Help with nutes and ppm

swp4lfe

Active Member
Hello I finally bought a ppm meter and was wondering what level should I be at? I have about a half gallon on distilled water per plant with a bubbleponic hydro system. I use fox farm trio nutes and only use 1 tsp per plant per week. My one plant was reading 230 the other was at like 90 without nutes. I am on first week of flower. I am a first time grower so this is my trial and error run. Any advice will be nice. Thank you!
 

hydrogreen65

Well-Known Member
How big or old are your plants?
Not familiar with foxfarm nutes, but I always run my veg nutes til the plants finish going thru there stretch.
Your lighting also plays big part in strength of nutes to use.
 

BluJayz

Well-Known Member
Established seedlings or rooted clones, at 500 to 600 PPM. 800 to 900 PPM during the peak foliage growth period. During the flowering period, 1000 PPM.
 

Nullis

Moderator
That seems kinda (really) low. I don't grow hydro or check TDS as a rule, but I thought around 300 ppm was considered just adequate for younger plants. One thing I can tell you is you're going to need a calcium\magnesium supplement, especially with the distilled water.
 

DeeTee

Well-Known Member
I've used this chart as a guide for yrs, and it's a good starting point, bare in mind you can adjust as you learn your plant's needs, some strains like stronger, others weeker, just read your plant, it will tell you.

PPM for Hanna Chart PPM

Seedlings, Early Sprouts ........100 to 250 = .2 to .5 EC
Early Vegging ......................300 to 400 = .6 to .8 EC
Full Vegetation ....................450 to 700 = .9 to 1.4 EC
Early Blooming .....................750 to 950 = 1.5 to 1.9 EC
Full Mature Blooms ...............1000 to 1600 = 2 to 3.2 EC
 

BigBudsBunny

Active Member
I've used this chart as a guide for yrs, and it's a good starting point, bare in mind you can adjust as you learn your plant's needs, some strains like stronger, others weeker, just read your plant, it will tell you.

PPM for Hanna Chart PPM

Seedlings, Early Sprouts ........100 to 250 = .2 to .5 EC
Early Vegging ......................300 to 400 = .6 to .8 EC
Full Vegetation ....................450 to 700 = .9 to 1.4 EC
Early Blooming .....................750 to 950 = 1.5 to 1.9 EC
Full Mature Blooms ...............1000 to 1600 = 2 to 3.2 EC
same here for me but I keep all stages at the lower #'s ot there abouts that are represented here.
 

swp4lfe

Active Member
Thank you all. My plants are 60 days old. My space is limited so I had to switch to flower stage since my plants are at the halfway point in my cabinent.
 

swp4lfe

Active Member
My plants with container are 16-18" tall. Using 6 - 2700k CFL bulbs like 2 inches above the plants. My babes are 60 days old from germination. I switched to flower stage on Friday.
 
First off you can't technically lower your PPM of EC (emulsifiable concentrates) without totally changing out your water, which is OK if you screwed up on feeding. Which is why hydro is a blessing. So If you want to lower the PPM, dump the water out and re feed and treat the pH of the water. I would stay around 6.5 pH, but that's my opinion, everyone has one.

I'll go against the grain by saying I don't bother with this pump it up to so and so rate of feed 6 weeks. Into veg growth or whatever. Again my opinion, I'd run no feed(40-100 "PPM" if your using distilled water... Non distilled water has minerals and salts already in it) until the girl establishes herself, seriously depending on what cultivar your growing but usually 6-12 inches in height with decent leaf expansion.

After such established point in her life time she Will get hungry. I encourage you to run the rate of no feed to see the effects of "yellowing" don't worry, just add feed and she'll green right up. Even add Fe to impress your friends with the color. Anyways, I would run 300 PPM of feed for early vegetative growth. Ask yourself this question.. Where do plants in nature find a random spike of nutrients within the soil they anchor themselves too? They are born to look for such nutrients through long periods of time and use what they are given very efficiently. Bombarding your media with nutrients won't do anything for your plant except stress it out. Sure, you may cut back a week on your grow time, but I bet the quality isn't as good and you'll run into more problems.

I'm starting to ramble because I should be writing a humanities paper but one last note, every PPM meter measures differently so it's not very accurate to share what you are doing by reading off your PPM meter. Also make sure you calibrate your meter everyone once in awhile.
 

swp4lfe

Active Member
Yeah I stressed my one good plant out, yellow brown leaves , so I flushed it and just added water and trimmed off the bad leaves and it looks healthy again. My ppm seems pretty low around 550 and I am two weeks into flower. I was wondering if I add more nutes would that increase my ppm? Is that how it works?
 
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