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Stop buying bottled nutes, mix your own for pennies
Been mixing my own base nutrients from raw salts for about three years now and i genuinely cannot go back to bottles. The math is just too embarrassing. A 2.5 gallon jug of a popular 3-part grow formula runs somewhere around $60-80 at the hydro shop and makes maybe 250 gallons at working strength. That's 25-30 cents per gallon.
My current base mix costs me under 2 cents per gallon. i'm using calcium nitrate, magnesium sulfate, monopotassium phosphate, and potassium nitrate as the four core salts. Bulk bags from a greenhouse supplier, nothing fancy. The ratio i run in veg is roughly 190-190-150-0 ppm Ca-Mg-K-P, adjusted by EC target, and i dial it per stage.
The biggest mental hurdle people have is cal-mag. Everyone thinks they need a separate bottle. Calcium nitrate already gives you calcium AND nitrogen in one salt. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate and costs maybe $3 for a pound at the grocery store. That pound makes a lot of solution.
If you want a starting point, look up the Lucas formula or the Canna Aqua base ratios and reverse engineer the ppm targets from there. A cheap TDS meter and a basic ppm calculator is all you need to get close. You'll dial it in after one or two runs.
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