Help dosing Base nutrients (salts) and supplements. Adjust NPK when adding additional supps

bongboy8200

Active Member
Whats up guys. First been growing a while and I know I'm going to get crap for this. I know it's all snake water and 90% of the stuff is the same. This is for my science project brain.

Question - When using supplements how to you adjust your base nutrients?
Current Nutrients in order from seed to bloom
after germ until it looks like a plant 1-2 weeks - clonex seed clone solution
Week 1 GH micro, grow, bloom
Week 2 - week 1 veg GH amor si, CalMag, micro, grow, bloom, floralicous, Southern AG family friendly bennies (mix 1ml/10ml h2o and 1ml solution/gallon)
Flower
Week 2 everything from week 1 plus GH kool blIoom, AN big bud and AN bud candy
Week 5 cut the big bud.
last 3 weeks switch to diamond nector to cut the Nitrogen

I have also used floral nector which has molasase. I never get root rot. Hate the molasase so cut that out.
Now I am cutting my Kool bloom to 75% the lowest dose feeding. And I cut the Big Bud and the bud candy to 50% the dose. Big bud is a 0-13 and i felt like I was getting some lockout from the exess K.
My plants look great but if my EC starts at 1.7-1.8 after 24 hours and the res being half empty im up to 2.3-2.5. pH is pretty stable. I felt when I cut the base nutrients plants where hungry...

I call advance nutrients and they said you don't change any of the base nutrients when adding the supplements. how could this be? and I think it is coming directly from the bud candy. I also have Purpinator which I am going to start using asap for my powerpunch x cookies. between colder temps and that Im hoping some nice colors and flavor.
ell
I have checked ec and ppm going in 1 by 1. i make sure the silica is mixed well then the calmag. pH creeps up for a while. Then make sure the micro is mixed well and so on
My EC and PPM go from just GH line up 1.78 and 891 to 1.9 and 950 after the AN supplements

So how does one account for adding or decreasing NPK if supplements have them?
Purpinator is 0-2-4

Again this is a science project using my biochem and molecular biology after a decade. Right now I get very good results but it's a pain and it isn't much better than using botnicare grow and bloom with some cal mag in flower. It takes forever mixing everything and I don't have huge res's. So after playing with all these I am going to be looking for the easiest and cheapest ways. I like AN pH perfect stuff but I forget which one, I think X factor, is like $50 and it is legit Mg. I can use epson salt... again how much espon salt? How much purpinator? just add the recommended like AN guy said for supplements? Thanks and dont hate me too much. I'll post pics from my phone to reply to this. have some great plants going.
 

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
Whats up guys. First been growing a while and I know I'm going to get crap for this. I know it's all snake water and 90% of the stuff is the same. This is for my science project brain.

Question - When using supplements how to you adjust your base nutrients?
Current Nutrients in order from seed to bloom
after germ until it looks like a plant 1-2 weeks - clonex seed clone solution
Week 1 GH micro, grow, bloom
Week 2 - week 1 veg GH amor si, CalMag, micro, grow, bloom, floralicous, Southern AG family friendly bennies (mix 1ml/10ml h2o and 1ml solution/gallon)
Flower
Week 2 everything from week 1 plus GH kool blIoom, AN big bud and AN bud candy
Week 5 cut the big bud.
last 3 weeks switch to diamond nector to cut the Nitrogen

I have also used floral nector which has molasase. I never get root rot. Hate the molasase so cut that out.
Now I am cutting my Kool bloom to 75% the lowest dose feeding. And I cut the Big Bud and the bud candy to 50% the dose. Big bud is a 0-13 and i felt like I was getting some lockout from the exess K.
My plants look great but if my EC starts at 1.7-1.8 after 24 hours and the res being half empty im up to 2.3-2.5. pH is pretty stable. I felt when I cut the base nutrients plants where hungry...

I call advance nutrients and they said you don't change any of the base nutrients when adding the supplements. how could this be? and I think it is coming directly from the bud candy. I also have Purpinator which I am going to start using asap for my powerpunch x cookies. between colder temps and that Im hoping some nice colors and flavor.
ell
I have checked ec and ppm going in 1 by 1. i make sure the silica is mixed well then the calmag. pH creeps up for a while. Then make sure the micro is mixed well and so on
My EC and PPM go from just GH line up 1.78 and 891 to 1.9 and 950 after the AN supplements

So how does one account for adding or decreasing NPK if supplements have them?
Purpinator is 0-2-4

Again this is a science project using my biochem and molecular biology after a decade. Right now I get very good results but it's a pain and it isn't much better than using botnicare grow and bloom with some cal mag in flower. It takes forever mixing everything and I don't have huge res's. So after playing with all these I am going to be looking for the easiest and cheapest ways. I like AN pH perfect stuff but I forget which one, I think X factor, is like $50 and it is legit Mg. I can use epson salt... again how much espon salt? How much purpinator? just add the recommended like AN guy said for supplements? Thanks and dont hate me too much. I'll post pics from my phone to reply to this. have some great plants going.
The best tool imho is a spreadsheet to enter all your inputs to see what the final elemental ppm values are; that's ultimately what's important.
EC is fine for a ballpark measure of nute solution "potency", but it's not useful for determining it's composition. Different salts have different conductivity.
 

bongboy8200

Active Member
The best tool imho is a spreadsheet to enter all your inputs to see what the final elemental ppm values are; that's ultimately what's important.
EC is fine for a ballpark measure of nute solution "potency", but it's not useful for determining it's composition. Different salts have different conductivity.
Thanks. That's exactly what I did when adding my last nutrients' 5gal of H2O mixed everything the way I would be week 2 of flower. Made sure mixed well. Did it slow into airated water. After each nutrient I took EC, PPM, pH. So micro is micro is NPK etc. subtract that from the levels of the tap water, amor si and cal mag. Should just be NPK. Break up the ratio:s of NPK to ppm and should give me a ball park of each macro nutrient. The increase is definitely rising with ppm and EC

PPM increases from 891 to 950 when the big bud and bud candy add. That final ppm of 950-1000 increases to 2000+ in 24hrs with drinking half the res. If I add water to drop the PPM. 24 hours later im still high. Usually increase ppm/EC drop EC by 0.2, right? Tried and same results. I think its the Bud Candy, its all carbohydrate and made for hydro but I think the bennies maybe not enough or the right kind. Mine is hydro guard and AN has a few different bennies with different strains and fungus. I'll loose the bud candy but want to try this purpinator out without burning my girls.

I'm thinking I am reinventing the wheel over here and there is an easier way.
Thanks again man! Definitely knew what I'm trying to explain. Just not sure what to do next. Should I be cutting the base salts when adding supplements? Of is the Phos and K in supplements not the same?
 

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
Thanks. That's exactly what I did when adding my last nutrients' 5gal of H2O mixed everything the way I would be week 2 of flower. Made sure mixed well. Did it slow into airated water. After each nutrient I took EC, PPM, pH. So micro is micro is NPK etc. subtract that from the levels of the tap water, amor si and cal mag. Should just be NPK. Break up the ratio:s of NPK to ppm and should give me a ball park of each macro nutrient. The increase is definitely rising with ppm and EC

PPM increases from 891 to 950 when the big bud and bud candy add. That final ppm of 950-1000 increases to 2000+ in 24hrs with drinking half the res. If I add water to drop the PPM. 24 hours later im still high. Usually increase ppm/EC drop EC by 0.2, right? Tried and same results. I think its the Bud Candy, its all carbohydrate and made for hydro but I think the bennies maybe not enough or the right kind. Mine is hydro guard and AN has a few different bennies with different strains and fungus. I'll loose the bud candy but want to try this purpinator out without burning my girls.

I'm thinking I am reinventing the wheel over here and there is an easier way.
Thanks again man! Definitely knew what I'm trying to explain. Just not sure what to do next. Should I be cutting the base salts when adding supplements? Of is the Phos and K in supplements not the same?
Bud candy is the quintessential example of useless snake oil.

What I'm referring to is to calculate the elemental ppms of what you're feeding by using the weight (or volume * specific gravity) to figure out how much of each element is in the mix.

For example, 1g/G of Maxibloom has 13 ppm N, 17 ppm P, 31 ppm K, 13 ppm Ca, 9 ppm Mg, 11 ppm S, ......
Once you have a table of products, it's easy to see how mixing them influences the overall elemental ppm (not to be confused with a ppm value (EC) displayed on a meter)

Here's an example of the nutrient profile for 5g/G MaxiBloom, 5g/G MaxiGro, and 2.5g/G of each:
1729138107399.pngScreenshot from 2024-10-16 23-12-00.png1729138390349.png
 
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