Making Your Own Nutrient Concentrates
- Thread starter Skybound
- Start date
Hello,
I have read most of the pages, I live outside US so no option to buy premixed powders as jacks.
I want to try Daniel.s recipe for 3 part solution, but I read you can only make micro solution with chelated?
I couldn't find chelated metals apart from Fe here where a live, which by the way I only find EDDHA, not DTPA
I have read most of the pages, I live outside US so no option to buy premixed powders as jacks.
I want to try Daniel.s recipe for 3 part solution, but I read you can only make micro solution with chelated?
I couldn't find chelated metals apart from Fe here where a live, which by the way I only find EDDHA, not DTPA
- Thread starter
- #643
Skybound
Well-Known Member
Hello,
I have read most of the pages, I live outside US so no option to buy premixed powders as jacks.
I want to try Daniel.s recipe for 3 part solution, but I read you can only make micro solution with chelated?
I couldn't find chelated metals apart from Fe here where a live, which by the way I only find EDDHA, not DTPA
Daniel just made a video about just that a few days ago.
Hi Skybound, thanks for the answer.
My question is if this is mandatory, I understand that as long the Fe is chelated everything should go OK
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
You can also use sulfates if they are available. Chelated micronutrients are really only necessary if you are making a super concentrated stock solution (like 300 times normal concentration or something).
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
Much controversy surrounding the use of chelating compounds and their effects on the body and environment.
(PDF) EDTA: The chelating agent under environmental scrutiny
Also sulfur is a necessary macronutrient while EDTA, DTPA... are contaminants.
(PDF) EDTA: The chelating agent under environmental scrutiny
Also sulfur is a necessary macronutrient while EDTA, DTPA... are contaminants.
- Thread starter
- #647
Skybound
Well-Known Member
The problem with sulfates IMO is not being able to make them into concentrates. Because I manage a small grow and make my nutes in 3 gallon increments, I would not be able to use sulfate metallics because I would never be able to achieve my minuscule dose of molybdenum or copper even. By using the chelated micros, I can put 500 gallons worth into a half gallon jug (x1000 multiplication) and dose from the bottle at 3.8ml/Gal while affording me the ability to get my little 0.1ppm of molybdenum (or less). Yes chelating agents are toxic to plants, but not at the small percent micro doses used in our reservoirs. Also, because I use Iron DTPA, that changes the rules slightly as the findings related to EDTA obviously do not apply and Fe is the most used micro.
I'm not entirely sure which elements NEED to be chelated to be used in the ferts. I suggest asking Daniel on his channel for the best clarity as he is a PHD, I'm just a pothead, lol.
Thank you both for your answers.
I think im gonna stick to the sulfates recipe except for the Fe, which im gonna buy EDHHA. At least for this very beginning.
I was planning actually on using salts straight to the reservoir as I have a 300L DWC system for flowering and 60L for veg. Making 1:100 solutions means i have to make 3.6L solution for 1 change. 15 batches of 250 ml is a pain in the ass definitely.
To do that, i will make a 1L measured solution to measure its EC, then calculate the salt quantities for my systems and making final adjustment with EC, taking notes of used salts for next time. Of course i will have to use a miligram pocket scale. What are your thoughts on this point?
I think im gonna stick to the sulfates recipe except for the Fe, which im gonna buy EDHHA. At least for this very beginning.
I was planning actually on using salts straight to the reservoir as I have a 300L DWC system for flowering and 60L for veg. Making 1:100 solutions means i have to make 3.6L solution for 1 change. 15 batches of 250 ml is a pain in the ass definitely.
To do that, i will make a 1L measured solution to measure its EC, then calculate the salt quantities for my systems and making final adjustment with EC, taking notes of used salts for next time. Of course i will have to use a miligram pocket scale. What are your thoughts on this point?
- Thread starter
- #649
Skybound
Well-Known Member
Can you refine your question to seek specific information? I don't fully understand what you intend to do, so I have no meaningful opinion about it, but my understanding is not important to your success, so as long as you have a good grasp on it, that's all that is important.
My question is what's your opinion on pouring salts straight to a +/- 300 liters reservoir
- Thread starter
- #651
Skybound
Well-Known Member
It should be easier for you to weigh your trace elements when making for a volume of that size. I make roughly 1/10th the volume each time and for me it would be near impossible to accurately weigh out how much molybdenum would be needed to make for only 3 gallons (10 liters). 300 liters per mix would be easier in that regard.
the convenience of making concentrates though is the ability to apply a weight to a liquid volume and be able to mentally do the conversion math easily in your head. Using sulfates, you're going to need to use your scale every time. For me, I only use the scale to weigh the amount of salt needed to make my concentrate, but once it's all in liquid, I use syringes to weigh out my salts. 10ml of the complexed concentrates yields me exactly 1 gram of salts. 3.8ml of micro juice is the dose I need for each gallon of reservoir to give me my elemental targets. So when HB tells me I need 1.974 grams/Gal of Calcium Nitrate, I just shift the decimal one place and now it becomes 19.7 ml and multiply that volume by my res size (3 gallons... DTW).
Cool, very clear, thank you. I bought a miligram scale for this porpuse.
How do you keep bacteria at bay? Bennies or sterile. I used to use bleach at 1-2 ppm but i worry that sodium can be interfering in a bad way with the solution and the plants
- Thread starter
- #653
Skybound
Well-Known Member
In inert media, I don't find that my roots get bacterial, but that aside, I have been a strong proponent for Bennies for many years. If I had root problems, I would 100% start using my Recharge again, but the way my crop is going now, I don't have the need. Just salty water for my girls, lol, and they LOVE it!
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
It's your body but I'm willing to bet that all chelating agents act in a similar manner (EDTA, DTPA, EDDHA, whatever). Sulfates is the clear way to go as it only contains 100% plant food, no contaminants by design. Your gonna end up dumping massive gallons of the stuff down the drain or into the yard polluting the environment. Anything you grow in that soil for years after the fact will have heavy metal contamination, not to mention the animals who have to live and eat from that polluted environment. Just laziness.
You need at least a milligram scale to measure correctly.
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
Forgot to mention that Mo is usually in the form of sodium or ammonium so chelates are not a factor with Mo. If you can't measure out an amount small enough you just take advantage of the salts solubility by making a stock solution and measuring out an amount of liquid to equate to your desired weight. If you have 100 ml of stock solution containing 2 milligrams of sodium molybdate then 1 ml of that solution would equal 0.02 mg of sodium molybdate (an amount you could never measure on a milligram scale).
Enjoy sensibly and have fun doing it all I ask.
Enjoy sensibly and have fun doing it all I ask.
- Thread starter
- #656
Skybound
Well-Known Member
I live in a mined out urban center that will NEVER become anything close to farm land, though I get your overall drift and though I disagree with the extent that you implied, I none the less respect your opinion. heavy metals, weather chelated or not are still heavy metals, and they're still getting into the environment because we're all still going to grow pot hydroponically because we're too lazy or too goal driven to feed plants what plants actually eat in nature. There's a million tangents I can go to debate the finer points, but at the end of it all, why?
If it comes out of the ground, it can go back in, lol. The problem is that it almost never goes back exactly where it came out.
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
Just don't want to see you chelate the zinc out of a strand of your DNA only to have it replicate into a tumor, or anyone else for that matter. Just being the voice of the animals as well. Free vax shot on the gov for all.
Diatomacious
Well-Known Member
Smoker's rights for all 
They actually cost something like $15 to $19 each, we just don't pay for them directly. Should have made them $100 each and told everyone that the government wouldn't be subsidizing the things "because not everyone really needed them. " Then, the same veg heads who have refused to get vaccinated would, instead, be raging in the streets because "They" were trying to keep them from getting vaccinated, lol. But that's meat for a different discussion.
