Why are different hydroponic formulations required for different situations?
Hydroponic growers tend to have very different experiences with nutrient solutions. It is not uncommon to find a grower who “swears” by product A and another who says product A…
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How tap water affects your hydroponic nutrient formulation
Tap water is often the most reliable source of water for hydroponic growers. However, especially in the North America and Europe, tap water can contain a significant amount of dissolved…
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How to deal with nutrient solution waste in hydroponics
Hydroponic nutrients contain a wide array of chemicals that are fundamentally contaminating to water sources and can heavily contribute to eutrophication. Both run-to-waste and recirculating systems eventually generate significant amounts…
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Factors limiting the life of a recirculating hydroponic nutrient solution
Hydroponic systems that use recirculating nutrient solutions can be more efficient in terms of water and nutrient usage. However, despite how good the management of a solution is, there are…
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Preparing your own low cost A+B generic hydroponic nutrients at a small scale from raw salts
In a recent post about the cost of custom hydroponic nutrients, I talked about the cost of preparing nutrients equivalent to those of a commonly used brand (general hydroponics Flora…
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How to correctly prepare dilutions from concentrated solutions in hydroponics
Accurately preparing dilutions of concentrated nutrients is no trivial task. For example, if you want to prepare a 10 gallon solution at “2mL per gallon” of a hydroponic nutrient, ensuring…
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The cost of reproducing the label of a commercial hydroponic fertilizer with raw salts at a small scale
Creating your own hydroponic nutrients can dramatically change the amount of money you spend in fertilizers per crop cycle. Commercial pre-blended hydroponics nutrients carry significantly high margins, so making your…
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Five things to consider when trying to copy commercial hydroponic nutrients
There are hundreds of different formulated hydroponic fertilizers out there and most of them are very expensive. Due to these very high costs, growers will often want to copy a…
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Why most of the time a “deficiency” in hydroponics is not solved by just “adding more of it”
I am routinely approached by hydroponic growers who believe that a “deficiency” in their hydroponic crop needs to be fixed by adding something to their nutrient solution. The logic is…
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Getting all the data to evaluate a problem in a hydroponic crop
Problems are an inevitable part of being a hydroponics grower. Even experienced growers will sometimes face issues when moving between environments or plant species as things change and new challenges…
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