Mixing your own nutrients

So one of my customers always said that the hydro store is just dolled up overpriced water. When I managed ~150 lights lights, I switched them to a commercial salt mix. Add the price of insecticidal soap and you have an entire feed and IPM program. We ended up paying about $0.08/gallon feed and foliar even with AGT-50 fulvic as a biostimulant.

Here’s our salt mix start to finish:
(5 gallons concentrate A+B, 10ml A+B/L, 1.4 EC, 500 total gallons)

A - Chelated Micros Micros 76 g
A - Calcium Nitrate (Tetrahydrate) Ca(NO3)2.4H2O 1682 g
A - Ammonium Nitrate NH4NO3 478 g
A - AGT-50 500 ml (1ml/final gallon)

B - Magnesium Sulfate (Heptahydrate) MgSO4.7H2O 959 g
B - Potassium Sulfate K2SO4 366 g
B - Potassium Monobasic Phosphate KH2PO4 415 g

Save money compared to the hydroponics store and mix your own fertilizer!

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Thanks for sharing!

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Sheet
I use technaflora nutrients for about 8yrs now. Its literally a 6 bottle setup on feed days. Then I use 4 bottles (other stuff, not technaflora) for amendment days.

I may give this a try.

What’s the ppm of your recipe? I’m at 1480ppm currently. Zero burn. If I feed less, at week 5 I have bad issues.

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What micros do you use?

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Even if you don’t try this, you would like either jacks powder. This is a nice easy mix though, if I my grows were of a meaningful size, I’d try this out.

Powders much easier and cheaper than bottles imo.

I use mega crop, but more people here would vouch for jacks.

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@Demontrich In Promix, I keep it 1.4 EC (700 ppm on most meters). In coco, I have to go up to 11-1200 ppm by the end of flower. This room was CO2 and new bulbs. The 4-1-5 NPK ratio prevents it from burning, unlike with silly hydro store bloom boosters.

@Jmvernonia Peter’s STEM works, but I prefer chelated micros from Custom Hydro Nutrients

@Curious_Roberto We mix 5 gallons of liquid at a time from raw salts. This is a couple cents cheaper a gallon than Jacks. When you get going through a bunch of gallons those cents add up against product margin quickly.

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http://customhydronutrients.com/51126-hydroponic-special-c-1_43_120_40/hydroponic-special-51126-peters-professional-fertilizer-25-p-128.html

Or

Jacks 5-12-26 are great base (part a) nutes

Jacks, Yara or Haifa 25-50lb bags of calcium nitrate are about as cheap as you can get

Then epsom or magnesium sulfate can be bought in 25-50lb bags as well…

I can get jacks locally for 50 bucks per 25lb bag I usually buy 10 at a time and 4 or 5 50lb bags of calcinit and 50lbs of magnesium sulfate.

I tried 2 different formulas of Greenleaf one part but it never worked as good as jacks and it’s dirty as hell so it gums up dosatrons and I’ve heard blumats as well. I tried it for a few crops and switched back to Jack’s after.having not so great of a time with it.

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@square_root_pharms Greenleaf Megacrop uses a cheap Chinese humic that falls out and doesn’t offer much benefit. For soil it’s fine. For hydro and production, it’s not fantastic.

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Ya it was crap. Gunked up reservoirs and shit

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I run HGV nutrients that has a Base then Growth/Flower depending on your needs. I run the concentrate in 55 gallon drums and dose thru hammer pumps 1:500.

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It has similar results for me with soil as jacks. But I could see it being an issue for hydro.

But that being said, I didn’t know about the Chinese ingredients. That’s kinda shady.

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Glad i use something made in the USA by Mom and Pops. :100:

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Yeah, I’m not happy about mega crop now. Fuck that noise.

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Im trying as best i can to not send my mula to china any more.

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What is your take on the Athena ag liquid salts. No mixing to dilute, all the other benefits of running salts, but more easily measurable and works with a dosotron (sp) vs having to hand mix.

I just buy raw bulk compost and brew my own teas and amend my soil as needed . Personally I like to top dress every 2-3 weeks, weekly insect frass foliar until flower for silica boost , and weekly compost tea(s) . I will use epsom salt as a magnesium and sulphur boost occasionally as well . Bio alive from down to earth is a great product and love all their amendments . All my teas are fish , kelp ,insect frass , and occasionally other goodies . Roots organic has terp tea grow and bloom that’s basically an all in one that has trace minerals , microbes, and NPK that can top dressed or brewed in teas that’s pretty awesome. If i use bottled nutes i go with the small company called elevation organics that has a grow , bloom, humic acid , and yucca its been my favorite so far .

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What is the picture you posted. Hand water and no recirc nutrients? Seems like a lot of water on the floor ?

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Same here, I know it’s impossible to completely stop buying Chinese shit, but as much as I can, I’m avoiding it, because fuck China.

@Dred_pirate, the athena line, is this the stuff you’re talking about?

https://www.bghydro.com/athena-grow-a.html

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@Onceovertwice Yes, they are hand watered to floor drains. The dehus/air circulation are good enough that the floors are dry in an hour.

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Better stop buying TV’s, Nike’s, and about 75% of all hour household items and clothing.

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