hi all on a soil grow last year (my last soil grow) i ended up with cal mag problems and i was told to get some epsom salts,the packet says 100% magnesium sulphate i have some cal max by advanced nutrients and have been using it with every feed (canna coco a b) in my coco plants and my dwc also gets some of it also,, will this be enough to keep mag problems away or could i also add the epsom salts if so how many grams per litre of water cheers lads
you should be ok. what kinda epsom did u get? packet? the stuff i get comes in cardboard milk carton.
tealeaves, I thought that Canna nutes compensated for the magnesium/calcium problem in coco. Do you need to add more magnesium?
Yeah. I've since learned that there isn't enough Ca/Mg in the Canna nutes. I had to start adding CaMg+ as a supplement. Been foliar spraying with Epsom Salts, with CaMg+ arriving Monday.
I use about 1/2 a teaspoon, or maybe 3-4 grams in 20L of water. This usually increases the Electrical Conductivity of the solution by about 0.06ec. This EC corresponds to a ppm increase of about 30-40. Epsom Salt is 10% Magnesium and 14% Sulfur. The remainder is just water. An extra 30ppm of Epsom salt will increase the Magnesium ppm level by about 12 to 15ppm. With regards to Magnesium, a common ppm level for that element is around 50ppm. Just an extra 12ppm of Epsom Salt can increase your levels by 25%. You sure don't need much of the stuff. The problem with Canna A+B, and Cal-Mag+ for that matter, is that these nutrients lock you into a ratio of Calcium to Magnesium. As the buffer of Calcium is retained in the coco other Cations have to compete for uptake. Earlier on, when the coco is fresh and clean and the plant is Vegetating and requires high levels of Calcium with lower levels of Magnesium, the system works fine. Problems arise when there is too much Calcium present later in flowering when the plant is looking for more mag. By having a system which can add Magnesium independent of Calcium you can manipulate this ratio and dial in to the plant's needs much easier. In my own quest for a Magnesium supplement I have used Organicare Huvega, Humboldt Nutrients SeaMag, Advanced Nutrients Bud Candy, and Cutting Edge Solutions Mag Amped. Of them all the Mag Amped is definitely the best of the bunch and yet it still doesn't really compare to something simple as Epsom Salt. Save yourself the cash and just use the Epsom. A pinch in 5L is probably more than enough. A good option for you would be to dissolve 100g of Epsom Salt into 1000ml of clean water. This gives you a 1:10 solution at a concentration of 1% Magnesium. I would be running that solution at about 2ml per Liter later on in flowering, and probably about 1ml per liter earlier on.