Advice mixing Athena Pro by PPM/EC rather than weight.

Just had my Athena Pro delivered and would like some advise. I have been reading that many people are getting what look like Cal/Mag deficiencies. This you tube video makes sense to me. The guy took leaf samples.
It turns out that when mixing by weight the Bloom/Grow parts can become heavy due to absorbing moisture and it knocks the whole mix out of balance. Large commercial growers will be mixing their stock tanks using full bags so weight won't matter but with smaller growers making a few gallon stock tanks it is causing problems.

Should I wish to make my 200 liter reservoir res to 3 EC how can I add the core to the right EC and then add the bloom to make up my desired EC.
If I made up a stock tank I would like to do it the same way add so many ml of core to get my desired EC and then add Bloom to get to 3EC
Numbers, % and fractions etc. are not my strong point. Is anyone useing Athena Pro and mixing by EC/PPM rather than weight? I will probably start with the core by slightly less weight as a guideline then fine tune it then add Grow/Bloom to achieve my desired EC for the stock tank.
I believe Athena have now repackaged their UK product into small sachets, unfortunately the one I received was loose in a tub.

This is Athena mixing recommendations by weight.
11.4 grams of Core to 19 grams of Bloom/Grow per 10 litres of water to get 3 EC
What does this work out as with the measurement using PPM/EC

Am I just complicating things....I usually do

Or you could just follow their directions to make a concentrate and use their feed rates:

Thanks PJ the point is the bloom and grow absorb moisture adding weight so it knocks the whole mix out of wack. My Athena is just loose and not full sachets.

fartoblue said:

Thanks PJ the point is the bloom and grow absorb moisture adding weight so it knocks the whole mix out of wack. My Athena is just loose and not full sachets.

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Be sure to seal your bags up and moisture won't be a problem.

I have just re read my post and I haven't worded it very well. What I wanted to ask is if I just wanted to make a full 200litre res up disregarding the stock tank (say I was at the end of a run) how do I mix the res by PPM of firstly core and then make it up with the correct amount of Bloom to get my desired end EC/PPM.

Sickofitall420247 said:

Be sure to seal your bags up and moisture won't be a problem.

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That would be far to easy

fartoblue said:

Thanks PJ the point is the bloom and grow absorb moisture adding weight so it knocks the whole mix out of wack. My Athena is just loose and not full sachets.

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It already absorbed moisture? I thought you just got it. Why is it too late to make a concentrate?

No mine hasn't but my mate has a full tub of bloom and its in one piece it's crumbly not powder. He goes off weight and he has deficiencies or more likely a cal mag lock out.

Ask someone that has fresh bags to measure whatever PPMs of whatever component you want to know of come out in exactly a gallon of purified water. Each part into a separate gallon of water. Then add that much until you hit the same number, for however many gallons in your tank.

fartoblue said:

I have just re read my post and I haven't worded it very well. What I wanted to ask is if I just wanted to make a full 200litre res up disregarding the stock tank (say I was at the end of a run) how do I mix the res by PPM of firstly core and then make it up with the correct amount of Bloom to get my desired end EC/PPM.


That would be far to easy

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Are you familiar with using stock concentrates at all? It's pretty easy and a huge time saver. If you are worried about moisture use 5 gallon buckets with gamma lids to store your dry nutes, keeping stock concentrates makes it so you dont have to expose your dry nutrients to humidity as often.

Add 2lbs dry nutes per gallon of water to make the concentrates. Then just use the chart PJ posted and add the required ML of each concentrate to your rez to get your desired EC and double check your EC with tds meter to be sure.

Drop That Sound said:

Ask someone that has fresh bags to measure whatever PPMs of whatever component you want to know of come out in exactly a gallon of purified water. Each part into a separate gallon of water. Then add that much until you hit the same number, for however many gallons in your tank.

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Good idea!

PJ Diaz said:

Or you could just follow their directions to make a concentrate and use their feed rates:

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I very carefully mixed up 2lbs/gal of their powders from the pre-weighed 2 lb bags and the ml/gal in RO doesn't come close to targets they show. Their 3.0 EC target ratios got me to 2.0 EC.

I found for a 30 gallon reservoir @ 2 lbs/gal concentration I have to use 1000 ml (33ml/gal) of Bloom and 600 ml (20ml/gal) Core to reach 3.0 EC. If I followed their advice it would be 580 ml CORE, 966 ml Bloom which only gets you to 2.0 EC. I was very careful mixing the stock concentrates and didn't use more/less water than needed. I have found a lot of threads where guys are saying the ml/gal is not accurate.

Considering they recommend 0.6g core to every gram of bloom/grow then couldn't you just mix 1.8 EC Bloom then 1.2 EC Core to get the same ratio from stock concentrate?

It works out at
Core EC 1.2
Bloom/Griw EC 1.6

Ardent said:

It works out at
Core EC 1.2
Bloom/Griw EC 1.6

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That's how I ended up doing it.
A cool thing about this method too is so long as you don't mix the stock concentrates stronger than 2.5 lbs per gallon you can just wing it slowly applying concentrate to the batch tank until it hits the target EC with each part, ultimately shooting for a 40/60 ratio core/bloom or core/grow.

With how expensive Athena is though I won't be using it anymore considering their stock concentrates are way weaker (roughly 1.0 EC weaker) than they advertise. The cost per gallon ends up being double because its literally 50% less potent than they advertise it to be.

I don't care how many Instagram growers are using it, they probably got pallets for free to get suckers like me to buy into it. Also their bloom concentrate sucks at dissolving even in warm water.