Here is another round of the Do-It-Yourself Faux Series. How to make your own Silica supplement similar to Dyna Gro Pro-Tek, Botanicare Silica Blast, General Hydroponics Armor SI, Grotek Pro-Silicate, Advanced Nutrients Rhino Skin, etc., we'll call it Faux-Tekt®.
First you need to acquire a bag of Potassium Silicate. I found mine on BuildASoil for $20 for a 1lb bag, including shipping. One pound will make about 3.5 quarts. Compare that to $18 for a single quart of Pro-Tekt and you can see the savings.
Next you need to measure out 32oz (1 quart) of RO or distilled water into a pot.
I just replaced the filters in my RO system, and I'm still working on flushing the tank, so my RO was at 50ppm. It will get lower over the next couple weeks as the system is purged.
My RO was 7.6 pH to start. That may get lower too over the next couple weeks. All that really maters is that you're using a good quality water to start with. My ppm and pH numbers are fairly inconsequential. I was just curious of the inputs.
Now that we have our 32oz of water, and our bag of Potassium Silicate. It's time to measure out how much powder we need. To make a quart of 7.8% solution (same as Pro-Tekt), we need 140g of Potassium Silicate. First we tare our scale with the container on it.
Next we measure out our powder.
Add our powder to the pot containing our water.
Turn the burner on medium heat and stir til dissolved. I heated mine until it was starting to put off a bit of steam but not to the point of boiling.
When you think its well dissolved, it will go from very cloudy white to slightly white but not perfectly clear, pour your concoction into a storage container. It filled my quart jar right to the rim.
That's it. You have just made your own Silica supplement at less than 1/3 the cost. Why pay for water? Buy the powder yourself and add your own water and save/spend your cash for something else.
First you need to acquire a bag of Potassium Silicate. I found mine on BuildASoil for $20 for a 1lb bag, including shipping. One pound will make about 3.5 quarts. Compare that to $18 for a single quart of Pro-Tekt and you can see the savings.
Next you need to measure out 32oz (1 quart) of RO or distilled water into a pot.
I just replaced the filters in my RO system, and I'm still working on flushing the tank, so my RO was at 50ppm. It will get lower over the next couple weeks as the system is purged.
My RO was 7.6 pH to start. That may get lower too over the next couple weeks. All that really maters is that you're using a good quality water to start with. My ppm and pH numbers are fairly inconsequential. I was just curious of the inputs.
Now that we have our 32oz of water, and our bag of Potassium Silicate. It's time to measure out how much powder we need. To make a quart of 7.8% solution (same as Pro-Tekt), we need 140g of Potassium Silicate. First we tare our scale with the container on it.
Next we measure out our powder.
Add our powder to the pot containing our water.
Turn the burner on medium heat and stir til dissolved. I heated mine until it was starting to put off a bit of steam but not to the point of boiling.
When you think its well dissolved, it will go from very cloudy white to slightly white but not perfectly clear, pour your concoction into a storage container. It filled my quart jar right to the rim.
That's it. You have just made your own Silica supplement at less than 1/3 the cost. Why pay for water? Buy the powder yourself and add your own water and save/spend your cash for something else.
