goingrey
Well-known member
Because it's more expensive? Over twenty times more expensive it would seem. Same price but you only get 1 kg instead of 50 lbs (22.7kg).
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Who makes the best Calcium Nitrate for Hydro?
- Thread starter Tomatoesonly
- Start date
Three Berries
Active member
When formulating a complete hydro fert, it's often the case that there's so much nitrate, sulfate, and phosphate anions to put in, but you don't really want so much K, Ca, Mg cations to balance that out, so even hydro manufacturers resort to using ammonium as an N source, even though ammonium is not great for plants, and the amount they use does not give pH stability.
What I'm saying is, if you've got cations to spare, they should most definitely be paired with nitrate and not junk food like acetate.
Maybe I'm wrong and side by side tests with clones shows that a certain molar amount of Ca in the form of acetate gives better results than nitrate, chloride, whatever. My money is on nitrate.
Calcium acetate, as the salt of a strongish base and a weak acid, will definitely be alkaline in solution, but that hardly matters if you're mixing vinegar and calcium carbonate. If you neutralize exactly and boil water off, there will be acid vapor and the liquid will turn alkaline. It will also turn nasty if using eggshells and vinegar.
If anyone is considering buying dilute nitric acid or glacial acetic acid to mix with Ca (not sure how cheap that is given possible hazmat charges and all), I suggest forgetting about lame natural CaCO3 and the foaming and acid spray that CO2 will provide, and go with the hydroxide or oxide if possible.
What I'm saying is, if you've got cations to spare, they should most definitely be paired with nitrate and not junk food like acetate.
Maybe I'm wrong and side by side tests with clones shows that a certain molar amount of Ca in the form of acetate gives better results than nitrate, chloride, whatever. My money is on nitrate.
Calcium acetate, as the salt of a strongish base and a weak acid, will definitely be alkaline in solution, but that hardly matters if you're mixing vinegar and calcium carbonate. If you neutralize exactly and boil water off, there will be acid vapor and the liquid will turn alkaline. It will also turn nasty if using eggshells and vinegar.
If anyone is considering buying dilute nitric acid or glacial acetic acid to mix with Ca (not sure how cheap that is given possible hazmat charges and all), I suggest forgetting about lame natural CaCO3 and the foaming and acid spray that CO2 will provide, and go with the hydroxide or oxide if possible.
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Three Berries
Active member
You can use cheap muriatic (HCL) acid and calcium source for calcium chloride. But it's not expensive either.
greyfader
Well-known member
i have been using the yara liva calcinit with the 7% ammonium nitrate ratio since 2010 in a recirculating hydroponic system and i have incredible long-term solution stability. ph is rock steady with no corrections.
in my current grow i have not changed the solution in the recirculating part for 8 weeks and it reads 5.9 ph right now.
How the Ammonium-nitrate ratio affects your plants | CANNA Gardening USA
In this article, we are going to look specifically at the effect of the ammonium/nitrate ratio and its effect on the growth and development. Read more >
this is one of many articles and papers that explain why some ammonium nitrate content is good for recirculating soilless systems
From an ammonium perspective, you practically roll in soil outdoors, and use a fert made for that. My perspective may or may not include nitrifying bacteria in the res, growing medium, and/or biofilter, along with urease. Conversion and usage and therefore pH will include several factors other than starting fert composition.
Specifically, IIRC GH Flora has about the same amount of ammonium as nitrate, and even more urea, although the hard water version has less urea. If there is no nitrification going on while using it, it's a really bad ratio. So to hell with GH, maybe they're using so much urea to moderate acidification from so much ammonium, and they're using ammonium either because they're cheap or again because they only want to put in so much Ca, Mg, and K.
pH balance in certain situations is the only reason to add urea or ammonium - other than they're cheap, although N is inefficiently lost when converted to nitrate. It wouldn't surprise me if 100% nitrate is not only the ideal form of N, but also K, Mg, and Ca.
100% nitrate N won in the articles (actually published in journals as scientific literature) I've read where side by side comparisons were made with ammonium and urea.
greyfader
Well-known member
i am using the jack's 5-12-26 with yara liva calcinit, which has no urea.
i am using the hydroponic system known as the "ppk".
i am experiencing no problems whatsoever and have visually perfect plants.
please see this paper on this subject, (actually published in journals as scientific literature).
again, i have extreme long-term ph stability.
just a few vegetative plants i have grown this way.
and then a couple of flowering plants.
these were all grown in the exact same solution. both vegetative and flowering plants feed from the same solution.
input only no solution changes throughout life.
maybe a little ammonium nitrate is really good for long-term solution stability.
how do you define "winning"?
i am using the hydroponic system known as the "ppk".
i am experiencing no problems whatsoever and have visually perfect plants.
please see this paper on this subject, (actually published in journals as scientific literature).
again, i have extreme long-term ph stability.
just a few vegetative plants i have grown this way.
and then a couple of flowering plants.
these were all grown in the exact same solution. both vegetative and flowering plants feed from the same solution.
input only no solution changes throughout life.
maybe a little ammonium nitrate is really good for long-term solution stability.
how do you define "winning"?
Attachments
Tomatoesonly
Active member
Wow.. without getting sidetracked and off the rials here, that looks fascinating. Any chance you have a thread on here describing that setup?
greyfader
Well-known member
i am the grower formerly known as delta9nxs.
you can see these same pics in this thread plus hundreds more.
you can see these same pics in this thread plus hundreds more.
Something wicked this way comes
this thread is intended to show the "state of the art" ppk plumbing. since i started on this journey more than seven years ago the basic operating principles have remained the same but we have all gone through many iterations of plumbing. most of these, i now realize, were derived from our...
www.icmag.com
ButterflyEffect
Well-known member
Good to know as I've followed your progress and advice for quite some time now. Thank you for all of your inventive contributions! What happened to your dx9 account?
ButterflyEffect
Well-known member
Where are folks getting yaralive calnit in the states without paying insane money for shipping??
I'm almost out of Jacks and calnit and while I was considering going away from Jacks(mind not made up yet), I do want to get a calnit that has ammonium nitrate because no matter how I set the pH of my input(usually 5.4), it always comes out to 6.5 and up in runoff. Plus I can see the trademark leaf crinkle of a high pH and who knows what else is being messed with. My bet is not enough Boron since I also tend to see Ca defs in flower after stretch.
I'm almost out of Jacks and calnit and while I was considering going away from Jacks(mind not made up yet), I do want to get a calnit that has ammonium nitrate because no matter how I set the pH of my input(usually 5.4), it always comes out to 6.5 and up in runoff. Plus I can see the trademark leaf crinkle of a high pH and who knows what else is being messed with. My bet is not enough Boron since I also tend to see Ca defs in flower after stretch.
Three Berries
Active member
I buy from here, just got 50 lbs. They have free shipping specials three or four times a year.
Calcinit® 50 lb. Bag Calcium Nitrate Formula for Fertilizer
Add calcium and nitrogen to your plant soil with this water-soluble fertilizer from Greenhouse Megastore for direct fertigation or to use in a soil mixer.
www.greenhousemegastore.com
ButterflyEffect
Well-known member
Thanks man! Good deal.I buy from here, just got 50 lbs. They have free shipping specials three or four times a year.
Calcinit® 50 lb. Bag Calcium Nitrate Formula for Fertilizer
Add calcium and nitrogen to your plant soil with this water-soluble fertilizer from Greenhouse Megastore for direct fertigation or to use in a soil mixer.
greyfader
Well-known member
thank you! i found that a bunch of my old passwords linked to various accounts were in the hands of advertisers. and they had been linked to the old handle.
it was the only handle i have used online since 1997. besides, it sounded cool at the time, not so much in today's world.
ButterflyEffect
Well-known member
That's some weird shit!
