BEST NPK FORMULA for Veg-pre/flowering: GHE

Hey everyone, i’ve made a lot of research in the last months to find the best ratios of nutes for every week of the plants life, i wanted to share some with you and take some advices.

Making it very simple, i’ve found that the Lucas formula is very high in phosphorus, and using R/O water you’ll have to add calmag that causes unbalance, even if this formula grows well, i guess it is not perfect.

I’ve also found that the formula suggested by GHE for veg and pre flowering, being 1M-1B-1G is at the perfect ratio only when combined with calmag and potassium silicate or other source of potash.
I did not calculate yet the elemental ppms of the 3-6-9 with or without the addition of calmag, nor the flowering formulas..
I use R/O water and Micro Hardwater.
I also use Liquid Silicon being labeled 0-0-4, and AN CaMg, 4-0-0 with calcium levels being the same as nitrogen.

The formula i’ve calculated:
Si10-CaMg10-M5-B5-G5
Giving elemental ratios of:
NPKCaMg = 230-40-230-120-45

Hope this would be helpful to someone

I ran pretty much that exact 10/5/5 and burnt my plants, I didn’t use si, I thought ideal was 100-100-50, maybe I’m thinking of something else. I use Lucas currently with ro/calmag, it seems to work the best as far as the trio ratios I have tried. I haven’t had enough time to try much however, just what I have seen using 1/1/1 with calmag and the 10/5/5 which I’m sure is still plaguing a couple plants. Went back to 8/16 Epsom salts and some Calimagic here and there, added some pk just to see what happens. Will run Si next round and prob play it all again, want to try KISS out too but that’s basically the same from what I understand. I did use the AN calmag but didn’t notice any different.

pretty far from 100-100-50... Here suggest a level of nitrogen SEVEN times higher than phosphorus during veg, potassium following nitrogen level and calcium being half of both.
I guess this chart is based on nutrient uptake by the plant, so the ideal food composition may be a bit different..

Have you tried any of this? Wasn’t it only a month ago you were questioning NPK ratios? I saw that post before. Number I was thinking was 100-100-200 not 50, still far apart. I would never feed my plants 10-5-5 plus Si, any idea what kinda EC that would run? What’s up with micro hardwater, all I can see is less Ca, what’s the advantage of using it with RO and calmag? I use both depending.. sometimes because the 2.5 gallon jug pours nicer hahaha. I only use if I don’t want calcium. But yeah over 700ml of calimagic (assume we are going gh) is pretty potent in my 75 gallon system. I found out by mistake and borderlined tox. Im not a scientist, I just follow the proven results and experience and of course the most imortant thing, how the girls look. Lucas has worked best for me so far, I’m always open to formulas and improvements. Will run that in renfros spreadsheet and see what happens, I been farting around with that lately.

Here's what I feed all of my plants. It's essentially 3-1-4. I dilute by half for plants in their first two weeks of life:



That's with Jack's 5-12-26, Calcium Nitrate and Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus. My water source is ~65 PPM.

For flowering plants in weeks 2.5 through 6, I add 1.6g of MKP per gallon:

My veg formula for years. I don't have the ppm breakdown like some of you guys. I don't really care. I've been using the same thing for years and it works.

For veg a micro nutrient blend similar to Jacks but NPK 3-10-20 and calcium nitrate 13-0-0. 1/2 tsp per gallon. When I go to flower I run the same and add 1/4 tsp of MKP. I start tapering it all down about 2/3 of the way through flower. By the time I harvest all I'm feeding is the 3-10-20. I go by the look of the plants I never go over 1000 ppm. I don't use silicon or calmag. I do add a few doses of magnesium sulfate and potassium sulfate during flower but that's it. I always have healthy plants which I contribute to never overfeeding excessive amounts of nutrients.

back in the days i was using 20-20-20 with great success

J232 said:

Have you tried any of this? Wasn’t it only a month ago you were questioning NPK ratios? I saw that post before. Number I was thinking was 100-100-200 not 50, still far apart. I would never feed my plants 10-5-5 plus Si, any idea what kinda EC that would run? What’s up with micro hardwater, all I can see is less Ca, what’s the advantage of using it with RO and calmag? I use both depending.. sometimes because the 2.5 gallon jug pours nicer hahaha. I only use if I don’t want calcium. But yeah over 700ml of calimagic (assume we are going gh) is pretty potent in my 75 gallon system. I found out by mistake and borderlined tox. Im not a scientist, I just follow the proven results and experience and of course the most imortant thing, how the girls look. Lucas has worked best for me so far, I’m always open to formulas and improvements. Will run that in renfros spreadsheet and see what happens, I been farting around with that lately.

Click to expand...

I use micro hardwater basically because i have a gallon of it to finish
it would be the same with the soft water version and less calmag, but since i was experiencing a little Mg def, in my case i think i’m dialed in right.. i am currently using this formula for my biggest vegging plant in coco, which was deficient in Mg, N and K and since then she started to really thrive, maybe another reason for this is going from 500 to 550 ppms and starting to feed her every day..
Thanks everybody for the feedback!