A question for the growers using Jacks 5-12-26

[Ichabod Crane]

Grow is right with the RO. With your tap EC and PH the RO is required.

If you know your plants you can tailor the nutes to them so they take water and nutes in a even ratio. Then you will not have to change the res constantly.

Look up delta9's PPK thread for what I have stated. He runs a modified hydro setup and does not change his res. He is also running jacks.

 

[Rabbi]

Grow is right with the RO. With your tap EC and PH the RO is required.

If you know your plants you can tailor the nutes to them so they take water and nutes in a even ratio. Then you will not have to change the res constantly.

Look up delta9's PPK thread for what I have stated. He runs a modified hydro setup and does not change his res. He is also running jacks.

Thx for the advice IC, I will check it out.

 

[Dr.RedWhite]

Another question I have for you hydro guys(like myself), do you guys top up with water once your res gets lower? For myself I change my res(water and nutes) weekly and top up with water usually once during that week. If I don't, my water levels will get low(obviously) and my tds levels will rise. Basically just wondering if I should be doing that once I switch to Jacks or do I just leave the res untouched all week long until my next res change?

I have the same water impurity level you have. The problem is that there is a lot of stuff in our water that the plants do not use. Your plants are drinking the water and using what they want so you end up with a higher TDS level and PH along with fewer nutrients in the reservoir. Even if you top off with your standard nute mix you will end up with a less strength solution than you want due to the lowered level of nutes in the remaining solution. I just change the reservoir when 75% of the solution has been used up. If you could figure out the curve of how strong your nute solution is so you could have some idea of how much fertilizer to add to the reservoir then you would be golden, until then just change the res. Just adding water back will just weaken you nute solution though you could do this and PH the res at the same time. The rising TDS level in our case is telling us that there is a lot of crap in our water.

 

[Rabbi]

I have the same water impurity level you have. The problem is that there is a lot of stuff in our water that the plants do not use. Your plants are drinking the water and using what they want so you end up with a higher TDS level and PH along with fewer nutrients in the reservoir. Even if you top off with your standard nute mix you will end up with a less strength solution than you want due to the lowered level of nutes in the remaining solution. I just change the reservoir when 75% of the solution has been used up. If you could figure out the curve of how strong your nute solution is so you could have some idea of how much fertilizer to add to the reservoir then you would be golden, until then just change the res. Just adding water back will just weaken you nute solution though you could do this and PH the res at the same time. The rising TDS level in our case is telling us that there is a lot of crap in our water.

My Ph actually drops through out the week. When I top up it's not just for water level and tds sake but brings my ph back up as well...picking up that r/o system either today or tomorrow. So looking forward to it.

 

[Dr.RedWhite]

I wish my PH would drop, that is the battle for me.

 

[growteam]

My Ph actually drops through out the week. When I top up it's not just for water level and tds sake but brings my ph back up as well...picking up that r/o system either today or tomorrow. So looking forward to it.

Did you get the RO?

 

[Rabbi]

Did you get the RO?

Yep, got it today. Running it now and going to make my first batch of Jacks stock solution.

 

[Rabbi]

K just finished making my first stock solution and was hoping to use it tonight but looks like I won't have enough r/o water till tomorrow. Looking forward to using it though.

 

[Rabbi]

So tried out the r/o water and Jacks tonight. Got things to around the 670-680ppm area. Was also happy to see when I checked the ph afterwards it looks damn near perfect. Quite excited about this, can't wait to see how things turn out.

Thanks alot everybody this thread was a huge help.

 

[Rabbi]

what are signs of needing to use epsom salt? Having pretty good results with the jacks so far but noticed that alot of the leaves seem to have an uneven green spottings instead of an even green color through out the whole leaf. Is this because I need epsom salt or is it a completely different issue?

 

[Rabbi]

Looks like some rust spots too. Here's a pic of a leaf:

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

So tried out the r/o water and Jacks tonight. Got things to around the 670-680ppm area. Was also happy to see when I checked the ph afterwards it looks damn near perfect. Quite excited about this, can't wait to see how things turn out.

Thanks alot everybody this thread was a huge help.

ok are you running a meter at 500 scale or 700 scale. if you are running a 700 scale meter and getting a reading of 670-680 i know what the problem is. the nutes are too low.
if you are running a 500 scale than id say 700 ppm is probably ok for most plants if you feed more than once a day but it could be that you need more nutes. whats the runoff or rez say?is the nutrient coming out getting weaker or stronger or staying the same. if its coming out more dillute then you need to up your ppms a bit. if you switch to reading it as ec it will be easier for folks onlie to understand whats happening. ec is the ssame on all meters but different meters convert to ppms at a different scale.
it could be an epsom issue.
when you are overall deficient of nutes soemtimes the first deficiency to show isnt what you should correct. it may be tha the ratio is right and its just not enough total nutes. increase all the inputs equally. in other words less water to your mix ratio. so increasing the overall feed will correct it.
sometimes not.
first things first.
foliar feed them with feed dilluted to 1/4 strength. or a mild calmag foliar. this will give instant correction as you increase feed to see if that will correct it. it should green up because the mag in the foliar fed tank solution is instantly delivered. then adding the small ammount of nutes will help by not letting the problem reappear.
you shouldnt need to keep giving foliar if you give an ec point or two more food.
in the rare but possible scenario where it doesnt want more food but rather a tweak of the ratio to include more mag then an increas of that specific nutrient in your everyday feed should work. in that case i would start with 0.5- 1.0 gram of epsom per gallon of feed liquid. that would probably work.
me personally? i use a 3-2-1 part ratio. of jacks cal/nit epsom respectively.
the plants like it i water it down to 1.2-1.3 ec and no real issues at all.
maybe a quick fix would be to add that.
for me tha tcomes out to .72 grams epsom per gallon

 

[Rabbi]

ok are you running a meter at 500 scale or 700 scale. if you are running a 700 scale meter and getting a reading of 670-680 i know what the problem is. the nutes are too low.
if you are running a 500 scale than id say 700 ppm is probably ok for most plants if you feed more than once a day but it could be that you need more nutes. whats the runoff or rez say?is the nutrient coming out getting weaker or stronger or staying the same. if its coming out more dillute then you need to up your ppms a bit. if you switch to reading it as ec it will be easier for folks onlie to understand whats happening. ec is the ssame on all meters but different meters convert to ppms at a different scale.
it could be an epsom issue.
when you are overall deficient of nutes soemtimes the first deficiency to show isnt what you should correct. it may be tha the ratio is right and its just not enough total nutes. increase all the inputs equally. in other words less water to your mix ratio. so increasing the overall feed will correct it.
sometimes not.
first things first.
foliar feed them with feed dilluted to 1/4 strength. or a mild calmag foliar. this will give instant correction as you increase feed to see if that will correct it. it should green up because the mag in the foliar fed tank solution is instantly delivered. then adding the small ammount of nutes will help by not letting the problem reappear.
you shouldnt need to keep giving foliar if you give an ec point or two more food.
in the rare but possible scenario where it doesnt want more food but rather a tweak of the ratio to include more mag then an increas of that specific nutrient in your everyday feed should work. in that case i would start with 0.5- 1.0 gram of epsom per gallon of feed liquid. that would probably work.
me personally? i use a 3-2-1 part ratio. of jacks cal/nit epsom respectively.
the plants like it i water it down to 1.2-1.3 ec and no real issues at all.
maybe a quick fix would be to add that.
for me tha tcomes out to .72 grams epsom per gallon

Thanks for the response xxxstr8edgexxx.

After checking my ppm's again I think you may be right about under feeding. I was hesitant to run full strength since this was my first run with Jacks and I heard it mentioned to start weak since the nutes are strong.

Not sure if this helps but my meter is a "Hanna HI 98130 combo meter". Just wanted to mention that I am running Hydro as well.

After just checking on my ppm's, my stuff in veg is running around 300pm and my stuff in flower is around 500ppm. What would you recommend I keep them at in veg and flower?

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

your plants can answer that better than i can but.....i typically run flower room on a multifeed per day cocohydro dtw at 1.2 e.c. which (depending on your meters scale,500 or 700) is about either 600ppms or 840 ppms respectively giver or take. the rez ppms will either drop, rise or stay the same. if it stays the same? leave it but watch closely because it may need more as you go into flower further. if it drops? it means the plants are pulling in nutes at a higher rate than water due to nutritional needs and you need to increase the strength til it stays the same or only rises a lil. if rises? it means the opposite. the plants are being fed too strong and are taking water without taking in hte salts. weaken the nutrient mix or the salts will eventually build up to a toxic level.

hope this helps.

 

[Rabbi]

your plants can answer that better than i can but.....i typically run flower room on a multifeed per day cocohydro dtw at 1.2 e.c. which (depending on your meters scale,500 or 700) is about either 600ppms or 840 ppms respectively giver or take. the rez ppms will either drop, rise or stay the same. if it stays the same? leave it but watch closely because it may need more as you go into flower further. if it drops? it means the plants are pulling in nutes at a higher rate than water due to nutritional needs and you need to increase the strength til it stays the same or only rises a lil. if rises? it means the opposite. the plants are being fed too strong and are taking water without taking in hte salts. weaken the nutrient mix or the salts will eventually build up to a toxic level.

hope this helps.

Yeah that does help alot, thx man.

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

for veg i run .7 the first day or two of new clones aand rise immediately upon seeing pale green new growth emerge to 0.8-0.9 after they are growing and looking healthy or they show deficiency i raise to 0.9-1.0. then steadily increase to 1.2-1.3 as they stretch in flower. first week of flower is 1.0-1.1 and then as sson as they need it jump to 1.2-1.3 within the first week or two. after 1st week of flower or second start transitioning or switch to bloom nutes. youll likely need to up ecs as soon as you switch to bloom nutes.

 

[Rabbi]

for veg i run .7 the first day or two of new clones aand rise immediately upon seeing pale green new growth emerge to 0.8-0.9 after they are growing and looking healthy or they show deficiency i raise to 0.9-1.0. then steadily increase to 1.2-1.3 as they stretch in flower. first week of flower is 1.0-1.1 and then as sson as they need it jump to 1.2-1.3 within the first week or two. after 1st week of flower or second start transitioning or switch to bloom nutes. youll likely need to up ecs as soon as you switch to bloom nutes.

I was under the impression that people use these nutes for both veg and flower, no?

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

you can force a square peg through a round hole but why bother. they would do better with the same recipe through all growth stages if you change the strength depending on needs more so than they would do better with different recipes but always at the same ec.
they require the strength of salts to change more than they require the recipe to change npk ratios.
not sure if im articulating that well. basically yes you can choose a well balanced npk ratio that will work through all stages well but if you were to change anything my suggestion would be nute strength.

 

[xxxstr8edgexxx]

i water my flower room at 1.2 sometimes i add back water to 1.0. water veg room and then add nutes again to 1.2 so i can use one tank. my timers do the feeding in flower room. my veg plants never need more than 1 feed per day so i dont use timers . just turn on water til its weak enough water and then top back off the nutes so when flower timers go off its the right strength. am i making sense? its simple but some how complicated when i try to write it out.

 

[Rabbi]

Yeah I think I understand what you are saying. Basically I can use this stuff through out the life cycle but just need to adjust the strength when needed, correct?