Yeah it can be applied to drain to waste. Not having a recirculating reservoir makes it less accurate but still usable. Yeah I'd say you are over dosing slightly. This will slow uptake a little due to the process of osmosis, but probably won't have a huge impact as it's only a little overdosed
Give the plants the same EC as what they take up. For a more detailed explanation you should read the opening post on this thread
Gold grower. Could you please look at my post " problems problems" in hydroponics and give my your opinion please? I've tried tagging you but not sure how
Thanks goldgrower as per our chat the other day I have started at 1.2 and so far it's 5 days or more later and it's still 1.2 so I would have to say "thank you kind sir " lol much respect and +rep
regarding peroxide and safety. I do dialysis 3 times a week the clean the machines with peroxide and a vinegar type solution. in fact, I get the peroxide buckets, and bring them home. it's considered safe to gargle with, and put in wounds. so I don't think cleaning with it, would do any damage to plants, or the end product.
Nothing wrong with it at all. It actually increases air in the water temporarily. I add 3ml to my 4gal rez once a week or so to keep things clean
I used to add hydrogen peroxide to my reservoirs every 4 or 5 days. I have forgotten my dosage now but after many months of doing it without any problems, one day I almost killed my plants with it. They suddenly looked awful. They did survive but I have never used it since. Just prefer not to risk it. Cleaning stuff with it is another story though because you can rinse it off, it's great for cleaning
Great thread GoldGrower & Everyone !!! ...... This will help us better understand what we are trying to accomplish in English Don't forget Safety First !!!! I've been working on adopting Ironhead's method over what I had been doing a nute, water, none ish type schedule with lotsa flexibility and it helped alot. I am still using cocotek A+B grow n bloom and prob gunna work at getting some of the other things when i can Thanks Tons !
Hey excellent post GoldGrower, I just read through every page. I learned a ton about Ph and TDS and I thought I already knew a thing or two. Will definitely be applying this knowledge. Thank you for taking the time to make the post. This may seem like a simple question but it's got me really hung up if you or anyone could answer this for me or tell me I'm on the right track I would really appreciate. Getting ready within a week or two to move up from my 3'' Rockwool cubes to my buckets (plumbing them this or next weekend) : If I have a 4+1 RDWC (4 plants, 1 control bucket) I still either need a tote I can fill up and mix inside of and then pump into the system or I also considered using my bathtub (I'm using Canna Substra line and they have separate systems designed for Hard or Soft water; saved me the money on using RO and my tap is only .4 EC here) as my reservoir when I do a change and then just pump the water over and into the system from the tub. I keep it clean and wouldn't use Soft Scrub or anything like that in it. Make sure whatever I use to clean it is safe. I've been using a touch of H202 when I soak Rockwool and in my Res and all my plants seem to like it. One of my peppers I converted to a little mini DWC from Soil had some nasty root rot and just looked like a slimy goner under the lid, but with about 72 hours of RO and H202 the roots look nice and clean. I still haven't found a concentration that most have agreed on. I've heard 1ml per gallon here and up to 1.5 tsps per gal other places. Any Goldilocks range as far as H202? I haven't been able to see it change Ph or EC and from what I've read about it, as long as it's not overused, it's great at killing bad bacteria, but too much and you risk killing off the good bacteria as well. I guess my question is I will need to measure nutes for all 5 buckets of water (so for the first couple of weeks probably 20 gallons; 5buckets x 4gallons each) and then if they're all plumbed together and recirculating once everything is all in SCROG netting, I won't have to touch the plants or move their buckets at all. I will probably drain to re-use just because I have lots of outdoor veggies and these expensive nutes shouldn't just be poured down the drain. But this way I have a control bucket to take readings daily, I get a better picture of what the plants are using (isn't that what you or someone said earlier?) and the plants don't need to be moved or messed with other than the few seconds in which they'll be drained and then re-filled while they have no water. Again thank you for such a comprehensive and informative thread. This is going in my bookmarks for future reference.
Hi mate, thanks for the compliment. Filling the bath and pumping it from there is certainly one way to do it, but it sounds like an unnecessary amount of work. The way I do it is fill the system with a hose from the tap and glug in some nutes, wait I little while and test to see if I need to add more nutes. It doesn't take long to get the feel of it to the point where you can get it spot on on the first try I used to be a fan of using h2o2, but after about 6 months of using it I suddenly almost killed my plants, it must have started to build up I guess. The damage was really sudden so I haven't used it since. I've never had root rot so don't find it necessary anyway. However if your system is prone to bacteria build up its a good quick fix I'm glad to hear I have been able to help
The nute system Im going to run claims to have over fifty different types of good microbials as opposed to Hyrdoguard has just the Bacillus whatever-us. I'm starting to really think (more like know without a doubt) that my res temps are going to be a problem. Some frozen soda bottles may be it unless I can figure out a DIY water chiller for cheap. I've looked into using a CPU water block for a water cooler computer with a CPU fan/heat sink and this little thermal chip that gets hot on one side and cold on the other. Someone on this thread probably linked to the YouTube video. Any other ideas on that? Now were you saying you basically pump in unprepared water to your system straight from the tap and then just mix nutes and lower Ph. I understand you get your sweet spots dialed in and it takes minutes but the plants are cool in 8.somethimg Ph water with nothing in it while you mess with it and it recirculates? Do you find you need to keep an airstone in the control bucket and do you need to shut off the flow in order to take measurements? Thank you for all the advice. This is a problem I'm trying to solve before it ever exists kind of like my air temps. I've been running tests for weeks and am tapping into the actual AC of the house to cool the light specifically*. * I also was trying to figure out a way to use the air conditioning to cool the water inline...duct it to a heat sink/ copper to keep the tubes cold to keep the water cold. I basically think I'm going to need a compressor/chiller
If you do devise some form of chiller, DO NOT use copper if it's going to come in contact with the nutrient solution. The acidity will eat the copper and leach it into the solution causing all kinds of grief.
Thank you, I had not considered that as I didn't know it would do that. Just sitting in the bathtub right now the buckets are at 74F...once I get the AC cooler on the reflector and wrap the buckets in foil tape or insulation of some kind and using frozen bottles (i've already informed the household to start saving plastic bottles) i'll be able to keep it under control. What are the absolute extremes and what is the sweet spot? No lower than like 55F and no higher than 80F or you're looking at cold shocked roots or pythium and all that other nastiness that comes with hot water. So if I drop a frozen 2liter in the rez and it drops the water to temp to 50 degrees for a few minutes while it warms back up is that going to be detrimental? Thanks for all the help. This is one of the most informative posts I've been fortunate enough to stumble across. I enjoy recording the data and taking the measurements and learning the science behind plants. Botany! Happy Growing!
Rapid changes of anything aren't good for the plants. That includes temperature swings in the room and buckets. As well as stuff like pH and ppm changes. 55 would pry be about the low side. Get under 50 and I'd imagine metabolic rates would crawl if not stop. How much yours will tolerate, I got no idea... People have been able to run high temps, but you gotta keep it sterile with bleach or pool shock, by maintaining a few ppm of chlorine in the solution and lots of air. Hot water can't hold much oxygen. I've used bleach in the past, but not any more. I built myself a chiller and keep my reservoirs at 64 degrees.
If you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost and was there a guide you followed or general idea from YouTube or somewhere? Any way you could perhaps impart this knowledge on to me please ? My dad and I can DIY about anything, if I don't know how to do it, he does. I've figured I will at least need a compressor out of an old fridge or like an evaporator/chiller they use in vending machines....even if you could point me in the right direction. I already know it's going to be a problem, because my ambient air temps hover around 84F right now. That is getting fixed as soon as I can pick up some more ducting. But I digress...any assistance with a DIY inline chiller would be invaluable to me and I would very much appreciate it.
Altogether, I pry have a couple hundred into it. It's not inline though. It serves a few purposes. Another member was just asking me about it in my thread. So, that makes this easy for me... lol Here > crankz's corner
I have a thought for a basement cooler I was thinking about building a cinder block chiller my basement floor is dirt so I was going to dig down 2 feet and build a concrete box leave the floor dirt and run a hose for 15 mins once every few days nice cold well water set my container inside the concrete box and it should stay about 60-65 steady lights on or off because my soil grow the temps in the hole I dug to set container in is normally about 72 if I water it drops down to 68 until most evaporation takes place. Think this would work or would it cause mold mildew? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app