That is pretty much a loaded question that is bound to cause a ruckus. Some growers they say an inert media simply mean that any medium that is not organic is and therefore generally mean the following medias are nonorganic and therefore inert.So if hydrotons are a poor medium, than what would you consider the best medium to use in ponics?
It causes the most difficulties of nearly all the medias. It is not even hydroponic media. It is aqua culture. In reality the only good nutrient method for real hydroponics is drain to waste. It is not newbie friendly though as it requires the greatest knowledge about nutrient formulation and nutrient up take unless you can afford to throw away a lot of fertilizer. Each run of nutrients through a hydro system strips nutrients and disrupts the ion charge balance, with your roots actually in the water your constantly adding organics to the water way above and beyond that added by any other methods. You are basically creating a soup of organic wastes and bacteria. Your using up buffers just as soon as they are created. You are constantly having to deal with temperature issues above and beyond the need to do so in any other type of system. You can not use Chlorine or H2O2 effectively with a aqua culture system meaning your dependent on organic sullpements so as to have natural bacteria and enzymes. Soo basically u youtr ending up with a mix of organic and inorganic. Pretty much a step abckward unless you like having a waste water treatment system fora nutrient reservoir. You have greater issues with a too high humidities and therefore reduced transpiration. The list even goes on and on.Why is water the worst growing medium ?
That depends where you are located.alright fatman, so where do i go to buy this stuff... these ingredients? Is there a way to not have to buy it in bulk but rather in small enough quantities to grow 20 plants through a single grow?
i want to get my feet wet with this stuff, but dont know where to start?
Man I am totally there with you on that. I just read the whole thing from the beginning. Fatman is not just throwing out something he found online; he is sharing his *knowledge*, which is obviously enormous.I really hate to sound like a cheerleader again fatman, but damn this thread is chock full of information anyone with a conscious eye for detail would be sorely mistaken for having skipped over. Thanks once again for taking the time to educate many of us, and best of luck to you and your crops!
You can buy some pretty good fertilizer formulation soft ware now. Makes it real easy to duplicate retail formulations such as GH or AN etc. Then you just make the changes you wish to betterdajust for your growing system and the specif strains and the software spits out the formulas in a two part formula. Theywill even warn you if precipitaes will likely form or if you are above or below normal recommened levels. Or you can just enter in the ppm's you desire or the analysis pecentages. They are starting to become pretty reasonable. Starting at about $150 and running up to abot $2500.You know I never thought to make my own nutes,
Anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry can do it, all u need to know is "molarity" found in the "stoichiometry" section of chem to make sure u have the solution to the right concentration.
May I ask where u found the chemicals? I have never been able to find a chemistry store.
muhahaha.. The things I would do with a little 10 M HCl or H2SO4.....
Acids are amazing
Oh yea and guys how did you think the pioneers of hydroponics got ferts....??? There were no stores to go to only chemicals
And a hint of advice
You have to mix the chemicals in a specific order!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
say you mix agent "A" +agent "C" you would get product="AC"
Now if the bonds between "AC" are greater than "A" to "B" the mixture will remain "AC +B" floating around
This will lock out the A and C chemicals
Because
If A had a "+" charge and C had a "2-" charge the product would be neutral "A2C" with no charge
So if u wanted all the agents in there to bond together
ADD
A+ to B+ = A+, B+ (some of them will bond due to other forces but that bond wont be stronger than the (+/-) attraction when u add C)
THEN add, (A+, B+) to (C 2- ) to = 2CAB
You have to think about this when you add any more chemicals
You have to find out if chemical "D" will bond with compound "CAB" or will u need to add it at a different time
That my friend is why chemists get paid a lot of money
if u have the background to check all of these chemicals before mixing go ahead and make yourself some cheap just as good as the manufactures ferts, but if not I would not recommend it without looking up "stoichiometry" first.
i use Dyna-Gro because im lazy.. works good enough for me.. and no mixingDepends on waht your base fertilizer is. Ideally you want a 3:1:2 ratio. Lucas is not an ideal ratio. It is just a simple seasy to mix formulation to use. It does nor even work as well as using a mixture of Grow and Micro during veg and Micro and Bloom during budding, or even as well as some other even cheaper fertilizers. It is simply a fair working FAD fertilizer blend that an average hobby grower came up with a few years ago. Of the retail fertilizers out there I think at this time the best bang for your bucks comes from Dyna-Gro Foliage-Pro.
https://www.rollitup.org/nutrients/295437-methodical-scientific-approach-nutrients-nutrient.html
Nice a Professor u do a lot of research or do u just teach? I myself am a Mechanical engineering grad-student w/a minor in chem hoping to get my masters.You can buy some pretty good fertilizer formulation soft ware now. Makes it real easy to duplicate retail formulations such as GH or AN etc. Then you just make the changes you wish to betterdajust for your growing system and the specif strains and the software spits out the formulas in a two part formula. Theywill even warn you if precipitaes will likely form or if you are above or below normal recommened levels. Or you can just enter in the ppm's you desire or the analysis pecentages. They are starting to become pretty reasonable. Starting at about $150 and running up to abot $2500.
I have 5 different commercial software packages as I was sent test versions before they were put on the market. One of the davantages to being a Professor, lotts of free books and software. I also have some designed by grad students and doctoral candidates.
I seldom calculate formulas with pencil and paper any more unless making formulaswith several differing nitrogen sources or buffers normally used in biology labs. The software packages do have to what they will include in formulations or how many sources of the same branch of nutrients. The nicer ones even allow you to enter the purchase cost of all raw materials and will formulate at the cheapset cost based on you raw material costs.
Is this one of those "solar sails" you're talking about? Sounds familiar.I asked if I could help research in my engineering department. They are trying to create a solar powered propulsion system for close space travel (close is relative to our solar system)
It is powered by creating a beam of photons and bending the light beam with a magnet to a receiver that collects the photons and reuses the energy as efficient as possible. By bending the flow of electrons it creates a continuous force pushing in the opposite direction of the electrons displacement creating continuous acceleration.
On earth is dose nothing but bend light but in space our theory believes it will get the craft going pretty well because of the vacuum.
Old tire rubber has been known to leach a few solvent compounds but mainly they leach cemicals picked up from road travel. Mainly Pertroleum products from the asphalt etc. The way to avoid that is to buy the red or brown rubber chunks instead of the black.I have never heard of using rubber mulch before. That stuff wouldn't cause any issues with the ferts. There isn't anything in the rubber that would leech out? As with the gravel, would the small gravel people use in there fish tanks work good?
What's the difference, isn't it the same thing just dyed?Old tire rubber has been known to leach a few solvent compounds but mainly they leach cemicals picked up from road travel. Mainly Pertroleum products from the asphalt etc. The way to avoid that is to buy the red or brown rubber chunks instead of the black.