RDWC how many PPM's?

[Balazar]

How many PPM's are you running in your system at the beginning of flower and the end before flush? I'm running a recirculating deep water culture with 12 buckets. It's very close to the one that BigToke shows here. I started these girls off at 1200 PPM's and 2 weeks into flower I'm up to 2000 PPM's. I have absolutely no burning going on. How many PPM's is too many? Is there a point where more makes no difference? I want to feed them to their maximum potential, but at the same time be economical about what I'm doing. Also I'm using House & Garden Van De Zwaan nutes. The whole kit.

 

[Duckmang]

The H&G schedule recomendations are to build up to an EC of 2.0 and hold that for the last three weeks. You seem to be feeding a lot heavier than that recommendation. FWIW the online conversion I found converts 2.0 EC to 1400 PPM. I doubt that your plants can use as much as you are giving them now but the good news is that it doesn't sound like they are suffering from the heavy feed. I'd start backing off until the plants tell you that they are getting hungry. From there you can start adding nutes to that baseline.

 

[Balazar]

Yes, I have just found some small indications of burning on a few lower leaves, i'm going to back off to 1750 and see what happens. My meter does PPM's and EC. I never trust the schedule though I guess I always assumed they meant the schedule to be for tomatoes and mj requires a more than they do. It seems like there are not many people using house & garden. I like it a lot but it is a bit pricey. How do I know if they are getting too little? What are the signs to look for?

 

[Cranberry]

I like it a lot but it is a bit pricey. How do I know if they are getting too little? What are the signs to look for?

Well you could go to holland and get it your self and save.. LOL because good shit cost real money.

more does not seam to be better, h&g is number one in my book and I have tried a lot of brands more than once. use your nutes to keep your ph in check. Some strains run crazy hi tds.. but they are magnesium whores. So I and epsom seems to get same results using less fertilizer and lower tds.

So. ph goes up and more food

 

[seeyouaunty]

There is an easy method if you're manually topping up the system. When the system is full take the first ppm reading and write it down. When its nearly time to top-up take another ppm reading and compare it to the first. If the two readings are the same the ppm is perfect.

If the ppm has dropped from say 1400 -> 1200 then the plants are hungry so the ppm needs to be raised higher than the original 1400ppm.

If the ppm starts at 1400 and gets higher then the plants are being overfed and the ppm needs to be lower than 1400. Its all relative, different strains have different preferences.

Edit: I should mention the above method only works once the plants are big enough to have an influence on the system, its not ment for baby mj plants.

 

[Balazar]

That is a good rule of thumb seyouaunty. I'm pushing over 2000 ppm's right now and my meter doesn't go that high. I'm just kinda guessing where it is when I feed them. I know they are still hungry because it still drops below 2000. Does anyone know of a meter that reads higher than 2000 ppm's?