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Hydro - Nutrient discussion

Jeff H

Jeff H

I have been dabbling with hydro for the last couple of months or so and while it is working well, I'm not sold on the nutrients I am using. They hydro shop told me to use CNS 17 grow because it was an all in one package. The directions for the nuts are not that great and I burned the shit out of my plants leaves when still using the recommended amount of nutrients. Although they are growing fast, the burned leaf incident probably knocked a couple of weeks off as I grow back the leaves.

When I run out of this stuff, I want to try something different so I am looking for opinions.

I have been eyeing the general hydroponics set of nutrients. The set of 3 quarts isn't very expensive and will probably last most of the summer. Anyone using this stuff? Is there a preferred brand specifically for peppers or doesn't it matter that much?

L4_img_floraseries.jpg
 
I started growing peppers last summer and the only nutrients I have used is Gh. The first one I used was the all in one Gh. It worked great, plants grew fast and really healthy. The only thing I could complain about the all in one Gh is you have really got to shake it well or there will be a lot of crystals and stuff left in the bottom when its empty. I'm currently using what you have pictured and really like it. You can tweak it to what ever ppm and combination you want. If you go by the schedule they have on the bottle it seems strong for growing peppers, probly work good for growing something else. I watered my plants with nutrients last week and used 1 tsp of each per gallon and got a ppm of 850 or so. That was for my dirt plants. I you need more nutrients I would go with this stuff and go a little weaker than recommended and you should be happy with the results.
 
I have no experience with GH except their ph down but I use botanicare products with great results. Trying out the supernatural brand grow aqua but no results as yet as it is too soon to judge. The supernatural brand has a great ph buffer though and seems to not require any ph down.
 
Jeff H said:
I have been dabbling with hydro for the last couple of months or so and while it is working well, I'm not sold on the nutrients I am using. They hydro shop told me to use CNS 17 grow because it was an all in one package. The directions for the nuts are not that great and I burned the shit out of my plants leaves when still using the recommended amount of nutrients. Although they are growing fast, the burned leaf incident probably knocked a couple of weeks off as I grow back the leaves.

When I run out of this stuff, I want to try something different so I am looking for opinions.

I have been eyeing the general hydroponics set of nutrients. The set of 3 quarts isn't very expensive and will probably last most of the summer. Anyone using this stuff? Is there a preferred brand specifically for peppers or doesn't it matter that much?

L4_img_floraseries.jpg
Click to expand...

I liked FloraNova by GH when I was doing some DWC.

queequeg152 said:
save your cash... or about 75% of it, and make your own nutrients.
Click to expand...

Care to go more in depth there?
 
[background=rgb(245, 234, 219)]
queequeg152, on 17 February 2013 - 06:39 PM, said:[/background][background=rgb(255, 250, 242)]

save your cash... or about 75% of it, and make your own nutrients.[/background]
[background=rgb(255, 244, 228)]Care to go more in depth there?[/background]
Click to expand...

+1, I would love to read more about this.
 
all you need is the raw salts and a scale good for .1g

the math is all done for you these days. there is software called hydrobuddy that has all but eliminated the standard spreadsheets that used to be used.

i should mention... that in order to recoup your costs in a reasonable time... like a few months. you must be using a decent amount of nutrients. i go through like 60 gallons of nutrient solution weekly during peak months. thats like half the bottle of GH's three part fertilizer. 30 gallons made my self costs me like 90 cents.

if you are just going through like 5 gallons a week or something... might not make sense to buy all the salts.

buy your salts here. or where ever... ebay works.
http://mbferts.com/Y...pplier_c134.htm

your calculations are done by hydrobuddy which you can find here.
http://scienceinhydr...-program-o.html

you need a micronutrient chelate mix. its unreasonable to make your own unless you use 100's of gallons worth of nutrient solution weekly.
i now use peters STEM.
http://everris.us.co...iles/e99900.pdf
you can find this here.
https://customhydron...8c1eiku3bg54ih7

chelates are expensive. however your chelates will last a very very long time. they are used at very low rates.

you can make a liquid concentrate if you wish, but i find it unnecessary. just weigh out your a and b salts and dissolve them. however if you must have liquid concentrates, simply use hydrobuddy to create a 1:100 concentrate in dissolve it in some distilled water. if your concentrate has chelates its not a bad idea to add some sodium benzoate in order to kill bacteria that could potentially consume the organic chelates keeping your iron in solution.
 
Thanks for the information Quee, but I think that is a little more than I want to get involved in right now. Even in the peak of summer, I'll probably only be using 18-20 gallons a week. Right now, I'm about 1/2 of that.

I ordered a gallon each of the floraDuo and I'll be trying it out in a couple of weeks. I like that it is simpler than the 3 part flora, it works out to be cheaper as well. Thanks for all the opinions guys.
 
I had good luck with botanicare progrow & probloom once I finally sorted out the correct EC. From personal experience I recommend erring on the side of too little nutrients instead of too much. I too tried following the recommended dosage on the bottle & while the plants grew quickly they never set fruit. It was incredibly frustrating having GIGANTIC plants with thousands of flowers and not a single fruit. In the end I settled between 1/4 & 1/2 strength compared to the bottle.

From following directions on the bottle I was around 1.8-1.9 EC which was WAY too high. In the end somewhere between about .5 & 1.0 was plenty. From doing some research it seems that most hot peppers prefer lower EC while bell peppers are a bit heavier feeders.

Learn from my mistakes, start em off at 1/4 of what the bottle says and work your way up from there.
 
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