Making Nutes for Hydro

I have talked with several different hydro store workers and they mostly say "it doesn't matter which nutes you use, they are mostly the same" This is not an argument I want to get into here as there are numerous forums for discussing/arguing who's best.

I'm starting this thread because if they are mostly the same, why can we not learn to make our own nutes?

Professional hydro farmers that grow food and flowers for retail in stores and restaurants mostly use home made mixtures or buy it in sacks from professional green house and farm suppliers.

Honestly what makes our little plant different from professional orchid, rose or broccoli farmers? They have the same goal, grow big fragrant (or tasty) flowers they can sell at market.

None of these professional farmers that grow in hydro are using the expensive stuff we use. Could you see a tomato farmer buying 55 gallon drums of AN nutes? No way! It would kill his profit margin.

Like I said, professional hydro farmers use powdered chemical nutes they buy in bulk either premixed or they mix themselves at a fraction of the cost we pay for AN, Canna and the rest and I'm sure their flowers/fruits/veggies are not deficient in anything. Professional hydro farmers are growing great stuff we eat, smell or look at everyday with nutes for much less then we pay.

For instance, HydroGardens (and others)
http://www.hydro-gardens.com/all.htm
provides various different nute blends for professional hydro farmers that grow tomatoes, cucumbers and other "for market" veggies. Do you think these farmers are buying substandard nutes when they have to sell their product to grocery stores and restaurants? I think not. They want to grow the the biggest, tastiest product they can, just like us.

They must know something we don't and how can we learn what is a good mixture of nutes we can make ourselves for hydro.

Thanks for reading.

YGB

breakdown of dry plant mass by weight

Oxygen
O2, H2O
45%

Carbon
CO2
45%

Hydrogen
H2O
6%

Nitrogen
NO3- (nitrate), NH4+ (ammonium ion)
1.5%

Potassium
K+
1.0%

Calcium
Ca^2+
0.5%

Magnesium
MG^2+
0.2%

Phosphorus
H2PO4- (dihydrogen phosphate ion), HPO4^2- (hydrogen phosphate ion)
0.2%

Sulfur
SO4^2- (sulfate ion)
0.1%

MICRO

Chlorine
0.01%

Iron
0.01%

Manganese
0.005%

Zinc
0.002%

Boron
0.002%

Copper
0.0006%

Nickel
???%

Molybdenum
0.00001%

Desired range of nutrients are:

Nitrogen 160-250 ppm
Magnesium 45-75 ppm
Calcium 160-280ppm
Iron 2-7 ppm

then figure out the rest

Yes, you can make your own hydroponic nutrients. You will need a balance that can read to at least 1/10th of a gram. You will need rather pure water - just buy a few gallons of purified water at the store if you don't have access to reverse osmosis H2O or distilled H20.

Next, you will need to purchase a whole bunch of food-grade or fertilizer-grade (not even sure if that is a grade) chemicals (salts). In addition to phosphates, nitrates, and potassium containing compounds, you will also need micronutrients. Dissolving micronutrients may involve purchasing chelates (not sure about that). It is your decision to make either a 2 part of 3 part solution, although 2 part solutions with the micronutrients already added would be convenient.

Before doing any of this, you will need to decide what you want your solutions to be in terms of their NPK ratios. It won't hurt to copy the ingredients list of some well known fertilizers such as General Hydroponics. A good calculator and good math skills will be needed as well as a grasp of basic chemistry. You will also have to balance the solutions for pH.

I hope to someday do such a thing, and I know I will enjoy doing it, but I can't justify purchasing all of the necessary chemicals when I can buy premixed solutions. Yes, it would save you money in the long run, but the initial investment may be prohibitive unless you are a 'professional' grower.

dbo24242 said:

Desired range of nutrients are:

Nitrogen 160-250 ppm
Magnesium 45-75 ppm
Calcium 160-280ppm
Iron 2-7 ppm

then figure out the rest

Click to expand...

well using this infos you will need in your mixture (At .5 conversion)
breakdown of dry plant mass by weight

Oxygen
O2, H2O
45%

Carbon
CO2
45%

Hydrogen
H2O
6%

Nitrogen
NO3- (nitrate), NH4+ (ammonium ion)
1.5%
160-250ppm

Potassium
K+
1.0%
105-170ppm

Calcium
Ca^2+
0.5%
53-83ppm

Magnesium
MG^2+
0.2%
20-36ppm

Phosphorus
H2PO4- (dihydrogen phosphate ion), HPO4^2- (hydrogen phosphate ion)
0.2%
20-36ppm

Sulfur
SO4^2- (sulfate ion)
0.1%
10-18ppm

MICRO

Chlorine
0.01%
trace amount

Iron
0.01%
10-18ppm

Manganese
0.005%
trace amount

Zinc
0.002%
trace amount

Boron
0.002%
trace amount

Copper
0.0006%
trace amount

Nickel
???%
trace amount

Molybdenum
0.00001%
trace amount

385ppm-610ppm micro/macros + some soluble (1-1-1) organic at 500ppm would be pretty primo for constant feeding? this isn't really how it works I hope someone with more info could fill in the gaps; I'm sure at least one of these is used by the plant for something besides building cells so it must be a little higher...

dbo24242 said:

well using this infos you will need in your mixture (At .5 conversion)
breakdown of dry plant mass by weight

Click to expand...

This is all great info, but more specifics are needed to accomplish the goal. What's needed here are recipes.

dbo24242 - Nice background info of %'s of plant's needs. All the professional formulas are done with percentages. Creating recipes with ppm values seems a bit off. When you see a fert label the N-P-K is 5-5-5 you are seeing 5%N 5%P 5%K. They are not written in ppm values.

ChemisTree - Yes all of those chemicals are needed. I believe there's 11 total to make a complete fert. And the mechanics of making nutes is not tough. Weigh the proper amount and mix. The big question is "what's the proper amount?"

All the post popular manufactures use an A/B system, 1 for grow, 1 for bloom and a few additives and flower boosters. While it is science, it's not rocket science and it seems there's not much difference in the top manufactures product (kind of like the difference between Sparkletts, Arrowhead, Evian, and others. They all quench our thirst but we each have our preference)

If we have recipes for the following, that should be all that's needed as a beginning.

For Veg
A Grow
B Grow
Root booster

A Flower
B Flower
Bud Enhancer

That's all I need to do the job and if we can make it ourselves, we can save big $$.

The recipe for each should look like a cookbook recipe. (the following is an example with bogus numbers, do not use)

1 Qt RO or distilled water
3.5 oz Calcium Nitrate
1.3 oz Phosphurous
etc, etc.

Our discussion should be what are the optimal NPK's for grow and veg and how do we achieve them with A/B formula recipes (or an all in one like professional farmers use.)

We can call this nute brand RIU Nutes

YGB

YouGrowBoy said:

This is all great info, but more specifics are needed to accomplish the goal. What's needed here are recipes.

dbo24242 - Nice background info of %'s of plant's needs. All the professional formulas are done with percentages. Creating recipes with ppm values seems a bit off. When you see a fert label the N-P-K is 5-5-5 you are seeing 5%N 5%P 5%K. They are not written in ppm values.

ChemisTree - Yes all of those chemicals are needed. I believe there's 11 total to make a complete fert. And the mechanics of making nutes is not tough. Weigh the proper amount and mix. The big question is "what's the proper amount?"

All the post popular manufactures use an A/B system, 1 for grow, 1 for bloom and a few additives and flower boosters. While it is science, it's not rocket science and it seems there's not much difference in the top manufactures product (kind of like the difference between Sparkletts, Arrowhead, Evian, and others. They all quench our thirst but we each have our preference)

If we have recipes for the following, that should be all that's needed as a beginning.

For Veg
A Grow
B Grow
Root booster

A Flower
B Flower
Bud Enhancer

That's all I need to do the job and if we can make it ourselves, we can save big $$.

The recipe for each should look like a cookbook recipe. (the following is an example with bogus numbers, do not use)

1 Qt RO or distilled water
3.5 oz Calcium Nitrate
1.3 oz Phosphurous
etc, etc.

Our discussion should be what are the optimal NPK's for grow and veg and how do we achieve them with A/B formula recipes (or an all in one like professional farmers use.)

We can call this nute brand RIU Nutes

YGB

Click to expand...

Okay, fair enough- it's cool that you're willing to make your own, and yes-recipes would be nice. I think in the future I'll post up a bunch of recipes, although I fear nutrient producing companies may bitch at me if I back calculate all of their products.

But there are a few recipes. Here's one from "How To Hydroponics" by Keith Roberto :

Vegetative Nutrient (1 gallon) 9.5-5.67-11.3

6.00 grams of Calcium Nitrate - Ca(NO3)2
2.09 grams of Potassium Nitrate - KNO3
0.46 grams of Potassium Sulfate (Sulfate of Potash) - K2SO4
1.39 grams of Monopotassium Phosphate - KH2PO4
2.42 grams of Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate (Epsom Salts) - MgSO4*7H2O
0.40 grams of 7% Fe Chelated Trace Element Mix (See Below)


Flowering Nutrient (1 gallon) 5.5-7.97-18.4

4.10 grams of Calcium Nitrate - Ca(NO3)2
2.80 grams of Potassium Nitrate - KNO3
0.46 grams of Potassium Sulfate (Sulfate of Potash) - K2SO4
1.39 grams of Monopotassium Phosphate (KH2PO4)
2.40 grams of Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate (Epsom Salts) - MgSO4*7H2O
0.40 grams of 7% Fe Chelated Trace Elements (See Below)


Chelated Trace Element Mix

Iron (Fe) - 7.00%
Manganese (Mn) - 2.00%
Zinc (Zn) - 0.40%
Copper (Cu) - 0.10%
Boron (B) - 1.30%
Molybdenum - 0.06%

ChemisTree said:

Chelated Trace Element Mix

Iron (Fe) - 7.00%
Manganese (Mn) - 2.00%
Zinc (Zn) - 0.40%
Copper (Cu) - 0.10%
Boron (B) - 1.30%
Molybdenum - 0.06%

Click to expand...

Thank you for this.

Ok, so there are some recipes out there. The veg and grow recipes have measurements to create them but the trace element mix is still in %. How do I know how many grams is 7% zinc or 1.3% boron?

I don't understand why you think the nute manufactures will bitch? Does Betty Crocker bitch at housewives that bake a cake from scratch? It's the same thing. And even if they do bitch at you, how do they know who you are?

Do GH or AN have patents on their nutrients? Also, they all say they have secret ingredients or techniques that make their formulas special so we can never truly copy them, right?

I don't know why more people here are not interested in this. We will go to Walmart or Home Depot to buy all the hardware to build hydro systems to save a few bucks but we'll spend way more on nutrients we can make ourselves. I guess it's the fast food world we live in where convenience trumps saving money.

Thanks again.

YouGrowBoy said:

Thank you for this.

Ok, so there are some recipes out there. The veg and grow recipes have measurements to create them but the trace element mix is still in %. How do I know how many grams is 7% zinc or 1.3% boron?

I don't understand why you think the nute manufactures will bitch? Does Betty Crocker bitch at housewives that bake a cake from scratch? It's the same thing. And even if they do bitch at you, how do they know who you are?

Do GH or AN have patents on their nutrients? Also, they all say they have secret ingredients or techniques that make their formulas special so we can never truly copy them, right?

I don't know why more people here are not interested in this. We will go to Walmart or Home Depot to buy all the hardware to build hydro systems to save a few bucks but we'll spend way more on nutrients we can make ourselves. I guess it's the fast food world we live in where convenience trumps saving money.

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

I'd be happy to back calculate a lot of nutrients- and I will in the future for this website. It's just the time involved that can be annoying. So many projects.

As for the micronutrients, you may need to purchase them in a ready made mix. Unless you have access to a balance that reads to the hundredths of a gram, some of the lesser nutrients will be difficult to weigh out.

The % is most likely mass. It doesn't add up to 100% because the mass not listed are the chelating agents that are needed to suspend the trace elements in solution.

So, it could be (100 grams total):

7 grams iron + x grams chelate
2 grams manganese + x grams chelate
0.40 grams Zinc + x grams chelate
0.10 grams Copper + x grams chelate
1.30 grams boron (probably in the form of boric acid or similar)
and Molybdenum 0.06 grams + x grams chelate.


If you watch out for me in the future I will gladly explain how to make these solutions for everyone on the website.

Who cares what the nutrient companies think. They make plenty of money on growers and realistically no matter what it will always be a small number of growers who end making their own. The difference between a tomato grower and commercial MJ grower is that MJ farmer's crop is worth much much more $ and every percent gain is worth a lot of cash, so why taking any chances.

However, I love DIY and would like to see some more people mix their own nutes and post grow journals, side by side comparisons etc. If you browse the MJ forums you can find plenty of recipies - just read a great one on ic yesterday with salt links etc.. The micro nutes comes premixed and already chelated for very little dough, so don't fiddle with mixing that one yourself. Another thing that companies like canna and vitalink do is to chelate the salts themselves with fulvic acid (canna do batch chelating, vitalink chelates them individually). This would be easy do yourself with some fulvic. I'd be sweet ass to sit in your grow room chalating nutes while toking on a fatty. One question though is how to make the mix ph stable. Canna aqua is verrry stable, often to the decimal two days apart. It would be nice to know how they achieve this, it's probably quite simple.

I wonder if it will be a problem to get pure nitrogen salts, as these are also used to make bombs by fucked up life hating terrorists. At least in my country restrictions have been imposed on how to buy nitrogen rich fertilizers. Don't know the details though.

--vertfarmer

VertFarmer said:

Who cares what the nutrient companies think. They make plenty of money on growers and realistically no matter what it will always be a small number of growers who end making their own. The difference between a tomato grower and commercial MJ grower is that MJ farmer's crop is worth much much more $ and every percent gain is worth a lot of cash, so why taking any chances.

However, I love DIY and would like to see some more people mix their own nutes and post grow journals, side by side comparisons etc. If you browse the MJ forums you can find plenty of recipies. The micro nutes comes premixed and chelated for little dough, so don't fiddle with mixing that one yourself. Another think companies like canna and vitalink does is to chelate the salts themselves using fulvic acid (canna do batch chelating, vitalink chelates them individually). This would be easy do yourself with some fulvic. One question though is how to make the mix ph stable. Canna aqua is verrry stable, often to the decimal two days apart. It would be nice to know how they achieve this.

I wonder if it will be a problem to get pure nitrogen salts, as these are also used to make bombs by fucked up life hating terrorists. At least in my country restrictions have been imposed on how to buy nitrogen rich fertilizers. Don't know the details though.

--vertfarmer

Click to expand...

vertfarmer,

The pH can be stabilized using a buffer system. I'm sure there are some plant friendly buffer systems out there probably using a phosphate system or similar. I'll investigate.

And yes, that is a good point. The fertilizer people make a lot of money off of us, when we could be mixing our own nutrients for quarters per gallon...

VertFarmer said:

I wonder if it will be a problem to get pure nitrogen salts, as these are also used to make bombs by fucked up life hating terrorists. At least in my country restrictions have been imposed on how to buy nitrogen rich fertilizers. Don't know the details though.

Click to expand...

Don't know where you are Vert but in the US large quantities of nitrates being bought or sold are tracked by Homeland security. So yes you have to be careful.

So you guys think it's best to mix the NPK's in the ratio you want and then add some premixed micro's? This would be a lot easier way to do it.

I'm guessing the micros can be bought at any nursery?

YGB

I don't believe all of the major sales are tracked by homeland security. You can generally find a lot of the raw materials in everyday items and can pay for them with cash. We're not making explosives here, we're peaceful people. Additionally, you won't need to buy pounds and pounds of material to make nutes- most solution nutes are still fairly dilute, and even then they are used relatively slowly.

Also, there are plenty of websites where you can buy small amounts of food grade chemicals. Just look around. I really need to do this and write a comprehensive DIY thread for this website...

Thanks for all the info. I'll keep my eye out for the Nute DIY. I'm sure it will be good enough to be a Sticky.

YGB

YouGrowBoy said:

Thanks for all the info. I'll keep my eye out for the Nute DIY. I'm sure it will be good enough to be a Sticky.

YGB

Click to expand...

That's the thing, it would be comprehensive so it would take a few days to write. I think I'll do it over the next month or so...

Keep an eye out.

so whats the update?

His last post was 20 Feb,,, I don't think it's gonna happen. would of been nice. I need a FATMAN replacement to answer my chem questions. By the way google: Site:rollitup.org FATMAN7574. That will bring up a ton of nute formulas