[ganjourno]

FYI, N-P-K ratio is not the ratio of your ppm!

For example, 150-50-200 is NOT a 3-1-4 NPK - it is 3-2.2-4.8 NPK. This is because NPK wants N, P205, and K20 values, while your ppm is giving you only N, P, and K values.

To roughly convert between ppm and NPK, do the following:

N = ppm(N)/50
P = ppm(P)/23
K = ppm(K)/42

So...

N = 150ppm/50 = 3
P = 50ppm/23 = 2.2
K = 200ppm/42 = 4.8

Mainly affects your phosphorus numbers, which cn lead to stretchier plants than you wanted if you were just doing ppm ratio without this adjustment.

[ganjourno]

And on the subject of solubility,

Calcinit is highly soluble at about 1g/ml, which means you could dissolve 1000g per liter of water. The jacks hydro says 3lbs/gallon, which is 360g/liter.

To make stock solutions of jacks that you use in equal parts, do the following:

1. Get two gallon jugs of distilled water. I suggest choosing a brand with screw-on caps. With a sharpie, write "Hydro" on one and "Calcinit" on the other.

2. Open them and pour out 1/3 of the water from each into a third container temporarily. I suggest getting a cheap plastic funnel since it makes life much easier.

3. Using a clean, dry funnel, add 1200grams of jacks hydro plus 100g epsom salt into the "hydro" bottle. Wash the funnel well and dry it thouroughly after this step. Add water back in until the bottle is nearly full. Replace the cap and shake well.

4. Open the "calcinit" bottle and funnel in 800g of calcinit. Again, add water until almost full, replace the cap, and shake well. You shouldn't have hardly any sediment after a few minutes of shaking.

Now just use the two bottles in equal parts like an ordinary hydro nutrient. Full strength is 10ml/gallon of each and should get you to about 1250ppm. Add the hydro liquid to your rez first, allow to mix in for a few minutes, then slowly add the calcinit liquid.

[Ymir]

Good info ganjourno, some1 mentioned a smaller solution for smaller scale, this is for a Quart:

Originally Posted by Ichabod Crane

If you wanted to just make a quart of stock solution it would be:

145 grams of calcium nitrate
220 grams of Jack's 5-12-26

Preliminary testing has gone pretty well, I put a tablespoon of the hydro stuff into about 4 ounces of hot water (my tap water) and at first there was a very small pile of very small stuff on the bottom (before it was always larger epsom salt looking crystals) and then after a couple hours it seems to be completely dissolved!

I'm going to dump out this still undissolved quart of the my original batch and redo it later tonight or tomorrow and will update. The new batch also is a yellow color so I guess they just aren't using much of the blue dye anymore which is good cuz it's easy to tell it apart from cal-nit without labels ;p

[Ymir]

Originally Posted by ganjourno

And on the subject of solubility,

Calcinit is highly soluble at about 1g/ml, which means you could dissolve 1000g per liter of water. The jacks hydro says 3lbs/gallon, which is 360g/liter.

To make stock solutions of jacks that you use in equal parts, do the following:

1. Get two gallon jugs of distilled water. I suggest choosing a brand with screw-on caps. With a sharpie, write "Hydro" on one and "Calcinit" on the other.

2. Open them and pour out 1/3 of the water from each into a third container temporarily. I suggest getting a cheap plastic funnel since it makes life much easier.

3. Using a clean, dry funnel, add 1200grams of jacks hydro plus 100g epsom salt into the "hydro" bottle. Wash the funnel well and dry it thouroughly after this step. Add water back in until the bottle is nearly full. Replace the cap and shake well.

4. Open the "calcinit" bottle and funnel in 800g of calcinit. Again, add water until almost full, replace the cap, and shake well. You shouldn't have hardly any sediment after a few minutes of shaking.

Now just use the two bottles in equal parts like an ordinary hydro nutrient. Full strength is 10ml/gallon of each and should get you to about 1250ppm. Add the hydro liquid to your rez first, allow to mix in for a few minutes, then slowly add the calcinit liquid.

Did you start adding extra Magnesium because you ran into deficiencies? My water has 2.28ppm mag in it and 27.7ppm calcium, do you think I should add extra Magnesium to my mix? I had some signs of mag deficiency but that was also before I noticed all the sediment not dissolving which I believe was at least mostly magnesium as it looked like epsom salts to me.

[ganjourno]

Only really needed for certain strains, especially during full bloom and especially for larger plants. If you are 9 per light or fewer I would suggest a little extra epsom, quarter of a gram per gallon. This gives 11ppm extra mg, which combined with the ~50ppm in full-strength jacks, should be plenty.

[Ymir]

Quick question, I've run into what appears to be both mag and cal deficiencies but also had some issues with slime in my res so not sure if that's to blame.

However I added some extra epsom and the plants started to turn around (however I was also adding h2o2 so maybe that's why the growth spurt).

The Leaves are still a bit stripey looking but are growing well now.

When I mix Jacks to roughly 600ppm I'm at around 6.7-6.8 PH, everybody says not to mess with ph adjusters but do you think I should in my case?

I have both potassium based ph down and nitrate so for now I've added both of them in equal parts to get it down to 6.3 at least (only took about 1ml/gal total)

[Ymir]

Also (can't edit posts yet) I assume everybody raises the base to cal-nit ratio for flowering, do you run into calcium issues at that point since all the calcium is in the cal-nit? If so what would you all recommend using that would just be calcium and not cal-mag.

[carson]

In this thread most people seem to say use them at the same ratio throughout entire cycle.

[highdensity]

The first bag of jacks I ordered 3 yrs ago had a lot of blue dye. The last bag I ordered has no dye....nice.

I run jacks around 2.0 ec in recirculating ebb and flow or drip using a coco based medium. 5.7 to 6.3 ph. No additives or cal mag needed. I keep the ratio at 1/.67 as suggested by the manufacturer.

600ppm may be a little low. At a .5 scale that is only 1.2 ec. A stronger mix should also lower your ph a few points. Slime in your rez isn't good. Are u using any additives that could be causing the slime? I would check your root health.

Peace

[Grow4Flow]

im running jacks in PPK's, i have no idea what my PH is, but my girls are dark green and healthy. I do get tempted to check what it is often out of habit from previous grows, but i know if i see something out of whack i will want to adjust so i dare not check. "out of sight, out of mind", doesn't get any easier than this. I even tried that Veg+Bloom stuff that was supposed to be easy, it sucked.