Storing Nute Water Yes or No?

[420 Shadow]

About a week ago I prepared some water with nutes and now it's been sitting around for a few days and I'm wondering if it's still a good idea to keep watering with it. It's my first grow and all the clones seem to be doing ok, except one of them which for some reason has huge, fully developed leafs. The others are lagging behind though, same conditions, same watering schedule, same nutes (a bit of vitamins, a bit of root complex), same light, I switch positions of the pots regularly.

So do you think I should use this water and how long can I store it for or is it a bad idea? Also perhaps I shouldn't have given them any nutrients yet but they don't seem to mind it, the pack I bought has nutes for the different periods so I just mixed in some of the vegetation ones with less than half the recommended dosage but as you can imagine these small pots don't need much water at all.

Here she is! 12 days from tiny clone. She is even bigger today, looks like it's time to move into the big pot but I want to top her first but I feel afraid to do so, she is so pretty and I've never done it before. I got no idea how many colas it will have, maybe she won't need topping at all?

 

[Tead]

Looks great.
There are many, many words in the forums about various topping and training techniques. I won't bore you here except to give you a very brief overview. Please do some reading as there are tons of different techniques.

Topping a plant once will give you plant 2 main colas instead of 1. While this seems like a good idea, it does have some side effects. First, your 2 colas will be smaller than the natural 1 main cola. While I am of the belief that the 2 (or more!) main colas are better than one, there are some that prefer the larger main instead of the smaller ones.
Another thing to remember is physical support. If you have X colas shooting up, supporting that plant mass may be an issue.

Of course, all these drawbacks are completely offset when you get creative. Let's do some math... shall we?
1 toppings = 2 colas
2 toppings = 4 colas
3 toppings = 8 colas
4 toppings = 16 colas

You get the idea. Every time to top you double your colas.
Currently, I'm doing 4 toppings shooting up 16 colas.
Another side bonus... you can really even out the top of your plant with this method.
Here's a shot of one of my 16 top babies. Hard to count 'em all... but there are 16.

Oh... and don't store your nutes for more than 24 hours. I don't know the technical reasons.

 

[Stealthboat]

I've heard that some nutes should be used within 30 minutes of mixing, other seem to last a few days but nothing really more than that, I wouldn't trust it. I think the chemicals of the nutes either break down or combine with other things in the solution, meaning it won't be effective, not entirely sure. But why would you ever need to save premade nute solutions? I only ever make what I need so I never have to store it

 

[go4snypr]

I change my nute solution in my hydro setup every 10-14 days.

 

[Alienpus]

Oh... and don't store your nutes for more than 24 hours. I don't know the technical reasons.

I've heard that some nutes should be used within 30 minutes of mixing, other seem to last a few days but nothing really more than that, I wouldn't trust it. I think the chemicals of the nutes either break down or combine with other things in the solution, meaning it won't be effective, not entirely sure. But why would you ever need to save premade nute solutions? I only ever make what I need so I never have to store it

Hey guys, not to be argumentative but for the sake of discussion, I'm having a little trouble with this. Following this logic my nutes would be going bad in the reservior after a couple of hours or days which is not the case. I could understand that this applies to a certain type or brand, but it would be indicated. PH does rise on its own in an uncovered stored solution and I guess PPM would rise due to evap, but I can't think of a reason why solution stored in lets say a covered 5 gal bucket would not last as least as long as in a reservoir.

 

[Tead]

Well... there's a lot of significant differences between a res and a bucket of nutes.
The res is a living organism really. The ppm is dictated mostly by the plants uptake of nutes in the res. Nutrient mix added to the res is quickly incorporated into the organism.
A bucket of nutes is quite different from that. Nutrients might interact over time to cause negative results. Oxidation may cause issues. Any number of issues I don't understand may be in play.
At any rate, in my garden, it's easy to quickly use whatever I make, so it's a non issue for me.

 

[Tead]

Oh... and for the record, there are many things here I don't have an exact technical understanding of... but best practices seem to be best practices for good reason around here.
2 cents.

 

[Alienpus]

Oh... and for the record, there are many things here I don't have an exact technical understanding of... but best practices seem to be best practices for good reason around here.
2 cents.

Don't worry I am not questioning your best practices or suggesting otherwise. I am not well versed in the subject and thought we could have a discussion about it, how and why, as I store water too. But reading this response I now understand that the subject is closed. FWIW the manufacturer of my nutes says they are fresh for 48h and up to two weeks when oxygenated.

 

[go4snypr]

so then what is the best practice???

 

[Doozy]

You need movement and aeration in an external nute res. I have a 100ltr (25 gallon) clear plastic storage box which i mix up my nutes in about once every 2 weeks in flower, obviously depending upon how much the plants are drinking.

In a DWC setup it's impractical to mix nutes everytime they need a topup.

The key is keeping the water mix in the external nute res moving and aerated so i have two airstones and an air pump dedicated to that job.

Never had any issues at all.

 

[Stealthboat]

so then what is the best practice???

Probably just making the nutes fresh each time, takes out all the guess work. The only reason I can see for making a huge batch and saving it is to save on the time it takes to mix it up. Talking strictly about soil/soilless here, not DWC or anything

 

[420 Shadow]

I got the idea. It's probably too early to even be adding anything to the water but they did respond really well to it, it's just that 1 drop (vitamins and amino acids) was meant for 4.5 liters (apprx. 1 galon) and there is no way I will use that much water anytime soon in a single watering.

 

[Alienpus]

Probably just making the nutes fresh each time, takes out all the guess work. The only reason I can see for making a huge batch and saving it is to save on the time it takes to mix it up. Talking strictly about soil/soilless here, not DWC or anything

The why is because we can't use up the minimum amount we can make, ie. I need 250ml every 3-4 days but I can't make less than 1 liter.

 

[Tead]

I feed extra and runoff to my strawberries. They're doing quite well.