Aeroponics nutrients

fatman7574 said:

I fllow in the steps of science, agribussiness and commercial growers. I have a large amount of education in the field. I teach I do not follow others. I am also a reseracher. I explore and expand the information base rather than just using old out dated methodologies simply because they work. There are almost alwsy new and better ways being discovered. However usually most forum growers just do the old shit over and over rather than changing to better methodologies as they are discovered. Most just look for easier, cheaper ways reported by others without any understanding behind the changes or real functioming of the systems.

Commercial agribussiness changes as their profit margain is small so ever improvement to them is more profit. There is nothing wrong with growing with DWC or aerpo and a person does not need to invent every thing they do but a person should learn why they work so that they can know how to repair problems or improve their systems. People like Earl never bother to learn why they just copy and claim expert status or except it when it is wrongly bestowed by others with understanding of how things work. when what they have copied works. Still though without knowledge a sheep is just an uninformened follower.

Faith to some is flipping a light switch and expecting the lights to come on without have ing ever leraned why a light bulb works, how electricity is generated and transported and how the electrical transformer converts very high voltage to the voltage we use in our homes. I have a braod engineering education as well as a braod education in chemistry, biology, water chemistry, aquatic chemistry and 35 years grwing experience. I learn about what I do and teach/share. I am paid to know and teach. I know what I am talking about or I keep my mouth shut, I am not a copier/sheep.

Some people operate a lot on blind faith. Some learn why and how. I listen too, work with and I am one of the learners, not the blind faith followers. I teach, sadly there are some who prefer to just follow without ever learning much. Some would say they chose ingorance over knowledge. Some say they are just faithful to others. Sorta like the blind following the blind. I suggest that people at least follow the advise of learners rather than followers like Earl.

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fatman7574 said:

Thoase are the EPA governed parts of a water analysis that are ner exceeding or excedding maximum standards. In the report there will be a sectin called in house testing. that gives the levels of other things. Things like calcium. mgnesium and carbonates (alkalinity ) are considered sencondary standards elements. The EPA places recomendations on their levels but no requirements. they are considered m nuisance elements. Turbidity is anything that absorbs or refects light.(sediment, silt, collodials <clay particles> algae, colring agents (humic acids). Letting the water sit over night with an airstone or a water pump rumming will get rid of the chlorine. The copper is not excessive for plants. The others would be removed by using activated carbon filtration. The acid and the trihalomethanes are formed by chlorine that is used as a disinfectant combining with organics in the water. organics are in surface water, just as surface water is usually turbid but growund water is not. The good thing is that ground water is usually very low in calcium and calcium carbonates. So you do not need an RO filter but youdo need a Av ctivated carbon Filter. Eb ven your drinking water should be run through a crabon filter as I would not drink that water. Trihalomethanes are considered acrcom nogenic by moste researchers. The EPA has not yet addressed the issue officially as to address it woul mean eliminating the use of chlorine and chloroamine for drinking water disinfection.

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fatman7574 said:

With the results you posted it is obvious your water comes from a surface source such as a river, lake or reservoir. Due to that you will not have high levels of calcium or carbonates um nless there are manafcatures arounf d that source that manafcature prodi ucts with high levels of calcium, like shoet rock (gypsum board) concrtet, lime or ferilizer. Even then they tend to create particulates which are easily filtered out.

Duh! Earl was wrong again.

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fatman7574 said:

The Co2 is tied up in carbonic acids. This means it is being neturalized by calcium carbonates.. Your water is doing as nature intends it to do. It is supposed to self adjust to a pH of 7 by using carbonates to absorb the acids. However carbonic acid are neutralised by calcium carbonates. tcalcium carbonates are considered temporary carbonates as they are temperature dependant. At lower temperatures calcium carbonates let go of the acids as the calcium becomes soluble calcium. At higher temps the soluble calcium becomes calcium carbonates and it neutralizes the carbonic acids. We are attempting to over ride natures workings but we also are stuck with natures temperature influences.

With hydroponic fertilizers there are normally more acids than hydroxides so that the pH will be lowew than 7, typically 5.4 to 5.8. You need to more quickly increase the acid levels so as to attack the regular hard water carbonates (such as magnesium carbonate) which are also trying to keep the pH around 7. Basically you have to keep adding acid until the pH goes down and stays down. You might also want to lower the pH of all make up water you use to a pH of 5.4 to 5.6 to not have to keep repeating this effort. It is much easier to deal with a low pH issue than a high pH issue. Nature will help you with an acid problem, it will complicate a high pH problem. In nature for a high ph problem deathh of organic plants matter di ue to the high pH lowers the pH by creating a huge amount of water borne humic acids, more than the alkaline carbonates can neutralize so the water pH drops to a neutral 7.0

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fatman7574 said:

Without testing your tap water I can not be all that sure of just waht is going on except to d say thatr what information you supplied would indiv cate that you water is likely surg face water. They problem si that the water supplier only ah to report certain things, Water hardness and calcium levelas are not required to be reported. They do tea st for thaose though. I am sure they would give you that info if you called or emailed them. Cacium and akalinity carbonates are the onlt thing that can raise the pH up in the manner your describing. The typical interaction is woy th carbonic acid or humic acids. Humic acids are from decomposing plant matter such as roots. Humic acids lowerthe pH. carbonic acids lower the pH until calcium carbonate is created to neur traliz se those acids. For the pH to becoss nsistantly clibing you would have to have either a fertilizer imbalance or your adding high pH high alkalinity water with your top offs. h However the description of your water seenms to indicte surface water which usually is low alkalinity water. I woulsd suspect your tap water. If you can not readily get the water hardness information from you water treatment plants then just take a sample of yor water to any shop that seels and installs water softeners. It taes only about 5 minutes to test your water for calcium and calcium carbonates. It is ps ssible for some reson that your water treatment palnt is addinf a butt load of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or sodium carbonate (soda ash) to your water. If that is the case the problem will not go away andd the water will need to be run through a RO filter as each tap water addition will tatrt the problem all over again.

Your not using some off the wall fertilizer with a analysis of someting like 5-5-35 are you? If you are your acid based fertilizers are being taken up much faster than your hydroxide based fertilizer (potassium hydroxide) so you pH would climb dramatically daily. when they mixed such a fertilizerthey just lower the pH with sonme nitric acid or phosphoric acid. The acids are used up with the fertilizer so they are no longer there to lower the pH of the hydroxide fertilizer. There are certain mixing ratio guide lines manafacturers are suppose to use aso as to avoid such problems. They don't always do this. I am being very liberalin my use of terms in this explanation as I dom't want to have to explain ionics, acids/bases (H+/OH-) and such

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