Nutrient Watering

can someone tell me how often they water with nutes in a hydro setup? each time you add more water to your reservoir when it gets do you just add plain water or water with nutes each time? i just started hydro and each time my reservoir gets low i add in a few gallons of nute water but i never add just plain water, is this correct?

It always depends on your setup, environment, strains that you are growing and other factors.

If you are growing in rockwool, your newly planted clones might not need to be watered for a couple days since the clones dont have much root mass yet. If you are growing directly in expanded clay, you should probably water every day, and more repetitions per days as the plants get bigger. This is something you will have to figure out for your setup, but giving us more info will help you figure it out.

I prefer to just add plain water as the reservoirs get low, this helps to avoid nutrient lockout. But other prefer to always have the same levels all the time. This is another thing that you will have to figure out based on your environment and strains as the needs of the plants will differ from room to room.

ok thanks man, i know when to water i was just wondering how often to add nute water instead of just plain water, i know most people will change the water every week and as the week ends just add plain water so ill probably just try something along those lines and add fresh nutes once a week

ive never grown hydro myself, but this is how i think it goes

usually people check the ppm and ph levels everyday. if theyre off, they add a little nutrients until its at the right ppm, then adjust the ph if its off. when u add water, that lowers your ppms and can change ph a bit. depending on the size of the plant, u have lower or higher ppms. like for clones u want to start with like 0, then slowly go up. i believe when flowering they usually put it at 1000 or 1200.

putting nutrients in a bucket of water, then adding that bucket to your rez is basically guessing the amount of nutes. i recommend leveling off the water level with plain water, then check ppm and ph as stated above. start off on the weak side with nutes. its easy to burn the plants.

do not take this as fact. this is just what i learned from looking through hydro threads.

you will have to feel it out for yourself. mark on the side of your reservoir and see how much your little babies are drinking. You can either fill with normal RO water or put in the proper amount of nutes with it. I usually just put in normal water after. I continue to do this until I clean out my res which is about once a week.

bcurwi1 said:

you will have to feel it out for yourself. mark on the side of your reservoir and see how much your little babies are drinking. You can either fill with normal RO water or put in the proper amount of nutes with it. I usually just put in normal water after. I continue to do this until I clean out my res which is about once a week.

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just to clear it up... do you put nutes in when u change out the res? then only top it off with more water until u change the res again?

no the process of cleaning your res goes like this.
Naturally the amount in your reservoir will go down from all your girls drinking the water, and creating new growth. In return you get a solution that it is more nutrient concentrated and will eventually kill your plants. To prevent this you can re-fill your reservoir to the original height when it was full, you can just put normal water (with no nutes in at first). After about a week or so of doing this, I wait until I have to re-fill three times to wash. To wash I take all nutes out scrub the build up (if any) run clean water through, then create a new nutrient solution with fresh water and nutes...your plants will be veryyyyy happy


HTH
B

There are several ways to do it. You can either:

1. add regular water to the rez until you have added back as much as it can hold, then drain and start over. Example: If you have a 10 gallons of solution in your tote you just top off with water until you have added 10 gallons of water. Drain it all and make a whole new fully nutriented 10 gallons. You may be able to get by with more time, or have to do it sooner.. depending on how much the plants eat, etc.

2. do math. This means knowing what your nutes starts at, what it is when you need to add and finding out how much they ate and what you need to put back to keep it level. Once you get good at it you can basically keep your rez at a constant ppm. Ideally you will find the perfect ratio that provides the best growth without overdoing it. If you give them 500ppm one day and the next day it's down to like 200 then you know they are hungry and can up the ppms.. but if you find ppms raising over time then you need to back off some. Basically you want them consuming water and nutes at the same pace. It's possible to do relatively shirt grows with no rez changes this way, but always be ready for an emergency drain if nutes, ppms, or pH just get so out of whack there is no option. Water and nutes are cheap.

change weekly, but top off with water as needed to get through the week. works good.

Dude,
A good general guide when topping off is to add back water and nutes at 1/4 strength. I only add back water if I am 2-3 days from a complete rez change just to save on nutes and reduce ppm a little.

Professional green houses keep track of how much they add back to the rez and when that amount = the total capacity of the rez, they drain and re mix.

This is a pretty good way to do it as when the plants are small and they are not drinking much, you can make your rez last two weeks. When its week 7 and they are drinking like mad and I'm adding back 10+ gallons a day, I change the rez every 4 days or so.

I have 18 BIG plants on a 55 gallon rez though which is a small volume for so many plants.

Because I am lazy (and kind of smart). I stacked a 25 gallon tote on top of my rez that is connected with a float valve. The float valve is installed a little bellow the mid way part of the rez. When the plants flood and the water level drops, water from the top of tote is added. Just don't install the float valve too high b/c the rez will drain, and then when it fills up again there will be too much water.

I mix the top off tank at 1/4 strength and usually PH it around 4.0 to 5.0 depending on what stage I am in and what nutes I am using. It helps stabilize the PH, keeps water levels in the rez high, and allows me to ignore it for a couple days (or a week) if I feel like it.