app to get more mileage from his collection of bottles.

Oh? I didn't want to come right out and ask if the application could help me with my little collection of bottles, lol, but was sort of hoping. I'll have to make time to read this entire thread from start to finish this week. (I know, I should have done that before bothering to post in it.)

before shipping cost of the concise assortment was just under $200 and that will last any full time hobby grower 5 years easily. The more in tuned I become to my feed routines, the more I find myself reverse engineering various soil routines in hopes of gleaning the principals for success and I come to find that all of my salts can also be used in organic soils, to be used hand in hand with time release elements like rock phosphates, azomite or volcanic deposits. So for $200, IMO, you're buying freedom from ever having to task the budget again.

(Plus a not inconsiderable shipping fee.) Yes, exactly what I was talking about, lol, expensive. I haven't sold cannabis for years, so I cannot simply write such costs off as business expenses. And $200 is like four months' worth of electric bills. More or less, depending on the season. But it's definitely more than the cost of a month's worth of groceries, for example.

Again, I agree that it makes economic sense once you've managed to buy everything. And it's okay to buy in bulk, because this stuff should be extremely stable long-term (assuming its kept dry/sealed). However... Well, it's true what they say about being poor having its own form of tax called "not being able to spend enough to save money," . It's like... Buying a cheap form of no-frills transportation might make sense, but a person is going to have to skip riding on their local city bus for literal years in order to save up enough money to buy one. And the poor SOBs who can't even afford to regularly ride the bus and, instead, have to walk everywhere, LOFL - they're probably not ever going to save enough money to buy a vehicle.

Me, I'm a walker. I'm doing a lot better this year, though. Still only the one pair of shoes - but this year's pair isn't being held together with duct tape yet .

That aside though, Hydro Buddy is an AMAZING app that will allow you to nearly get from your bottles what I get from my salts merely by inputting the info from your bottles, then inputting your desired elemental ppm targets. This will allow you to tailor fit your feed the way you want it so that after going through a few cycles, you will have already worked out all of the little kinks and deficiencies or any other genetic defects that require special needs from your feed, you can get all of that control for free with Hydro Buddy.

Thank you. I wonder if I could pester @FelipeBlu into giving me the information I'd need for such a project? I think he's the member who has posted specifics of various nutrient products.

My biggest "need to" right now is that I need to find a different location for my garden. Thinks are a little up in the air right now.