Pre-Mixing Nutrients

Hot Diggity Sog

Hot Diggity Sog

Well-Known Member
To simplify watering, I began pre-mixing large batches of nutrient solution and PH Down. What I found was that 24 hours after mixing the solution, the PH had risen back up to approximately the same level as it was before I added PH Down. I had the solution is 5 gallon buckets uncovered.

Does anyone have any thoughts or explanations on this?
 
ItsJustMe84

ItsJustMe84

Well-Known Member
are you measuring your nutrients by what it says on the bottles? my friend had a simlair problem and he started adding less nutrients, and that helped.
 
bigbuddin84

bigbuddin84

Well-Known Member
Most nutrients state to not premix them like that. And the reason is probably for what you just stated happened. The nutrients mixed and caused something unintended to happen.
 
Hot Diggity Sog

Hot Diggity Sog

Well-Known Member
bigbuddin84 said:
Most nutrients state to not premix them like that. And the reason is probably for what you just stated happened. The nutrients mixed and caused something unintended to happen.
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I did not mean I was mixing the raw nutrients with one another...5 gallon buckets filled with water adding one nute at a time.
 
Hot Diggity Sog

Hot Diggity Sog

Well-Known Member
SnapsProvolone said:
Sounds like high pH tap water.
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My tap water is well water and is 7.2 PH @170 PPM.

I have not done enough testing yet but I'm using GH PH Down. The instructions say to wait 15 to 30 minutes to test PH after adding PH Down. I've tested PH right after adding it, 15 minutes after adding it, 30 minutes after adding it and 24 hours after adding it.

For these tests, I was adding 1 ml/gallon

Right after adding it, PH is like 4.8 - 5.0
15 Minutes after adding it, PH is in the mid 5's.
30 minutes after adding it, PH is 5.8.
24 Hours after adding it, PH is 7.0

So is it reasonable to assume that perhaps it hit 7 in not 24 hours but perhaps 2 hours?
I guess my question is why is this happening? If this happens in my bucket then it would also happen if I was running hydro (which I am not...I am hand watering).
 
Michiganja Meduana

Michiganja Meduana

Active Member
I tried to pre mix once. The water rotted in the bottle, it was gross. After only 3 or 4 days, the water with nutes went black and stinky. Maybe a bubbler would have solved this, but I didnt want to chance my plants with whatever stink was in that bottle.
 
ItsJustMe84

ItsJustMe84

Well-Known Member
do a weaker mix and see what happens
Hot Diggity Sog said:
On average, I am using 1/4 strength.
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oh ok well my friend has always done mixes before and theyve been fine, maybe its your local water that doesnt react well to mixing, its a ballache feeding them without mixing but if you gotta do it, good luck
 
BubbaGumpHemp

BubbaGumpHemp

Well-Known Member
there are several reasons why you cannot pre mix nutes. main reason being that as soon as its mixed, microbes start going to town on all the nutes. unless u have a laminar flow hood with HEPA filtration at your disposal this is going to be the main problem. even then, the nutes themselves arent sterilized, so a sterile flow hood most likely wouldn't even help. even if it did help, you still have to deal with oxidation. oxidation and nutrients is a bad thing. the only way i can see that you may be able to do this is just not worth it. first you would need to at least pasteurize all of the nutes if not even fully sterilize (which may cause unintended consequences its self) dilute them into distilled water inside of a flow hood or glove box and then proceed to inject nitrogen gas into your container to hopefully prevent oxidation. but your talking about so many different chems here that there is bound to be interaction between them
 
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