Why arent you mixing your own nutes?

Making your own diy nutes will save you hundreds if not thousands in hard earned cash. For example You can make a gallon of concentrate for pennies and you will know the plant has everything it needs, no more worries about deficiencies EVER. A lot of nute companies add the minimum amount of micro nutes or have a recipe for a broad range of plants. This can cause all kinds of problems with us mj growers unless you BUY and add additives such as cal-mag to replace what they don't have. Below ill break down what I have done to get you a basic idea how it works.


LIST OF INGREDIENTS; "Sources for compounds listed below= ebay and amazon" The compounds listed below are legal and safe to use.

Calcium Nitrate
Potassium Nitrate
Iron Chelate "DTPA" AT 10 or 11%
Mono Potassium Phosphate
Magnesium sulfate
Manganese sulfate
Boric Acid "Sodium borate" aka roach insecticide
Zinc Sulfate
Copper sulfate
Ammonium Molybdate or sodium molybdate, "The difference is nill"

The average concentration of these elements should fall within these parameters;

Nitrogen "nitrate form" 70-300 ppm
Nitrogen "ammonium form" 0-30 ppm
Potassium 200-400 ppm
Phosphorous 30-90 ppm
Calcium 150-400 ppm
Sulfur 60-330 ppm
Magnesium 25-75 ppm
Iron .5 - 8.0 ppm
Boron .1 - 1.0 ppm
Manganese .1 -1.0 ppm
Zinc .02 - .2 ppm
Molybdenum .01 - .1 ppm
Copper .02 - .2 ppm


Once you have your desired recipe now its time to download and open a program called hydrobuddy,
You will also need a small scale for measuring minute quantities such as .09 or smaller of an ounce and a large scale for measuring 5 or more ounces. You will also need two empty gallon jugs and two full jugs of distilled water. One gallon will be for concentration A and one gallon will be for concentration B. I like to use a half gallon instead of a whole gallon because you dont have to mix as much together when your ready to feed your plants.

Very Important= You should only use distilled water when mixing compounds together. Tap water has extra calcium, copper, and etc. Once you start getting the hang of it and know your tap water you can adjust all this in hydrobuddy but to keep it simple we are going to use distilled water as our base.

Hydrobuddy= http://scienceinhydroponics.com/2016/03/the-first-free-hydroponic-nutrient-calculator-program-o.html

Step 1= Open hydrobuddy then click on the "main page" at top and zero out all targets. I will be using my own grow recipe as a guide, yours might be different,

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm229/dissturbbed/step two fill in_zpsbazo21is.png

Step 2= Fill in "target" These are your ppms of your recipe. Then go to stock solution volume and put in "1", then go to concentration units "ppm", mass units "ounces", Then go to solution preparation type "concentration A + B"

Step 3 = "carry out calculation"

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm229/dissturbbed/step three_zpsszcvy9tj.png


Step 4 = " Results"

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm229/dissturbbed/step four_zpslr3seibj.jpg

As you see there are two parts A and B, It is listed as grams but this is an error in hydrobuddy, it is really ounces per gallon. Mix the compounds listed as "A" together in one gallon jug and part "B" in the other gallon jug. Like I said above i like to concentrate it by mixing it in half gallon amounts. Once you have finished youre done mixing your nutes for "grow". Mix an equal amount from each jug into your nute container and feed. For example..I will add 8ml of concentrate A and 8ml of concentrate B to a gallon of water which should give me a decent ppm. If not add more to get your desired level.

i use composted cow pop blood meal kelp meal bone meal and rock phosphat lime

woodsyn2o said:

i use composted cow pop blood meal kelp meal bone meal and rock phosphat lime

Click to expand...

This is mainly for hydroponics, coco coir, and other non-organic feeds.

MiStUrX said:

This is mainly for hydroponics, coco coir, and other non-organic feeds.

Click to expand...

thanks for all the info man i have never grown hydro

I like to use a concentration factor of 400x. That allows you to use 10mL of A, 10mL of B per gallon of water, which is really easy to deal with.

I basically am mixing my own nutes. I use VitaGrow. It's three parts And probably the cheapest nutrient brand out there and it's all you need.

Part A = Calcium Nitrate NPK = 13-0-0

Part B = Trace elements NPK = 3-10-20
Potassium Nitrate
Magnesium Sulfate
Potassium Phosphate
Iron Chelate
Manganese Sulfate
Copper Sulfate
Potassium Borate
Sodium Molybdate

Part C = Mono potassium phosphate NPK = 0-49-29

I also add Fulvic acid that I buy in bulk for dirt cheap.

I grow in coco and I never have any calcium or magnesium issues due to the calcium coming from calcium nitrate in part A and the magnesium sulfate in part B.
I tried many brands over the years and got sick of paying for the same stuff in VitaGrow diluted by a factor of 100 and ten times as expensive. Ten years ago I started using VitaGrow and I have not looked back. I grow better plants and the cost is so inexpensive that I spend less in a year than I used to in a month when I was foolish enough to buy into the fancy labels and watered down salts that I can mix myself for 1000 time cheaper. Plus I don't have to follow some ridiculous feeding schedule mixing a dozen bottles of overpriced crap just to end up with over fertilized plants that taste like crap, have problems during the grow, and yield less than what I'm getting now.

I have been mixing my own for years. First started with fatmans formula and went from there. However I still purchase rooting hormones, ph down and up.