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Reservoir change?


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Old 07-20-2011, 02:23 PM
Stan Stan is offline
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Default Reservoir change?

At the moment I'm using a cooler which holds 15-17 gallons of water. I'm growing 10 tomato plants and 1 watermelon plant using a PVC fence rail with a 1/2 PVC pipe with micro sprayers. For the first 2 weeks I completely flushed and changed the water/nutrients 5-10-25 & 15-0-0. The plants are all getting bigger and I've been adding 3-4 gallons of water and nutrients daily. Should I still flush out and do a complete change of water and nutrients weekly, or can I do without it for now?


Last edited by Stan; 07-20-2011 at 02:26 PM.
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Old 07-20-2011, 02:38 PM
crad crad is offline
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I am not changing my weekly and am adding 3 to 4 gallons a day I am how ever watching my PPM to maintain a level of nutrients to equal the mix I am after. I am changing it out this week which is 2 weeks and am experiencing no ill effects from not changing it out. I even have peppers growing.
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Old 07-20-2011, 05:34 PM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Stan
You can always stretch out your nutrient changes, but you'll want to keep an eye out for signs of problems. If your plants are taking up 4 gallons a day, that's a lot for that size reservoir. That's basically the entire volume of the reservoir every 4 days, or almost twice the reservoir volume a week. But I'm not sure why your adding nutrients daily, or in what amounts. If I were going to try and stretch out it out to two weeks, I would be replacing the water the plants take up with just plain fresh water every day. Except for the 7'th day, then I would replace the 4 gallons with about 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutrient solution (depending on how strong the nutrient solution originally was to begin with). Then only plain water every day after that.

If I were doing a nutrient change weekly in the same situation, I would most likely only add plain water. However if I were to add nutrients, I would only want to add it once, and about the middle of the week. Then I would likely only add about one gallon of 1/4 to 3/4 strength nutrient solution. Even then it would depend on how strong of a nutrient solution I started out the week with as to weather I added any, and/or how much. As well as how the plants look, temperatures, etc..
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Old 07-20-2011, 10:10 PM
Stan Stan is offline
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^^^Again I really appreciate the help!^^^
I've been adding 3/4 nutrients to each 3 - 4 gallons of water I add daily. Luckily I didn't kill my plants they are all doing just fine. I will now only add plain water for the week and will only add 1/4 amount of nutrients on day 7. I will do a complete flush and change every 14 days. Temps here have been in the low 90's the last few days with high humidity. Tomorrow temps will be close to 100 and will last till Sunday.

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