Masterblend?

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
Starting my second grow, dwc again. Used ff trio + soluble trio last time with pretty good results(branches were a bit wimpy and I should have vegged longer/trained) but feeding 15 plants under 3000w costs more than 3 under 400 so I'm switching to masterblend 4-18-38 , calcium nitrate 15.5-0-0, epsom salt, potassium silicate(agsil16h) and southern ag garden friendly fungicide. Was wondering what the best way to mix this would be and what ratios y'all would suggest.
 

mr4tune

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't run potassium silicate dude. Everyones jumping on the monosylicic train for a reason. Potassium silicate is completely useless in hydro. It isn't readily available to your plants until it goes through cilicification which takes months in soil. You also run the risk of locking out from an overabundance of potassium once you hit flower. Trust me i know.

I burn through 50 gallons every 4 days just in my top offs. Our costs were pretty high using Remo so we switched to Floraflex but I was looking at the Masterblend before that. Can't help you with the ratios, but I always mix in my monosylicic first, then the calmag, then granular nutrients, let it mix for 20 minutes, then ph correct. I get bad clouding if I don't do it in those steps.

Depends what you use for water and how much. I use 50 gallons drums, and each has a circulation pump in the bottom. I'll take out 2-3 gallons into a 5 gallon bucket and measure out my first additive into the 5 gall and mix it up, then slowly add into the 50 gallon and allow to circulation for a few minutes. Repeat the process for each additive, never adding more than one at a time, or adding anything concentrated into the main barrel. Hope this help dude.
 

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
Si techno info.

I learned the hard way about Si, high PH, and precip. Adding the Si first jacked my PH up and over 8.0.

Now I make sure my solution never exceeds 7.5 at any point in the mixing process. No more clouded mix.
 

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't run potassium silicate dude. Everyones jumping on the monosylicic train for a reason. Potassium silicate is completely useless in hydro. It isn't readily available to your plants until it goes through cilicification which takes months in soil. You also run the risk of locking out from an overabundance of potassium once you hit flower. Trust me i know.

I burn through 50 gallons every 4 days just in my top offs. Our costs were pretty high using Remo so we switched to Floraflex but I was looking at the Masterblend before that. Can't help you with the ratios, but I always mix in my monosylicic first, then the calmag, then granular nutrients, let it mix for 20 minutes, then ph correct. I get bad clouding if I don't do it in those steps.

Depends what you use for water and how much. I use 50 gallons drums, and each has a circulation pump in the bottom. I'll take out 2-3 gallons into a 5 gallon bucket and measure out my first additive into the 5 gall and mix it up, then slowly add into the 50 gallon and allow to circulation for a few minutes. Repeat the process for each additive, never adding more than one at a time, or adding anything concentrated into the main barrel. Hope this help dude.
Gonna have to scale that down for 5g buckets thanks. I've heard so many conflicting things about silica in hydro, all I know for sure is that my branches were kinda wimpy last grow. Might try the ksil with some and go without for others to see for myself.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Starting my second grow, dwc again. Used ff trio + soluble trio last time with pretty good results(branches were a bit wimpy and I should have vegged longer/trained) but feeding 15 plants under 3000w costs more than 3 under 400 so I'm switching to masterblend 4-18-38 , calcium nitrate 15.5-0-0, epsom salt, potassium silicate(agsil16h) and southern ag garden friendly fungicide. Was wondering what the best way to mix this would be and what ratios y'all would suggest.
Probably gonna need some MKP in the mix or suffer phosphorous def.

I started using the chem grow 4-20-39, very similar fertilizer. I had to add a little MKP to the mix because I was seeing phosphorous deficiencies.

I am using (per gallon)

2 grams of 4-20-39
2 grams of epsom (could probably use 1.5 if not in coco)
2 grams calcium nitrate
0.7 grams of monopotassium phosphate (MKP) this is strong stuff, shouldn't need more than a gram per gallon for a few weeks in mid flower
 

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
Probably gonna need some MKP in the mix or suffer phosphorous def.

I started using the chem grow 4-20-39, very similar fertilizer. I had to add a little MKP to the mix because I was seeing phosphorous deficiencies.

I am using (per gallon)

2 grams of 4-20-39
2 grams of epsom (could probably use 1.5 if not in coco)
2 grams calcium nitrate
0.7 grams of monopotassium phosphate (MKP) this is strong stuff, shouldn't need more than a gram per gallon for a few weeks in mid flower
Mkp needed for veg or just flower? I've got plenty of pk boosters left (almost full tubs of ff soluble trio)
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Remember the P # in the 4-18-38 seems like more than it is because the number is phosphate (p2o5) and only a fraction (43.64%) of the phosphate is phosphorous. So one gram per gallon of the 4-18-38 would provide about 20.8 mg/l (PPM) of the phosphorous.

Compare that to the K# of 38, (k2o) the fraction is higher here at 83.01% so 1 gram per gallon of the 4-18-39 would provide 85.5 mg/l of potassium.
 

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
So 4-18-38 is really 4-18-20.8? Or am I missing something. Ngl I'm really stoned rn so this might be making less sense to me than it should.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Mpk needed for veg or just flower? I've got plenty of pk boosters left (almost full tubs of ff soluble trio)
You will likely require more P in all phases. Watch out that the K number doesn't get too high though. It's a balancing act.

Let us make a comparison here. Lucas formula is a commonly used mix. The P comes up to 106 mg/l with the lucas, so lets make that a "baseline" for comparison.

If we use your 4-18-38 @ a rate of 2 grams per gallon we end up with only 41.6 mg/l of P in our mix.

If we add 0.7g per gal of MKP that will bring another 42 mg/l of P and an additional 52 mg/l of K. So the P # in conjunction with the 4-18-38 we still only have 83.6 mg/l (PPM) of P. Much better than 41.6 tho. Now the additional K brings us up to 223 mg/l of K. The lucas baseline is about 183, so as you can see we are getting pretty high on the K. To prevent the K # from climbing and causing lockouts you may find that reducing the amount of the 4-18-38 is required when adding more than the 0.7 g/gal or MKP.
 

Lenin1917

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't run potassium silicate dude. Everyones jumping on the monosylicic train for a reason. Potassium silicate is completely useless in hydro. It isn't readily available to your plants until it goes through cilicification which takes months in soil. You also run the risk of locking out from an overabundance of potassium once you hit flower. Trust me i know.

I burn through 50 gallons every 4 days just in my top offs. Our costs were pretty high using Remo so we switched to Floraflex but I was looking at the Masterblend before that. Can't help you with the ratios, but I always mix in my monosylicic first, then the calmag, then granular nutrients, let it mix for 20 minutes, then ph correct. I get bad clouding if I don't do it in those steps.

Depends what you use for water and how much. I use 50 gallons drums, and each has a circulation pump in the bottom. I'll take out 2-3 gallons into a 5 gallon bucket and measure out my first additive into the 5 gall and mix it up, then slowly add into the 50 gallon and allow to circulation for a few minutes. Repeat the process for each additive, never adding more than one at a time, or adding anything concentrated into the main barrel. Hope this help dude.
Turns out I got the raw silica(45% silica dioxide)not the agsil16h.
 

The Crystal Assasin

Active Member
There is a great thread about Masterblend/Jacks etc over on ICMag. The name of the thread is: "Cheap Nutrient Line for Commercial and Home Grows"
I am experimenting with Masterblend currently using the concepts laid out in the thread. So far so good!
 

Keesje

Well-Known Member
I think that Silica is the only additive that has a proven track record.
No need to buy the fancy overprices stuff from all the cannabis brands.
 

dirtdan

Member
Been using GH flora forever but this time I decided to try MasterBlend, so this is only a trial.
I start at 2.4 - 2.4 - 1.2 as suggested...... BUT I bring down the EC to 0.80 max. since day one (ph 5.8 to 6).
She drinks and eats like crazy.
She's a Girl Scout Cookie Auto at 4 weeks.
I also use Armor Si 2ml/g and use Z9 (canadian version of Z7) to keep the roots silky white.

I'm sure I'll need to adjust nuts at flowering since I need to add Liquid KoolBloom for my fruiting veggies.
Not enough P as Renfro mentioned (Tomato plant turned half purple).
Good luck !!

IMG_7471.JPGIMG_7472.JPG
 

Bourbon 2

Well-Known Member
There is a great thread about Masterblend/Jacks etc over on ICMag. The name of the thread is: "Cheap Nutrient Line for Commercial and Home Grows"
I am experimenting with Masterblend currently using the concepts laid out in the thread. So far so good!
So what's your mixing ratio for Masterblend. I've been using Heavy 16 and recently bought the Masterblend and I'm following the "lettuce" ratio but it seems like high nitrogen levels for flower. I measured my ppms (seems low 600) at the recommended ratio and I added humic acid and catalyst. My RO has an average of 6.8 ph but the blend drops it, guess I gotta bump it up. Thanks
 

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Bourbon 2

Well-Known Member
Guys I switched from using Heavy 16 veg A and B to Masterblend. I followed the instructions and after the 2nd application my plants started turning Purple on the stems. Crazy because Epsom salt usually prevents this and it's part of the application.
So I grabbed a plant and placed it in my utility tub and began using well water with baseline of 200ppm and reduced the ph to 6.1 and began using this as a flush. 4 gallons added into the 7gal plastic pot and the runoff measured with a 7.8 ph and ppms exceeded my meter. On average I had to use 15 to 20 gallons to get the ppms reduced to average of 500ppm and 6.1 ph.. Certainly created a lockout from build up of nutrients. I hope that I caught it in time, I'm 1.5 wks into flower..Also to note, I measured my ppms when I feed and it measured 600 ppms
Any advice for moving forward with Masterblend would be appreciated ✌
 

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The Crystal Assasin

Active Member
So what's your mixing ratio for Masterblend. I've been using Heavy 16 and recently bought the Masterblend and I'm following the "lettuce" ratio but it seems like high nitrogen levels for flower. I measured my ppms (seems low 600) at the recommended ratio and I added humic acid and catalyst. My RO has an average of 6.8 ph but the blend drops it, guess I gotta bump it up. Thanks
I am still playing around with ratios. The recipe I am trying also asks for a bump in Ca for the first 3 weeks and then a MPK bump weeks 4-6. It also depends on your environment. I'm using a blend of LED and CMH and my Mg needs are greater. With these salts, small tweaks have a large effect.
 
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