Advice for a newbie?

[Mushaman]

Hi

I'm new and was wondering if anyone knows about changing nutrient tanks over for fresh ones -

 

if you keep the TDS at a pretty fixed level by adding water when its higher and nutrients + water when its lower, how often do you change the whole tank for a fresh,flushed and clean one?

 

I can see a sediment (white) on the bottom of the rez but the nute solution looks clear?

My plants seem to be loving it by the way but I figure I will need to do a changeover eventually or the airponic sprayers are supposed to clog (they've been going since Aug 10 with no visible reduction in the spray)

 

I'm keeping the ph at around 5.8 and TDS at around 1100 -

I just posted some pix of the results so far biggrin.gif

[XPATSEEDS]

Hi

I'm new and was wondering if anyone knows about changing nutrient tanks over for fresh ones -

 

if you keep the TDS at a pretty fixed level by adding water when its higher and nutrients + water when its lower, how often do you change the whole tank for a fresh,flushed and clean one?

 

I can see a sediment (white) on the bottom of the rez but the nute solution looks clear?

My plants seem to be loving it by the way but I figure I will need to do a changeover eventually or the airponic sprayers are supposed to clog (they've been going since Aug 10 with no visible reduction in the spray)

 

I'm keeping the ph at around 5.8 and TDS at around 1100 -

I just posted some pix of the results so far biggrin.gif

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I change mine once a week, every sunday night. Not because it needs it really as I'm always topping it up anyway in flowering time, just because its now an established habbit of mine.

 

The point is why not???? Is it that much work?

 

Good to give it a nice clean out..

 

Xpat

[animal]

If you have the motivation to do a change every week then that is the go. Every two weeks is usually fine you just need to check the system every day or two to make sure nothings going out of wack.

 

Adding nutrient to an already mixed solution to raise the concentration is not a good idea in recirculating systems if you are using tapwater. Tapwater contains salts which are useless to plants therefore they remain in the solution as the plants drink the water and hydro nutes, so if you just keep adding to this depleted mixture which is getting a higher and higher proportion of unuseable salts eventually you will run into trouble. If your water is almost pure such as RO filtered water then this isn't such a problem.

 

To cut a long story short, change your nute mix every week and in between top up with plain PH adjusted water.

[Mushaman]

If you have the motivation to do a change every week then that is the go.  Every two weeks is usually fine you just need to check the system every day or two to make sure nothings going out of wack.

 

Adding nutrient to an already mixed solution to raise the concentration is not a good idea in recirculating systems if you are using tapwater.  Tapwater contains salts which are useless to plants therefore they remain in the solution as the plants drink the water and hydro nutes, so if you just keep adding to this depleted mixture which is getting a higher and higher proportion of unuseable salts eventually you will run into trouble.  If your water is almost pure such as RO filtered water then this isn't such a problem.

 

To cut a long story short, change your nute mix every week and in between top up with plain PH adjusted water.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Heya animal,

thanks for the info, exactly what I needed to know and the last piece of how nutrients work may have just fallen into place .. the white residue at the bottom of the tanks is probably those salts you mentioned so far so good, but I will definately do the change and clean today :thumbsup

I posted some pix of where they were at yesterday (still babies but going for their 4th set of leaves this morning)

[Mushaman]

I change mine once a week, every sunday night. Not because it needs it really as I'm always topping it up anyway in flowering time, just because its now an established habbit of mine.

 

The point is why not????  Is it that much work?

 

Good to give it a nice clean out..

 

Xpat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi XPAT

 

thanks for the info - you're right it's not that much work :scratchin

this is my first grow and all the reading I have done doesn't really talk about how to adjust PPM with the nutes, so I've been guessing up till now and the babies seem to be liking it - coz its my first grow I don't have an established pattern of doing stuff, that's something I am changing every day and your advice is excellen, why not? indeed :thumbsup oh, and I put some pix in my albu, if you wanna check em out (proud of my first babies I am)

thanks again

Mushaman