Soiless or Hydro?

Hello MPer's,
Thanks for looking at my question. Not really a new grower, I just don't know where to put this question. I have recently switched from a being a soil grower to using a soiless mix. Sunshine #4 to be exact. My question where should I take my grow info. from? Not a soil grow and not a hydro grow, it's like a soil grow only it's not. I understand about the PH and learning about CF and TDS and PPM. What would you consider this type of grow? I have been reading about drift and nute block and such. How does one achieve this? Anyway, I'm sure there is more, but I'll start here. Thanks for all of your help MPer's. I read a lot here... you'all are great. Pone

good question. I grow in ROOTS soiless and am never sure either. I think it's called flood and drain that which I do..

Pone said:

Hello MPer's,
Thanks for looking at my question. Not really a new grower, I just don't know where to put this question. I have recently switched from a being a soil grower to using a soiless mix. Sunshine #4 to be exact. My question where should I take my grow info. from? Not a soil grow and not a hydro grow, it's like a soil grow only it's not. I understand about the PH and learning about CF and TDS and PPM. What would you consider this type of grow? I have been reading about drift and nute block and such. How does one achieve this? Anyway, I'm sure there is more, but I'll start here. Thanks for all of your help MPer's. I read a lot here... you'all are great. Pone

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How are you planning to water? Hand water...... drip lines ....... or some other way......... the way you plan to water makes a difference on where you set your PH..........if your going to hand water you probably should set your ph between 5.9 and 6.5......... the drift occurs if your watering via a reservoir were water is drawn from to water plants an then drains back into the reservoir to be recirculated back through the plant medium over and over.

Interesting....Thanks GW...

mrcane said:

Interesting....Thanks GW...

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PJ provided me the link to there........ thought this was a good place to share it.

Grower13 said:

How are you planning to water? Hand water...... drip lines ....... or some other way......... the way you plan to water makes a difference on where you set your PH..........if your going to hand water you probably should set your ph between 5.9 and 6.5......... the drift occurs if your watering via a reservoir were water is drawn from to water plants an then drains back into the reservoir to be recirculated back through the plant medium over and over.

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The link helps a bunch...I will be hand watering Grower13. So after much reading I will treat this as a hand watered hydro grow. Vary my PH up and down for a controlled drift. You guys are great. One other question for you is that my water out of the tap is about 250 PPM. I think I have figured out how to adjust for that number.. Question is that number to high? Should a RO system be used instead of just adjusting from the 250? PH is between 8.5 and 9.. Appreciate your input and your gracious help. Pone

Pone said:

The link helps a bunch...I will be hand watering Grower13. So after much reading I will treat this as a hand watered hydro grow. Vary my PH up and down for a controlled drift. You guys are great. One other question for you is that my water out of the tap is about 250 PPM. I think I have figured out how to adjust for that number.. Question is that number to high? Should a RO system be used instead of just adjusting from the 250? PH is between 8.5 and 9.. Appreciate your input and your gracious help. Pone

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I don't believe it is to high a ppm....... mine is close to that....... how are you measuring your ph? 8.5 to 9 is very high....... mine starts a 7.7 or 7.8 and I thought that was on the high end......... depending on what nutrients you use and how they effect your ph will answer many of your questions.....

3 things for sure to do....... 1 check your ph meter for accuracy........ 2 let your water sit out for 24 hours and check ph and ppms....... 3 this is what you'll need to adjust your ph if your using synthetic nutrients... http://www.nehydro.com/ph-tds-testing/ph-adjustment/gh-ph-down-32oz/

The very next thing you need to do right now? call the water dept in your city/town and ask them for a water report to tell you what is in that 250ppm that is in that water. They will tell you what it is as that is the law. They get that question on a regular basis so they will not question your reason for wanting to know. If the individual asks you why you want to know, tell them you are wanting to set up a large aquarium with expensive tropical fish and you need to know the particulars of the water.

You may find that most of the 250ppm is calcium that will need some filtering or just adjusting your nutrients to not add too much calcium. Or it may be chlorine that will evaporate. Or it could be several mineral elements that pose no issues and allow you to use a little less of any micronutrient. Or you may find that you have to filter the water first. With that high of total dissolved solids in the water, it is risky (or unnecessarily expensive) to move forward without knowing exactly what's in the water.

Hushpuppy said:

The very next thing you need to do right now? call the water dept in your city/town and ask them for a water report to tell you what is in that 250ppm that is in that water. They will tell you what it is as that is the law. They get that question on a regular basis so they will not question your reason for wanting to know. If the individual asks you why you want to know, tell them you are wanting to set up a large aquarium with expensive tropical fish and you need to know the particulars of the water.

You may find that most of the 250ppm is calcium that will need some filtering or just adjusting your nutrients to not add too much calcium. Or it may be chlorine that will evaporate. Or it could be several mineral elements that pose no issues and allow you to use a little less of any micronutrient. Or you may find that you have to filter the water first. With that high of total dissolved solids in the water, it is risky (or unnecessarily expensive) to move forward without knowing exactly what's in the water.

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Hey Mister HushPuppy,
Thanks for your reply, I will do just that. Their corporate office is just down the road. With me using the Botanicare Kind nutrient system...has extra calcium built into the makeup of it. What a great ruse to use. Much appreciated, I'll let ya know. Thanks Pone

Hey Mr. Hushpuppy,
I appreciate your help and the heads up on water quality. I went online and retrieved a water report from my water co-op. Can you help me decipher what it all means please? I'll be doing some reading to try and figure it out for sure. Here are the results as follows.

Compound Avg. Result Recommended Max.

Alkalinity Total mg/l 65 NS
Calcium mg/l 18 NS
Chloride mg/l 23 250
Hardness Total mg/l as Calcium 120 NS
Magnesium mg/l 18 NS
PH 9.3 - 10.1 NS
Potassium mg/l 6.5 NS
Silica mg/l 18 NS
Sodium mg/l 56 NS
Sulfate mg/l 150 NS

Total Dissolved Solids 290 500

NS = No Standard

So there it is, can you please help with interpretation? I will continue to read and find some answers. Your help ( and everyone's here ) is greatly appreciated. Thanks a bunch..

Pone

I put this in the other thread before I saw this one so I'l put it here and we can eliminate that thread if you want.
Hello Pone; I'm no water tech so I could be wrong on this(anyone have information that is different, chime in and correct me). But appears you have mild calcium/sulphate in your water. Its not too bad but it seems like it fluxuates a good bit which is odd but I doubt its enough of a problem to worry about. If you are going to run synthetic and/or hydro, get your TDS meter and your pH meter and every time you draw your water (I use 5gal buckets from Lowes/HD) measure it out the same every time. Then check your baselines of both pH and TDS(given in ppm/parts per million) and write it down on something.
You may find that it will fluxuate on a certain cycle, or rarely fluxuate. But once you figure that, you will have that baseline to work from when making up your nutrient solution.

Now I just read that you are using the Kind from Botanicare. That may cause a little conflict with the calcium in your water. We need to check that out.

Have you bought the Botanicare nutes yet? I would suggest you switch to GH Flora 3part for growing in that soilless medium. Soilless can be quite challenging sometimes. You need to match up the nutes to the medium some, as there are some nutes that work better with certain mediums and not so well with others.

I don't know if you want to stay organic or go fully synthetic, but even though you are moving to a soilless medium, you could stay organic if you want. And you can go the old fashioned way of making up soil just using the sunshine as your medium substrate and adding amendments, or you can go the EASY commercial route and buy organic nutes and nutrient teas. There's more than one way to skin this cat

Mister Hushpuppy,
Thank you for taking your time and effort to help me here. Sorry I haven't been back sooner. ( work and such ) I've been doing some reading and after your suggestions I am going to Get some GH nutrients. One of their products is formulated for my particular situation. Hard water with extra calcium. I'll keep reading and trying! Have had a few good runs, I am hoping this helps with the curve for me. LOL Anyway.. thank you, much appreciated!! Pone

Pone said:

Mister Hushpuppy,
Thank you for taking your time and effort to help me here. Sorry I haven't been back sooner. ( work and such ) I've been doing some reading and after your suggestions I am going to Get some GH nutrients. One of their products is formulated for my particular situation. Hard water with extra calcium. I'll keep reading and trying! Have had a few good runs, I am hoping this helps with the curve for me. LOL Anyway.. thank you, much appreciated!! Pone

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The GH mirco for hard water has less calcium in it because hard water has a lot of calcium in it already.

I believe you can get the Flora 3part with the hard water substitution in the Micro.