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Originally Posted by Luches
Well, what happens is that the outside (or room) temperature will be around 50 F or 10°C as well (a bit higher though). And I'd rather be concerned with that fact 
In case outside temperatures are getting low and the nutrient temperature drops to (let's say) 15C/59F or below, one may consider heating the nutes up to 20-22° C with a 10 bucks aquarium heater.
What will happen actually when nute temps (and/or outside/room temps) will drop under 50 degrees? Nothing fancy, the available oxygen in the nutrients will increase somewhat but the general metabolism and uptake of plants will be much lower, - until stagnation.
PS: with low temperature of nutrients the EC should be higher to encourage osmosis. |
Sence my last post in this thread I have been doing some thinking and have come to the same conclusion about the fish aquarium heaters. Though the cheapest I have found at Walmart were $15 with a preset temp of 78 degrees. (I have 4 systems 5 reservoirs to control the temp of planed). I am also considering heat blankets because they would be waterproof because you need to wash them. Simply cutting the blanket away from the coils and inserting them into the reservoir or around it and or wrapping the blanket around the system. This may not work in a lot of places but in this small town there is a lot of garage sales and I may be able to pick some up cheep.
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What will happen actually when nute temps (and/or outside/room temps) will drop under 50 degrees? Nothing fancy, the available oxygen in the nutrients will increase somewhat but the general metabolism and uptake of plants will be much lower, - until stagnation.
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I am not worried about the daytime temps because they are usually well above 50 during the winter here. But the night time temps are what I am mostly concerned with. Most of the plants that I will be growing this winter do OK/well during cold weather. Our winter last year never went below 32 degrees that I know of so I don"t think I will have too much problem there, though it can happen. The tomatoes are a warm weather plant and we plan build a trellis using P.V.C. to support it. I can cover it with sheet plastic (a painters drop cloth) and maybe a can of Sterno to warm it up at night.
I don"t have a EC meter and wont any time soon, But because that is a way of telling how strong the nutrient mix is I am assuming that in general that in cold areas (temps) a stronger nutrient mix is best because of osmosis. So because of the general temps the nutrients should be stronger?