Is there a hydroponic smarty-pants in the house?

TorontoJoe

TorontoJoe

Administrator
As some of you know, I grow most of my family's greens in my basement hydroponically. A little while ago I decided to go organic with my hydro nutrients.

TorontoJoe

Thread 'Hydroponic nutrients'

Putting this out there to anyone into hydroponics. I’ve been growing my family’s greens (mostly lettuces) in my basement hydro setup for some time. I found a rhythm for succession planting now so we haven’t had to buy any of this stuff for years. It’s all cut and come again…. And we go back a lot.

Recently I decided I want to switch to organic nutrients. I never looked into it that much. Finally today I went to a local hydroponic shop, that’s one of the better ones in the city. I asked them about it and they suggested that it’s a pretty tough thing to do. They had some products but none...
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And ended up getting this stuff

www.canna.ca

CANNA Aqua Vega | CANNA CANADA

Aqua Vega is a professional fast working nutrient for plants containing all the essential elements for optimal growing. Aqua Vega is developed especially to fulfil the plant’s needs optimally during its growth. Aqua Vega is used on recirculation systems, such as NFT, ebb and flow systems and the...
www.canna.ca www.canna.ca

The plants seem to be doing well. The growth is certainly not as explosive as with the synthetic General Hydroponics fert. I was opting for something free of sodium nitrate, so all good. I just need to tweak the succession planting schedule a bit.

In the past with the GH nutrients I'd use a TDS meter to dial in my nutrients. I found that with things like lettuce, a reading of 600-800ppm worked great.

I don't have an EC meter but you're supposed to be able to convert between them...... The recommended EC for Aqua Veg is around 0.9 to 1.3 mS/cm... according to the converter an EC of 1 is about 700PPM.

TDS Converter Calculator - Pure Aqua, Inc.

Pure Aqua features a TDS Converter Calculator for users to determine the degree of tds in their water supply. Contact us today to learn more!
pureaqua.com pureaqua.com

Problem is no matter how much of the Aqua Vega I add... the TDS meter won't go up past 300ppm.

Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening? Or do I need to bite the bullet and buy an EC meter? The good ones aren't cheap...

hydro2.JPG

hydro1.JPG
 
Excellent, very green :)
I want to start something, but I just don't have the space right now. Kudos!
 
It's a very small space. 2x4 (Look at me using feet). Bottom level is for the germinated seedlings. Level 2 for maturing strong growers then the penthouse for cut and come again eating. Doesn't work well for types with tight types like iceberg as I'd need to harvest the whole head. The butterheads are my favorite but Grand Rapids is the real workhorse.
 
ktrain said:
Are you heating the water at all or does the water temps not matter?
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Lettuce are mostly cool weather crops and it helps that this room is generally 17-21C. (63-70F). It could handle being a fair bit cooler. Heat would bring algae. This is why I germinate the seeds on my water heater then move them into the cool hydro water where they continue on fine.

Over all this is the most low-maintenance and reliable growing that I do. Once set up is done it's adding a jug of water most days to top up and once every few months I clean it up and change the water... prune the roots so they don't block up the system. Maybe an hour tops.
 
@TorontoJoe ever since a post of your basement lettuce patch indicated that organic fertilizers might be as effective for explosive growth, if you include a little sodium nitrate. I know this is probably counterintuitive. Still I would love to get explosive growth with Organic fertilizer. LOL. Where is @Inflorescence when I need her to explain why this is not a great idea.
 
Figless said:
@TorontoJoe ever since a post of your basement lettuce patch indicated that organic fertilizers might be as effective for explosive growth, if you include a little sodium nitrate. I know this is probably counterintuitive. Still I would love to get explosive growth with Organic fertilizer. LOL. Where is @Inflorescence when I need her to explain why this is not a great idea.
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Without getting into the reasons... I just want to avoid sodium nitrate whenever possible. I would rather work a little harder and wait a bit longer. I don't need "explosive" growth. I just need reliable and predictable. With that I can make necessary adjustments..... I'm comfortable with the notion that "faster" is not necessarily "better".

You and @Inflorescence clearly both know your stuff. I'm just trying to remain as basic and uncomplicated as I can be.... It's becoming more and more difficult with so many that have marginal experience presenting themselves as experts on youtube etc.... its a shame
 
TorontoJoe said:
Without getting into the reasons... I just want to avoid sodium nitrate whenever possible. I would rather work a little harder and wait a bit longer. I don't need "explosive" growth. I just need reliable and predictable. With that I can make necessary adjustments..... I'm comfortable with the notion that "faster" is not necessarily "better".

You and @Inflorescence clearly both know your stuff. I'm just trying to remain as basic and uncomplicated as I can be.... It's becoming more and more difficult with so many that have marginal experience presenting themselves as experts on youtube etc.... its a shame
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I know some stuff, emphasis on some. 🙂 Many, many things yet to learn.

Giving advice to counter the negative consequences of following YT advice has become the bane of my existence on these forums. 😂 I feel you on that.

I fully understand not wanting to use sodium nitrate, I don’t use it myself. I have no real experience with hydroponics though and just passed on things I’ve read before on it to help support the move to organics. Wish I could help more but I’m not sure where Figless was going with that to give a response.
 
Inflorescence said:
I know some stuff, emphasis on some. 🙂 Many, many things yet to learn.

Giving advice to counter the negative consequences of following YT advice has become the bane of my existence on these forums. 😂 I feel you on that.

I fully understand not wanting to use sodium nitrate, I don’t use it myself. I have no real experience with hydroponics though and just passed on things I’ve read before on it to help support the move to organics. Wish I could help more but I’m not sure where Figless was going with that to give a response.
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It's late for me and I'm crashing... Just wanted to say that I feel you

@Figless is wise... Maybe too much for his own good. He seems to have physically experimented with so many problems that I only ponder.

I'm so grateful for all the wisdom on this forum
 
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