The Best N-P-K

Too complicated for me! I'm a simple man.

Are there any "what ifs"? Like what if you get precipitates. Buy Dyna-Gro's Foliage Pro, liter for $14......done.

Not really. Each to his own.

No, there are no precipitates when i mix it. I mix it based on instructions: no precipitates thus far. It's horticultural grade. Everybody around here uses it for: cucumber, peppers, etc. Dyna-gro is not available here. If it had been, I would have bought it. This is currently the only option i had for a high quality, low-cost fertilizer with actual data unlike the majority of over-priced crap in most hydro stores (which i don't frequent). I spent $30 on raw salts that will probably mix about 250 + gallons. If i could have afforded it, i would have gone for the 50 lb bags and driven my cost down to ~0. That's for down the road.

Maybe my recollection is wrong, UB. I had thought that you mentioned buying 50 lb. bags of salts for your Ag/Day job. It's possible i'm mistaken. I just thought that if you set up large reservoirs regularly you would be using raw salts and have a link to a nutrient calculator that would allow me to get 9-3-6 and 10-10-10 or thereabouts for veg/bloom. If you do, that would be great. If you don't, i'll figure it out.

I find raw salts easy to use. I've been doing it for nearly 2 months and find setting up a rez takes 5 mins. The plants are loving it. I'm a week or so away from bloom with this lot and everything is green, healthy and happy. Anyhoo..

Best of luck to all

The 50 lb. bags are pre mixed to certain ratios for me.

If it works for you, that's all that matters.

Have fun!

I'd be surprised if it does work for him (although I guess he says it's working, so that proves how hard it is to screw up a mix). From the recipe he listed, his potassium and sulfur are WAY too high. (not to mention EC is through the roof)

It's funny, because he says he's aiming for your advised NPK ratio, but not even coming close. I'm positive that the the calculator's and my calculations are correct.

I'm sort of annoyed that I answered his question and he ignored me. He came asking for someone to find him the calculator he lost, then I didn't even get a thank you or an acknowledgement when I led him back to the light. It may not be for everyone, but I really enjoy it. People feel vindicated when they find others who have the same unique methods as them.

Uncle Ben said:

The 50 lb. bags are pre mixed to certain ratios for me.

If it works for you, that's all that matters.

Have fun!

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Just to clear things up, 30 dollars of salts should make more than 250 gallons of reservoir water.

Even if you buy in 1lb bags, 250 gallons of mixed water will cost more like 6-7 dollars.

H&G Cocos gives me the best results in pure Coco.

Advanced Sensi A&B did just OK for me.

Last run of pure Foliage Pro did ok as well but the room had other issues with too high of a CO2 for about a week and an AC that went out and the room got to 110 so im going to give it another try. Still got 1.5lb per light in that room though.

I run the Foliage Pro with Drip Clean and Feed every time. No lockout issues as of yet. Im gonna start doing a water feed this run though. I also use the Top booster and Bux XL from House n Garden and my plants seem to get excessively resinous.

Uncle Ben said:

Too complicated for me! I'm a simple man.

Are there any "what ifs"? Like what if you get precipitates. Buy Dyna-Gro's Foliage Pro, liter for $14......done.

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Uncle Ben, is it really that simple? That stuff work from seed to harvest without anything else? If so wtf have I been doing researching what nutes to use for 3 weeks now. Whats your recommendation for the mix ratio? Distilled,tap, or RO? Thanks man I really do appreciate it!

hey I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but for most nutes you mix with water the reason you see an insanely high p compared to n-k is because when p's ingredients mixed with water it takes more to boost the phosphorus ppm compared to standard n and k ingredients.

thus that means your 0-50-30 is more like a 0-25-30

example off a nute calculator
0-50-30 1 tsp per gallon
n ppm:0 p ppm:290 k ppm:328

20-20-20 1tsp per gallon
n ppm: 264 p ppm:116 k ppm:219

It's not that it takes more phosphorous to boost ppm than N and K, it's about conversion factors.

NPK rating for whatever reason is actually N : P2O5 : K2O.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPK_rating

N is 100% of N

P is 43.6% of P2O5

K is 83% of K2O

When measuring ppm of phosphorous, P is used instead of P2O5 conversion factor. So P will always seem lower as a ppm.

NotoriousBUD said:

hey I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but for most nutes you mix with water the reason you see an insanely high p compared to n-k is because when p's ingredients mixed with water it takes more to boost the phosphorus ppm compared to standard n and k ingredients.

thus that means your 0-50-30 is more like a 0-25-30

example off a nute calculator
0-50-30 1 tsp per gallon
n ppm:0 p ppm:290 k ppm:328

20-20-20 1tsp per gallon
n ppm: 264 p ppm:116 k ppm:219

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I notice all of these say 10-20-20 or 0-20-20 etc... I just bought a bottle of roots organics Buddha bloom for my early flowering Northern Lights (first 3 weeks of flowering) and the label says 0.5-2-1,but the back of the bottle for P&K says 2.0% and 1.0%.when someone says 0-20-10 is that lingo without the decimal point or am I using a way low percentage of P & K?

Louisville79 said:

I notice all of these say 10-20-20 or 0-20-20 etc... I just bought a bottle of roots organics Buddha bloom for my early flowering Northern Lights (first 3 weeks of flowering) and the label says 0.5-2-1,but the back of the bottle for P&K says 2.0% and 1.0%.when someone says 0-20-10 is that lingo without the decimal point or am I using a way low percentage of P & K?

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2% P2O5 equivalent P by mass and 1% K2O equivalent K by mass will be a 0-2-1 NPK. In europe it's done a bit different, but in the US, NPK values are percent N, P2O5 equivalent and K2O equivalent. (I have no idea why we used those equivalents instead of saying how much K and P are in it straight up).

It is not lingo. It is regulations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_of_fertilizer

So my organics Buddha bloom says 0.5-2-1,is that the same as saying 05-20-10?? I was using Organic compost fertilizer,pellets that you mix right in with the soil or sprinkle on the top of the soil before watering,they were completely organic but they were 5.0%-3.0%-4.0%NPK and when I switched my light to 12 hours I wanted to lower the nitrogen content this time because the strain I am using now didn't seem to be liking that mixture as well as my previous Strains! my previous strain was white widow and I just used the pellets mixture all the way through until harvest only adding 0-6-5 cutting edge liquid bloom during flowering on top of the organic pellets.but like I said this strain(3 Northern Lights,3 texada time warp) didn't seem to like the high nitrogen content once I switched them into flowering. so I decided to order a new nute mix,I ordered organics Buddha bloom.with my previous nute mix these 2 strains seem to be very sad and kind of unhappy is how I would describe them!adding this new nutrient mix they seem to be happy now but they're not thriving or flourishing!should I be using a higher P and K liquid like the cutting edge 0-6-5 also with the Buddha bloom.the Buddha bloom seems to be making them happier but I really feel they have much more potential and I already know that it is not nitrogen that they want.any suggestions in this matter would be very helpful I really would like to get the full potential out of my girls.and I don't feel that there flourishing at their full potential.I'm sure I have everything else down pat my spectrum room temperature humidity levels soil mixture I'm pretty sure that it's my nutrient mixture that I'm not getting correct!

I have found a ratio of about 2-1-1 works great for veg and 1-2-2 works great for flower. I believe cannabis growers make a whole lot too much out of nutrients in general. As uncle ben said 1-1-1 works fine all the way through, while others use 1-2-3 for flower and have great results and others use 1-3-2 for flower with great results. Basically my point is that there is likely no ideal number and if you take care of your plants and feed them the proper dosages there is a wide range of numbers that will produce great results.

Personally i believe a cannabis plant finishes faster if you decrease its N about halfway through flowering. So my personal preference is to start at about 1-1-1 when the plant is transitioning and slowly decrease the N until the plant is on 1-2-2 by about week 4-5 of flower.

Louisville79 said:

I notice all of these say 10-20-20 or 0-20-20 etc... I just bought a bottle of roots organics Buddha bloom for my early flowering Northern Lights (first 3 weeks of flowering) and the label says 0.5-2-1,but the back of the bottle for P&K says 2.0% and 1.0%.when someone says 0-20-10 is that lingo without the decimal point or am I using a way low percentage of P & K?

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basically the numbers will be much lower in liquid ferts because they are mixed with water. Powdered ferts are generally like 10-50-20 or something because they are much greater % actual nutrients and no water. So where my liquid nutrient series is 5-1-1 which is 5% Nitrogen 1% Phos 1% Potas my powder is 10%/50%/20%. The liquid has 97% water or something not NPK and the powder has 20% something other than N-P-K because it contains no water and a much higher concentration of nutrients.

When you mix these products with water and judge the strength of the solution by PPM or EC it makes no difference what the actual number on the product was just the ratio of the numbers in relation to eachother because you are now using the concentration of the new solution to determine how much total nutrient is in the solution. If you make a solution that is 1000ppm from a 5-1-1 nutrient and water you will end up with the exact same solution by making a solution of a 50-10-10 nutrient and water at 1000ppm, you would just be using less of a 10x more concentrated nutrient.

I am very high and hope this is not making this far more confusing than beneficial.

purplehays1 said:

basically the numbers will be much lower in liquid ferts because they are mixed with water. Powdered ferts are generally like 10-50-20 or something because they are much greater % actual nutrients and no water. So where my liquid nutrient series is 5-1-1 which is 5% Nitrogen 1% Phos 1% Potas my powder is 10%/50%/20%. The liquid has 97% water or something not NPK and the powder has 20% something other than N-P-K because it contains no water and a much higher concentration of nutrients.

When you mix these products with water and judge the strength of the solution by PPM or EC it makes no difference what the actual number on the product was just the ratio of the numbers in relation to eachother because you are now using the concentration of the new solution to determine how much total nutrient is in the solution. If you make a solution that is 1000ppm from a 5-1-1 nutrient and water you will end up with the exact same solution by making a solution of a 50-10-10 nutrient and water at 1000ppm, you would just be using less of a 10x more concentrated nutrient.

I am very high and hope this is not making this far more confusing than beneficial.

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Resurrecting this thread because I have a question along these lines. If then, something is labelled 0-10-10, and I have another labelled 0-5-5. Could I use twice as much of the 0-5-5 to get the same result as the 0-10-10 when mixing with water for a soil feed? I know they are the same ratio but the 0-10-10 has twice the concentration right?

blinkin said:

Resurrecting this thread because I have a question along these lines. If then, something is labelled 0-10-10, and I have another labelled 0-5-5. Could I use twice as much of the 0-5-5 to get the same result as the 0-10-10 when mixing with water for a soil feed? I know they are the same ratio but the 0-10-10 has twice the concentration right?

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I can't be sure,but,it would also double trace elements and other components like sulpher iron boron etc.So i'm not sure it may overload on micro nutrients.Good question though. I couldn't find an answer online.

Uncle Ben said:

The 50 lb. bags are pre mixed to certain ratios for me.

If it works for you, that's all that matters.

Have fun!

Click to expand...

I like yer style ben!

Uncle Ben said:

I've tried for years to steer noobs from the never ending cannabis growing brainwashing and myths down the path of "what makes a plant tick".

Books? For the price and solid advice, it's hard to beat Mel Frank's 'MJ Insiders Growers Guide'. It's your shortcut to success. I consider 80% of posts in cannabis forums as being a "shortcut to disaster".

Click to expand...

I just bought the last one available on Amazon

Check back soon !

blinkin said:

Resurrecting this thread because I have a question along these lines. If then, something is labelled 0-10-10, and I have another labelled 0-5-5. Could I use twice as much of the 0-5-5 to get the same result as the 0-10-10 when mixing with water for a soil feed? I know they are the same ratio but the 0-10-10 has twice the concentration right?

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If the products contain only P and K then yes. As others have said most nutrs have a cocktail often including micro nutrients like mg ca f ect.

blinkin said:

Resurrecting this thread because I have a question along these lines. If then, something is labelled 0-10-10, and I have another labelled 0-5-5. Could I use twice as much of the 0-5-5 to get the same result as the 0-10-10 when mixing with water for a soil feed? I know they are the same ratio but the 0-10-10 has twice the concentration right?

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Are you completely cutting out N, the most important macro for our tropical foliage plant?

Someone's been listening to the wrong sources.