Anyone see this ph up before? pH Pro Adjusters – General Hydroponics
Not supposed to alter ratios. Checked the sds and nothing listed, says non mineral based acids.
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I haven’t seen that pH up before. The label lists “hydroxylated” and “hydrogenated” water on the label.
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I use a hanna ppm meter, whats 2000 ppm to ec?
I sent away two samples today one of purecal and one of Athena core. Should be very simple to switch over to another calcium nitrate with hopefully a higher calcium ratio then the original.
Still only going to be 3 parts, calcium nitrate, micros and either veg or bloom.
25lbs for wholesale price up here is 170 for 25lbs.
Purecal is 60$ for 50 lbs. I haven’t found any substitute for the bloom that’s cheaper already mixed so even saving on the core/calcium nitrate will be a plus.
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HGV, the price is the same/or less when you consider you are overpaying for Athena’s Cal Nitrate with the micros in it.
Just buy the HGV Veg or Bloom and source your own Cal Nitrate. HGV actually recommends this to his customers already.
Ron actually makes his product, knows his shit and you can get him on the phone for proper customer support.
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I got the analysis back on the Athena core and plant products purecal.
I mixed 4.3g per gallon of each into 0ppm ro.
Here’s the results, what I see the labels are not way off. Athena says 17% ca 14%n, purecal 18%ca 13%n.
This is my plan please correct me if you guys don’t agree, the ec on the purecal was 1.2ec, if I bump that up 20% it gives me 1.44ec.
So the pure cal would be approx.
176n and 242ca.
Same nitrate with 30ppm added calcium.
Then I just need to figure the micros. Will the micros add anything to the npk?
Any thoughts guys @AgTonik @emdub27 ?
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I just switched to Athena Pro from GH using the Lucas Formula. I run Mother Earth coco with 30% pearlite mix in fabric pots in an enclosed room and fertigate 6 times day… I ran 2.0 ec in veg under HLG 600 R Spec lights (I veg out trees in my flowering room because my veg tent is small and I want to stay legal lol) and they looked amazing with no tip burn… When I went into flower I started feeding 2.7 because I felt like 3.0 would be hot even though I have no experience with salts lol. I got a lot of tip burn in the first week of flower and called Athena for help and they told to check my run off and it was maxing out my Hanna at 6.00 EC. The guy suggested that I run half strength at 1.5 EC for a few feeds to flush the excess salts and then go back to 3.0. He said the run off should be around 4.0 running the heavy 3.0 feed. The guy also said he runs straight coco with no pearlite so I’m wondering if maybe 3.0 isn’t too hot because his medium isn’t drying out as fast as mine… This advice still kind of confused me because it seemed like it would present the same problems I had to begin with so instead I just slowly tapered my EC down until I stopped seeing new signs of burning and now I’m running 1.85 with no signs of deficiencies for the past week and a half and I’m 2.5 weeks into flower. I’m wondering if a lower EC is okay with more frequent fertigation as long as the plants look healthy or would I get better results if I run a higher EC while achieving more run off to relieve salt build up in the root zone (I am running the cleanse at 2ml/gal)… It seems like the salts allow the plants to handle higher EC because I have friends who run 3.0 EC with no burn but they also only fertigate 1-2 times a day in straight coco. I always lean towards the less is more mantra and hate wasting nutrients. If I fed at 3.0 a 25lb bag wouldn’t even last a full run for me. I also understand you guys think Athena is light on Ca and Mg… I don’t have purple stems but I do see some purple veins starting on the fan leaves of the Birthday Cake I’m running but I’ve heard that that’s just strain specific…
It’s odd that your previous data show Ca:NO3 at 1.3 and this current analysis on core shows 1.18. Greenhouse grade cal nitrate should be roughly 1.3.
It’s not uncommon to see trace K with edta chelated micros. Most of them are manufactured using Kedta.
Now the complicated part of this.
Earlier in our discussions on this topic you were running a lower ec with NO3 at about 110 and Ca at about 140. At a lower NO3 number like that, the NO3 isn’t going to cause as much water uptake resulting in less Ca and Mg absorption. To get Ca and Mg where you want them in tissue you would need to jack them up pretty high, probably 220-240ish ppm Ca, as a result you would also need to increase K and Mg. This is basically the way @SidViscous runs his recipe and it’s one way to skin a cat.
Now you’re running a higher ec and for the sake of discussion we will assume NO3 is at 170. All that additional NO3 causes water uptake and acts as a “trucker” to move mass flow nutrients in to the plant. In this case you can run Ca at 180ish and accomplish the same Ca uptake as the lower nitrate example discussed above. If you were to run pure cal up at this nitrate level, all the calcium will be antagonizing K. The higher NO3 will also change where the ideal K ratio will end up.
I’ve ran facilities both ways, “high” and “low” nitrate, both can arrive at the same tissue data. In general high nitrate is to be used where high yield is the goal and low nitrate where high cannabinoids are the goal.
Short answer is if you’re going to be running 160 + nitrate, you will probably be better off with standard greenhouse grade cal nitrate and micro mix as a core replacement. If you’re going to run 120 or less nitrate you’re probably going to be better off running pure cal and micro mix.
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Only one of these things makes you more money.
Have you quantified the increase you can get in cannabinoids? Or is in within lab testing error?
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Yes, I can see quantifiable differences in cannabinoid content by varying K:N ratios. There have also been a few studies that have documented higher cannabinoids at higher K ratios.
In the real world, everything is relative. We are always balancing antagonism. Oversupply any one thing and the whole system takes a downturn. In the case of cannabinoids vs yield we are basically modulating tissue N to encourage or discourage luxurious growth.
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This was grown at 175ppm NO3 from beginning of flower to flush at 550umol in hps assisted dep. As you can tell she used up pretty much all of that nitrogen.
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I’ve read that recent study. Problem is - this is people trying to quantify quality differences from boof either way.
I have wonderful success running higher N levels. I’ve also never chased numbers other than g/sf/y.
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Great work on that @emdub27 , looks like some of them indoor quality deps, what’s the strain?
Coming back to the core analysis this is from a new bag, I did notice that the size of the granules were smaller this time and the color a paler yellow. So they must of changed something.
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That’s Shortcake, it does pretty well for us and is reliably purple which is important in our market. With our new heat system the environment is basically the same as indoor without CO2 and about half the light. We are maxed out on power to the structures, so I can’t add more lights to get the ppfd up.
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Excuse my ignorance on this but does a plant turning purple indicate nutrient deficiencies?
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Yes when it’s on the stems
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That can also be sunburn from too much light, strains with larger internodal spacing will definitely get purple/maroon stems as they have less leaf/plant to block the sun.
Take a plan strip some leaves and expose the stem to direct light, it will purple, og variants do it alot.
It could be a reaction from switching to flowering lights or if you turned your lights up recently, if you know your nutrients are good then it’s that, but if not nutrients issues can cause it also.
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Quick question. Should I use Ca No3 as my sole N source? Been adding a little K No3 to make up my N and add some K in order to not have to use so much SOP. Trying to keep my S under 100 ppm in veg. Also adding Ca Acetate to make up my Ca.