I got a analysis done on the Athena core and bloom. I’m not super familiar with this stuff but I figured I would post it up for anyone interested.
That was mixed with ro water.
@emdub27
@AgTonik
@anon56994712
@Pattypan01
Any comments or criticism welcome.
That’s awesome and truly the only way to see what’s in the bag/bottle. When you plug it into HydroBuddy, I wonder how much it differs from the label.
And who did your analysis? I always use Kuo testing labs.
It’s the government agriculture lab in my province, price was good it was 35$ for the testing.
Less P and K
more N, CA, MG, FE than the label
I like the actual mix more, I can’t get enough Mg in coco under LEDs. I actually supplement 1g per gal epsom with this same nutrient line under LED.
That’s really good. I think Kuo was $250 for 16 element, sodium, heavy metals and biostimulants. The biostimulants was the expensive part.
Honestly it looks pretty unremarkable. Within the next couple of days I’ll stop by a place using it with my laquatwin meters and verify the potassium reading on a 1,000 gallon batch tank just in case the bloom powder isn’t very homogenous. Unfortunately I don’t have the ability to field test for mg. K and mg are the only 2 that are much different than the expected label.
Other than that the lowish pH implies to me that there is a polyphosphate or some other acid present. That would also help to explain how droppers stay so clean on it.
I think the hypochlorous acid in the cleanse helps with keeping the lines clean as well.
But for sure the bloom formula takes a lot of ph up, I add my ph up first when mixing, usually the first 24hrs the ph will rise by .1 then it remains stable.
I guess I should of mixed my whole 55gallon res instead of just doing 5 gallon.
Do you have the whole laquatwin line up? I have the ph meter and it’s 100% better then my blue lab ph meter, it barely ever goes off calibration and I really enjoy how fast it takes the reading.
I own pH, ec, ca, no3, and k laquatwin meters. The individual element ones are pretty finicky and basically need to be calibrated for every sample. All I really use them for is to verify the wooks mix correctly on batch tanks, or verify dosers are accurate. I’ve encountered more than a few people that have never calibrated dosatrons and have no idea they should be rebuilt regularly.
Click clack. I’m grateful to have done light work in a few Dosatron operations and would love to learn more.
Not a lot to learn. The piston seals are what wear most commonly in my experience. They are easy to rebuild for anyone slightly mechanically inclined. Full rebuild kits are pricey.
I no longer use dosatrons in new installations. The etatron fixed 1:128 or peristaltic pumps are cheap and for me it’s just easier to mix to 1:128.if you screw up and send a precipitating mix through a dosatron it chews it up pretty fast. That doesn’t happen with peristaltic style pumps. Also, there is no pressure drop with the peristaltic pump like a dosatron.
Is there any advantage of mechanical action from Dosatrons versus peristaltic pumps?
I had a customer with a runaway peristaltic pump from a pH probe that decided to channel Satan, the alarms didn’t work and it nuked the entire garden.
Moral of the story- calibrate your probes and keep them wet. There’s a reason they are only warrantied for 6 months.
Dosatrons still work when the power is out and work anywhere you can get water pressure.
I’m not a fan of using a ph probe as a positive feedback loop for acids or bases. In that case the control mechanism failed and the pump did its job. Any peristaltic I use is actuated by flow meters only, so they are just proportional injectors. Safeties are still written in to plc code, like if ph or ec goes out of range, the flush bypass automatically opens. Even for that all the probes are double or triple redundant.
The only way I would trust a Hanna, milwauke or blue lab ph setup is if I could put them in series or something to create redundancy.
Bro, lemme get your raspberry pi code! (super italics)
Only industrial plc’s here. Automation direct is what I prefer to use.
The company I work for was Industrial Logic (Automation) before 1997, then they were Mineral Logic for human health neutraceuticals, then they were AgTonik for agricultural biostimulants. This conversation speaks to my heart. 
Yeah, my pops was a commercial electrician, so I had exposure to ladder logic. All of the logic for a grow is actually very simple and automation direct has a free remote hmi app that allows me to control the grows anywhere I can get internet.
Athena Pro line seems like an extremely hot EC on the feed chart. Core looks like calcium nitrate. Grow is 2-8-20. Bloom is 0-12-24. I might be able to run this in coco DTW with fresh bulbs and sealed CO2. Otherwise, it seems like it would burn the crap out of plants?
The Blended line seems a bit more sane on the EC chart.
I take it you got a call from @Pattypan01 lol, here’s a message I got from dankem hunter on ig, he’s running pro line with luxx leds, so I understand that with cmh or hps feed input will be a lower ec.
I run my ppfd levels higher in veg. I can’t seem to find the Mg levels on the bags. Is additional magnesium supplementation necessary? 3EC still seems crazy to me.
