Calculating Nutrient levels

[muddy waters]

high lucas,

i wonder if you've investigated the difference in productivity between organic hydro setups which incorporate bio-filters and those that don't. you stated that the growing cycle of cannabis is too short to accomodate the rates of decomposition of different molecules and instabilities inherent in that. but in aquaponics raw waste in the form of ammonia released through the gills and defecated solids is decomposed in rapid fashion through the addition of the crucial third biomass (besides fish and plants), the bio-filter, through which the organic nutrient solution is trickled or passed in some way.

theoretically, the addition of a properly sized and aerated bio-filter would ameliorate a lot of the problems with EJ or other "raw" organic nutes.

on that note, i would really like to know what you think of diluted urine in DWC application, considering urine's typical nutrient profile:

Alanine, total ..... 38 mg/day
Arginine, total ..... 32 mg/day
Ascorbic acid ..... 30 mg/day
Allantoin ..... 12 mg/day
Amino acids, total ..... 2.1 g/day
Bicarbonate ..... 140 mg/day
Biotin ..... 35 mg/day
Calcium ..... 23 mg/day
Creatinine ..... 1.4 mg/day
Cystine ..... 120 mg/day
Dopamine ..... 0.40 mg/day
Epinephrine ..... 0.01 mg/day
Folic acid ..... 4 mg/day
Glucose ..... 100 mg/day
Glutamic acid ..... 308 mg/day
Glycine ..... 455 mg/day
Inositol ..... 14 mg/day
Iodine ..... 0.25 mg/day
Iron ..... 0.5 mg/day
Lysine, total ..... 56 mg/day
Magnesium ..... 100 mg/day
Manganese ..... 0.5 mg/day
Methionine, total ..... 10 mg/day
Nitrogen, total ..... 15 g/day
Ornithine ..... 10 mg/day
Pantothenic acid ..... 3 mg/day
Phenylalanine ..... 21 mg/day
Phosphorus, organic ..... 9 mg/day
Potassium ..... 2.5 mg/day
Proteins, total ..... 5 mg/day
Riboflavin ..... 0.9 mg/day
Tryptophan, total ..... 28 mg/day
Tyrosine, total ..... 50 mg/day
Urea ..... 24.5 mg/day
Vitamin B6 ..... 100 mg/day
Vitamin B12 ..... 0.03 mg/day
Zinc ..... 1.4 mg/day

anyhow i look forward to getting your thoughts on these, even if they're outside your direct area of expertise, and also experimenting myself with organic nutrient combinations based on fermented urine (yummmmmmmmm!!!!!!), self-produced worm castings, wood ash, and other waste products.

 

[Lucas]

> >my symptom was stalled growth, followed by greening of the entire plant, and more vigorous growth rate, after a fresh res change, when I was only topping with nutes until 100% addback.

> Now we're talking, I was wondering if it would be beneficial to just dump the whole res, and start afresh, but didn't want to do that, until I'd had a chance to query you, or be advised by you, to do so. Guess I'll be doing that, when I get up (night shift can be a real bitch).

I see I made a mistake
"when I was only topping with nutes until 100% addback."

it should have said "when I was only topping with WATER until 100% addback"

therefore, I do NOT recommend dumping your res, if you are topping with NUTES

sorry for the typo

if topping with water, dump after 100% addback

if topping with nutes, no need to dump the res, just keep raising the EC back up with nuted water

hth
Lucas

 

[vhGhost]

lucas i love your add back calculation .. works awsome and i don't ever feel like the girls are starving because the just look amazing. i haven't changed res in about 3 weeks nice and since this 3 weeks is my half way point i will be changing the res for the girls so they have a fresh batch for the next 3-4 weeks.. thanks again lucas !

 

[Dandy Don]

Lucas;

Too late, I dumped the res, it was probably time anyway. It does seem to have a beneficial effect, probably because of accumulated calcium, etc., from the water, adding to the total tds levels. The girls are doing well, the new growth is much better, the buds are filling out better, so I'll know when I cut those down and start a new batch (cuttings are in the cloner as we speak)

It's my intent to try the automatic float valve setup, in the dwc setup, running a continual top up of 1/3 strength nutes (FNB). It's all ready to go now, but work has me pinned down, so the intended cuttings will go back to the aero unit, the next batch will go to the dwc scrog setup. Not enough hours in a day, when work gets busy, to keep even with all that's going on, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and work less.

Drop me a line, if you get a chance..........DD

 

[Lucas]

> in aquaponics raw waste in the form of ammonia released through the gills and defecated solids is decomposed in rapid fashion

yes, fish feces are decomposed constantly in an aquarium. But aquarium water is not necessarily a balanced fertilizer. It depends what you feed the fish. So basically, you have to add "nutrients" to the aquarium water, to make the fish poop a balanced plant diet

there is no raw feces in hydroponic nutrients.

you're serious about urine as a plant nutrient? drinking it is very healthy for you. Read ShivambuKalpa

1 miligram per liter is 1ppm
3.785 ml/gal is 1ppm

the urine specs you give:
Nitrogen, total ..... 15 g/day = 15,000 miligrams, which is 3963ppm of N total
Phosphorus, organic ..... 9 mg/day = 2.4ppm of P
Potassium ..... 2.5 mg/day = 0.7ppm of K
Magnesium ..... 100 mg/day =26ppm of Mg

so urine is worth
N 3963ppm
P 2ppm
K 1ppm
Mg 26ppm

here is FloraNovaBloom a 8ml/gal
N 124ppm
P 108 ppm
K 180 ppm
Mg 62 ppm

comparing the two recipes, you can see that the nitrogen in urine will fry the plants, and that urine has basically ZERO P and K...

I cant think of ANY reason why I would want to piss on my plants

I thought folks were joking when I saw another thread on urine as a nutrient source. I respectfully suggest, that urine will do you more good if you drink it, than if you pee in your reservoir.

My suggestion is to use an off the shelf nutrient. I really dont know enough about custom nutrient design using raw materials. I recommend PureBlendPro as an organic option.

> running a continual top up of 1/3 strength nutes (FNB)

addback strength varies based on res gallons per watts... you may find that for a 25 gal res under 1k, you would need about 6ml/gal FNB in the addback to keep EC near 2.0. Thats more like 2/3 strength..

focus on the effect the addback has on the target EC for the res, and modify the addback accordingly

this gets complicated.. it is simpler to maintain an ebb flow reservoir, than a bubbler with addback nutes

Lucas

 

[Guest]

the nitrogen in urine will fry the plants, and that urine has basically ZERO P and K...

that is a question of dilution and P/K augmentation.

 

[muddy waters]

thanks for the feedback, lucas.

with respect to using urine in a hydroponic application, first we have to acknowledge that aquaponics is scientific fact, it is being done with lots of success. whether supplementing the fish water is necessary or not is up for debate, with evidence for both sides.

i just mention this because you say that fishtank water is not an optimal nutrient. i suppose that can be argued, but the fact that is can sustain healthy, vigorous growth in hydroponics is indisputable. different plants have different needs, and you've pinpointed cannabis' fairly precisely with regard to using ionized salts, but there is some aquaponics research that shows the plants behave somewhat differently in organic vs. non-organic hydroponic cultures, in terms of ideal pH, e.c., d.o. level, and nitrates and phosphates.

that being so, when you consider a fish's diet and the typical human's diet, it follows that the human would be an even greater source of especially micronutes due to a more varied diet. and sure enough there were people on OG doing experiments with urine in DWC and soil applications with success.

the ppm figures you gave assumed a certain numer of liters in the figures i gave, which were in weight excreted daily, without reference to liters. anyhow, while you demonstrate the the non-nitrogen macronutes seem proportionally absent in urine, the idea that one would nitrogen-burn the plants using urine is not right, because we just have to assume the person would know what they were doing and not overdose. you could create a nitrogen burn with pure blend pro or any other nutrient for that matter. so urine being the raw nute, it must be diluted before being applied. the typical hydro application dilution is something like 10:1 (water:urine). at such levels, whether there would be P or K deficiency is not certain, judging from the anecdotal evidence i've gathered.

of course a bottled nutrient is probably a more certain way to deliver proper nutrition to your plants. many of us however live in places where such things do not exist.

 

[Lucas]

muddy waters provided this data:

> considering urine's typical nutrient profile:
> Magnesium ..... 100 mg/day

I used the per day specs you posted. Yes that assumes you would use all the urine produced in one day.

diluting the urine would result in a much safer application, which would contain essentially nothing harmful, or worthwhile. and definitely would need to be supplemented with real P and K sources

> the ppm figures you gave assumed a certain numer of liters in the figures i gave, which were in weight excreted daily, without reference to liters.

yes, I used your figures

imho, urine is not a viable option for fertilizer

you would be better off with composted manure tea, but it would be hard to know the nutrient value of that tea

at least with urine we have specs to show that it is mainly a source of Nitrogen, with essentially no Phosphorous or Potassium. And if the Urine is diluted 10-1, it has essentially no Magnesium either...

 

[muddy waters]

Lucas, under ideal conditions one could consistently produce a compost to be high in certain nutrients, through selecting and maintaining the right inputs. A larger scale operation could easily produce its own organic hydroponic nutrient using little more than items already headed for the landfill or sewer, in other words, items available at no cost. Epson salts could be purchased for whenever absolutely necessary. It involves a little bit of work and skill in planning out how the material is processed, and in the end, who wouldn't prefer a bottle of Pure Blend Pro to that?

but like i said there are those of us after an affordable solution without access to bottled nutes of any variety. in this country even the salts used for mixing your own solution are often imported (CaNO3 for instance), making cost a slight factor. plus who the hell wants to have 5 kilo sacks of shit like ammonium phosphate sitting around in the apartment? (at least i can store the compost and urine and that shit outside in the rain)

i don't mean to take anything away from the great recipes and stuff you've come up with, and i thank you for doing and sharing all that research... but it just seems like one has to think a little bit outside the conventional hydroponics box to understand aquaponics and whatnot...

 

[greenhornets]

bump, think i can use this....