(Quote) Michael Phelps
"Hey Fatman i def appreciate all the help, you have been a life saver cause the ladys where rapidly growing then as the ph swings came on the growth greatly slowed, I keep the reservoir clean, i change out the water every 6-7 days, infact i actually did it last night. At this point i have to order h202 online cause i dont have any hydro shops in my area and i also have to wait till next friday for payday hahaha.
But your advice has def helped me, i removed the aqua shield from my reservoir, i did add alittle hygrozme to keep bacteria away until i get my h202, last night before i went to bed i checked my ph and it was at 5.6, when i woke up this morning and ran the test it had only gone down to 5.4, so i think all that chicken shit was what was causing the huge ph swings." (end quote)
Nearly all organic nutrients are packed with ammonical nitrogen. When ammoniacal nitrogen is taken up by plants roots the roots maintain their ionic balance by discharging H+ ions. H+ is acid, acid lowers the pH. Consider that ammoniacal nitrogen is the result of the putrefaction of organic substances (NH3). Organic substances putrefy and become ammonium ions (NH4+), nitrifying bacteria turn the ammonium first to nitrite (NO2-), then to to nitrate (NO3-). Nitrate is the nitrogen form of most of the Nitrogen in chemical fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are a soup of all the nitrogen forms. In reality a reservoir containing organic nutrients operates biologically like a waste water treatment plant, especially if the water is aerated. That is just one reason why I am always surprised when anyone recommends organic nutrients be added to a chemical nutrient reservoir.
Why turn a well operating nutrient reservoir into a sewage treatment plant. That is like taking one step forward and then two steps backward. Then one needs to consider that the longer the reservoir containing organic ammonium nutrient goes without be changed the closer it resembles a sewage treatment system. After a period of 2 to 3 weeks it is a sewage systems treatment plant in essence as that is about the length of time it takes nitrifying bacteria to raech its peak in numbers. The nutrient manafacturesrs like to decieve prople into thinking that does not happen by saying their preparations contain only beneficial enzynmes and no bacteria. In reality most composting is done at temperatures between 50 and 65 Degrees Celcius and many pathogens are not killed unless tempearture reach 62-63 or a few 66 degrees celcius.
That is all fine and well as the deceptively avoid the pathogens issue but talk about beneficial and non beneficial bacteria, but the bacterias are present in air butl the bacteria is alledged to have been killed/removed by them. I can pretty much gurantee that is not the case. If they do not specifically asy the compost materials they use Class A compost. Calss A composts is composted sewage plant sludge. There are scads of online reports about how quickly some of the the bacteria repopulate the compost (instantly).
The Class A designation does not require testing of the compost before selling it. To sell the compost to the general public it must be Class A. I am only assumo ing thet=y are ethical enough to be buying only Class A compost. They, not being the general public, can buy/get lower class composts, that are normally given to the Commercial agricaultural community. It is a non enforceable guideline which has only the power of requiring classification of the compost based upon the time the compost is maintained at set temperatures or higher for set periods of time so as to theoretically cause the killing of weed seeds, some specific bacteria and some pathogens.
It does not require testing and it does not cover all bacteria and pathogens just those that are obiuously harmful to man such as solmenelia. The Calss of compost as set by te EPA really do not set the standards at all based upon what is or is not beneficial for plants growing in soil or hydroponically. The Class A,B and C are levels of stabilization mainly. The class A is just the most stable.
Stabilization through composting just means that after composting the sewage sludge or chicken manure or what have you will have been broken down enough that it is mainly all in the ammonical stage rather than than containing a lot of organic NH3. They test this nerely by assuming if the level of volitable orgainics is reduced by 20 to 30 percent then that is good enough. They have never to my knowledge ever stated why they choose thst percentage other than that is about the average reduction when sewage sludge or animal manure with a carbon to nitrogen content of 20:1 to 35:1 is composted.
Can't really trust MJ nutrient manafacturer marketers as they love playing deception games. Especially when nothing can happen when the deception is exposed. Pretyy hard to prove intent to deceive.
