Hello to all! I've decided I've been a lurker on here for way too long and would love to give back from all the knowlege I've attained from you guys with this General Hydroponic Nutrient Calculator. Excel is one of my strong points so I have decided to take that knowhow and create an awesome spreadsheet tool that could be used by both new and experience growers looking to customize their GH nutrient regimen. In this tool, I've added the following nutrients: FloraGrow FloraMicro FloraBloom Floralicious Plus Koolbloom Floranectar Florablend Diamond Nectar Armor Si CALiMAGic If you open the spreadsheet (must use Excel), you'll see a editable section on the right that will allow you to mix and match the amounts (in mL) of each nutrient to add per gallon of fresh water. Every time you edit these numbers, the spreadsheet will automatically update some numbers in the lower section of the page which gives you a realtime breakdown of the total PPM's and nutrient percentages if all selected nutrients were mixed into 1 gallon of 100% purified water (0 ppm). If you're trying to dial in specific ratios of each element, this tool takes out a load of mathwork you would have had to have done to find out that information. Don't forget that you can just "0" out anything that's not in your feed regimen. So if you're only using FloraGrow, Micro, and Bloom and none of the other supplements, just enter "0" for the mL corresponding to the items you don't use and you're good to go. Also, there is no real "correct" way to use this besides playing around with the "mL" number on the right side of the spreadsheet until the ratios and PPM's fit whatever you're aiming for. I grow in Coco Coir, so if any of you out there would want a good feed regimen to play around with for your Coco grows, I've included it in JPG format. Just a heads up, I use all the nutrients and supplements I had listed above + regular dry Epsom Salt to boost Magnesium and Sulfur. My schedule goes from Seedling to Final Flush. It sticks to a 3-1-2 NPK ratio during Vegetative growth, 1-1-1 NPK during the first week or so of Flower, and 1-2-2 NPK though out maturation. Also, PPM's start at around 500 (or 1.0 EC) on Week 1 Flower, gradually raise 0.1 EC every week and end at 900 PPM (or 1.8 EC) on Week 8-9 of flower. I believe this is a great way to work your plants up to higher EC's. I've never experienced a deficiency or toxicity by sticking to this schedule, so I think it may work out good for some of you out there. If not, no worries. I respect opinions and preferences of everyone. Feel free to plug my numbers from my Regimen into the Calculator to better see what I'm doing week by week. I encourage you to share your feelings about my grow schedule, after years of doing this I'm STILL always learning. I'd love to hear what you've got for constructive criticism. If you're a beginner or first time GH user reading this, (skip this paragraph if you aren't) the nutrient schedule included with the GH Flora Series is meant as a general feed regimen for a good majority of flowering and fruiting plants. Their schedule is not specific to the feed requirements and best practices of growing great Cannabis. The reason for creating this nutrient calculator is because by breaking free of the manufactures feed schedule and creating your own, you'll be able to better dial in what you feed your ladies based on YOUR preferences. Now this isn't to say that if you use their included schedule you're doomed to grow bad Cannabis. However, what I'm trying to say is that you got into growing Cannabis for a reason and you'll want to get the most out of your investment. I was a beginner once and followed the included schedule exactly. At the end of flowering I had experienced quite a bit of deficiencies and toxicities and ultimately very sad looking flowers. Wondering what I did wrong, my curiosity let me into a whole other world of growing Cannabis with regards to PPM's, NPK ratios, Micro-nutrient Ratios, supplements, etc. It truly was AMAZING to see so much information posted that I could ACTUALLY use in my grow. After weeks of research, I found that Cannabis tends to grow better with certain amounts of each nutrient, and that the balance of these can seriously make or break your grow. When I applied these rules to the ratios listed in the manufacturer regimen, I found that the schedule they include was my problem and that I was unintentionally dooming my plants to grow poorly and harvest even more poorly based on what I was feeding them. I URGE YOU TO DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE USING THIS CALCULATOR. You must know what you're doing in regards to ratios and PPM's required to balance out the nutrient ratios for your plants to thrive. That's a topic for another day. I hope at least one of you can appreciate this spreadsheet. I hope even more that this can help to break some of your growing barriers and leave you with jaw dropping flowers. Treat and feed your plants correctly, and she'll pay you back 10 fold. Growing Cannabis has been and always should be FUN so keep growing and smile on.
Great first post! Big time Kudos! I'm going to bookmark this page because I am considering switching from peat to coco and I use GH flora series. I have no effin clue what I'm doing. I just been following the simple drain to waste chart provided from the website. I've always wondered if it's optimal and how it should be adjusted according to differing flowering times.
Thank you D_Urbmon! If my spreadsheet and regimen can help you out if you do make the switch, it would have made it more than worth it to post what I did. Just to hit the point a little bit more, at times during Vegetative growth, the NPK ratio can hit around 2-1-4 in the GenHydro regimen. Something like that could overload you plant with too much Potassium, which could cause lockouts of other nutrients and potentially a toxicity of K depending on your strain and frequency of feeding. Needless to say, not good! So I can't stress to take what they or any other nutrient provider out there list for their "general feeding" charts with a grain of salt. I have no doubt the scientists down at the nutrient factories are very knowledgable, I just doubt they were thinking of us Cannabis growers when creating these schedules. I'd be willing to make a few other nutrient line spreadsheets for anyone out there who could use it and even give some guidelines of what ratios would be a best practice to keep your ladies flourishing. Just let me know! And again, thank you for the kudos D_Urbmon. I've learned much after many years of fails and successes so if you're looking for any help with your future Coco grows, don't hesitate to ask. I'm always available to help out!
This is awesome info! What order are you adding the nutrients to your water? I know know micro then grow then bloom, but are you adding the Calmag to your water first? What ph do you normally try to keep it at and what are you using to adjust? Thanks!
The label percentages are wrong... Also, your post could be misleading, since the N-P-K Ratio used by GH isn't actually N-P-K but N-P2O5-K2O. Huge difference. Please update your excel to show P2O5 instead of P and K2O instead of K... This way someone who is looking to brew his own nutes won't fk up badly setting the N-P-K ratio instead of the N-P2O5-K2O ratio as the goal. Also, the product density is wrong... I don't know where you got the density of all products which you state is 1.1522198731501g/ml, floragro density is 1.108g/ml, floramicro is 1.25g/ml and floraBloom is 1.162g/ml according to their MSDS sheets. Having said that, thanks for the trouble... It's a useful spreadsheet
I downloaded the spread sheet, and it hasn't been updated yet. The phosphorous, potassium, and silica aren't correct. If you want to fix this problem, you'll need these conversion numbers. Phosphorous = 0.4364 Potassium = 0.8301 Silica = 0.4864 Just subtract the PPM of each salt, multiply by the conversion number, and add the values back in. I would have fixed the problem, but I don't have access to the cells that need to be fixed.