Controlling Hydroponic Nutrient Solution Strength
by Simon Ware
Hi, I am very new to hydroponics and having trouble finding information on EC control (hydroponic nutrient solution strength) that I can make any sense of. Can you possibly explain it in basic terms and give any relevant information that you feel will help me. Thanks for your time, Simon Ware.
Answer Simon- EC stands for electrical conductivity. Just like your nutrient solution has a certain temperature, your nutrient solution also has a certain strength (depending on how much fertilizer is in the solution). With temperature, the scale you would use to measure it would be either Fahrenheit (F) or Celsius (C). With hydroponic nutrient solution strength, the scale you would use to measure it would be either electrical conductivity (EC) or total dissolved salts (TDS).
Different plants prefer slightly different growing conditions. Your first step to success will be to find out what the nutritional requirements are for the plants you are growing. This is often called a feeding plan. The feeding plan will tell you what nutrient strength you should be feeding your plants each week, what pH your plants prefer, and whether the fertilizer should be high Nitrogen (for veg) or high Phosphorus (for flowering).
For example, let's say you are growing tomatoes. You decide you want to grow them for 3 weeks before you fruit them, and the variety you chose takes 8 weeks to finish flowering. Tomatoes will do fine at a pH of 6.0, and the rest of the feeding plan may look something like this....
The nutrients you purchase will probably come in two or three parts, and should include directions on how to mix up vegetative fertilizer as opposed to flowering (bloom) fertilizer. Your feeding plan tells you how strong your hydroponic nutrient solution needs to be, and what pH it needs to be at. Once you know these numbers, it becomes very easy to maintain your nutrient solution properly....for more info on that, visit my how to grow hydro page.
As the link above describes, controlling your EC starts with knowing in advance what your nutrient solution strength SHOULD be....than you simply check the nutrient solution at least once a day with your EC meter (or TDS meter) and make the proper adjustments. If the solution is too strong, add a little bit of plain water (and test the solution again). If it is too weak, add some more nutrients (and check the solution again).
I hope this sheds some light on the subject for you, and be sure to check out the link I included above....it will complete your understanding of the topic. Happy Growing!
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AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
