Latewood's Legacy: GH 3-part and CalMag tutorial and discussion

[Horsemanrocks]

what is the best way to find out what kind of shape your tap water is in?? I get the yearly water report from the area I live in but it doesnt make a bit of sence to me whatsoever.


I hear that!......and on top of that if you pay for an expensive water analysis, what information do you compare that to.

I went to the water district requesting more information under the guise of wanting more information to make â??home brewâ?�. They couldnâ??t provide any more info than that yearly report. But if they hadâ?¦Iâ??d be in the same boat as youâ?¦.what to do with it. They did say that they used chlorine (not chloramines) thatâ??s helpful as far as determining the duration of the effect. My water report doesnâ??t even mention Calcium or Magnesium.

Unless you school yourself not only in water analysisâ?¦.but what your own grow requirements are, I guess all you can do is let the grow tell you.

I did copy this quote from Weedhoundâ?¦..

Interestingly.....according to my hydro man.....its VERY hard to OD on CalMag. If your leaves are going all dark and curly that just plain sounds like overnute to me. I sat down the other day and had a fair discussion on the use of CalMag with my hydro guy.....i'll be using it MORE these days instead of less. Just a thought I'm tossing in.....

Now Lucas thinks that GH Flora 3-part supplies all the cal/mag that youâ??re gonna need. (and he doesnâ??t do change-outs) In fairness though he does continue to add Micro and Bloom in top-offs.
But Latewood (who refreshes more often) adds Calmag+ to replace the Calcium â??used up in the 3-partâ?�.
Seems conflicting to me.

To sum it upâ?¦..Hell if I know! I suppose that your grow will speak to youâ?¦.Jus gotta listen.

With luck some water specialist type will school us both.
HMR

[michaelpeg]

hey horseman what exactly do you mean when you say ppm at .7?

[Horsemanrocks]

Your ppm meter doesnâ??t know squat about ppm. It only makes an approximation at ppm by measuring EC (electrical conductivity).
It then takes itâ??s EC figure and converts that to ppm with a factor of .5 or .7 to estimate ppm.
Note: EC is exactly the same on all meters. (itâ??s a baseline to work from)

So if you want to communicate ppm then you have to consider the conversion factor.
Example:
EC= 2100
2100 X .7 = 1470
2100 X .5 + 1050 Two very different conclusions.
So if anybody posts ppm without including their conversion factor, well then you have nothing to work with (to compare).

Letâ??s say that your meter converts at .7 and another posts ppm at a .5 conversion factor. Then you have to take (their ppm) X (the recriprocal of .5 (2.0)) to learn the EC of their solution.
Example:
Ppm 1050 (@.5) X 2 = 2100
2100 x .7 = 1470
So their 1050 ppm @.5 equals 1470 ppm @ .7 to you
If the situation was reversedâ?¦.the reciprocal of .7 is 1.4285

To find the conversion factor of your meter (if you have an EC function) Simply measure any solution for ECâ?¦then measure for ppm to see which conversion factor it uses. If not check the instructions.

My meter allows either conversion factor (I choose) I chose .7 because it seems to be a little more commonly used.

Let me know if this helps
HMR

[michaelpeg]

thanks for the help sorry a little late. Hey horseman do you start with feeding 1-1-1 when they are seedlings or do you hold off on feeding the first week or so?

[Horsemanrocks]

Michaelâ?¦.If I were qualified to help I would.
Iâ??m just into my first growâ?¦.and at ¼ strength of the 1-1-1 the new growth twists. So Iâ??m feeding by eye (with no experience).

Weezard taught me to keep my mouth shut when I didnâ??t KNOW from personal experience. So I gottaâ?? go with that.

Good luck
HMR

[michaelpeg]

weezard is a smart guy. you still helped me, I now know how sensitive the young plants are in dwc, thanks for the help. I guess i will play by eye as well.

[snoopytime]

Hey guys, trying this out . . one question about something I cant understand, the CalMag+ topoffs . . say I got a 20 gallon res and 3 days after a new batch of nutes, I am down 2 gallons of water. Do I ph the 2 gallons of RO water to 5.8, then add 3ml x 20 gallons reservoir = 60ml CalMag+ . . or is it 3ml x 2 gallons topoff?

In other words, with the CalMag+ topoffs do you add the 3 per mil for the total res size or just per gallon of RO water you are topping off with?

Thanks!

[bitemybud]

You just mix the top-off. During top-offs, you only add concentrates to the amount of water you are mixing.

Yes. you ph the water, then add your cal-mag. then check your ph again and adjust if necessary.

Cal-mag is the foundation of growing plants successfully.

In Comnercial Greenhouses; To make a nutrients solution, the 1st 2 ingredients are Calcium Nitrate, and Magnesium Sulphate.

Boosting the Calcinit allows for bigger fruit on the vines. So; We can conclude that adding cal-mag to tap water cannot hurt. Calmag says you can use 3-8ml per gallon. So if you have tap water that contains some calcium and magnesium then you could use the 3ml per gallon option.

Calmag and Liquid karma are not fancy things, as mentioned above. Together they contain all the good beneficial additives for the healthiest plants, in the least expensive way possible. If you cannot afford to buy what you need to grow using a hydroponics method, Then you will not succeed, save blind luck! Wait until you can buy the necessary tools, to do so.

Confusing this with Lucas Method is wrong, because they are 2 different types of growing.

However; Regardless of method: Aero, DWC, NFT, or Drip. You should use full strength formulas. Someone above mentioned twisted leaves. That is because they were misguided by someone telling them to use 1/4 strength nutes. Always mix you nutes full strength according to the bottles directions.

Neither Latewood or Zandor condone mixing nutrients at less than full strength for vegetative or flowering plants. There have been many posts on this topic through the years. You can find them at thegrowreport.

Hope this helps. I thought the whole thing was getting a bit jumbled. Good Luck, and BitemyBud!

[Zeffer]

So cut'm a big slice of whatever, people, come onna !

[Zeffer]

Latewood, thank you dude ! This bud fur youz !