cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/17801651
Hey all,
I’ve been using my fertilizer now for a year, and it’s the only one I’ve used up until now, because I alway was satisfied with it, because it’s both very inexpensive and well formulated imo.
I’m using the Masterblend set, with the solutions pre-mixed for short term use.
I have mixed two “stock solution” bottles, which last me a few months in winter (only for houseplants and my small indoor grow tent) and a few weeks in summer (balcony gardening + house plants).
You can see the ingredients on the bottles on the picture:
They are always stored in complete darkness.
And then I have a diluted solution, with an EC of about 3-4 mS and a low pH, which I adapted to exactly match my tap water and houseplants when diluted to ~1/3. This pre-mix lasts me a few days maximum.
I’ve already noticed a few floaters in summer here and there, but didn’t mind them too much. They looked like small jellyfish or something floating around, but I thought that they might be some precipitation from minerals or whatever.
They got a bit more after some time, and a few weeks ago, I soaked everything in hot bleach water and mixed everything from scratch, because I already had the feeling that those might be amoebae or other microorganisms.
But now, everything is way worse. Just take a look:
Those specs are even in the normal nutrient solution!
A few of my plants have a reoccurring spring tail “infestation”. More like constant house mates.
I even got the chance to take a picture of them fucking. I feel like a pervert now...
No wonder they have such a good time. They’re probably feasting on those mold specs. They’re pretty much harmless and easy to manage, so I just don’t care as much.
Anyway… What I wanted to ask you: What shall I do? Desinfecting clearly doesn’t work.
The root cause seems to be the water. If I wouldn’t pre-dissolve everything, nothing would get moldy.
But of course, I need it to be in a liquid form for proper handling. Other fertilizer manufacturers are able to manage this too, so why can’t I?
Shall I add preservatives to the concentrate, like Isothiazolinones?
Or should I just switch to another fertilizer? If so, which one would you recommend, that is also cheap?
i am not into gardening much, but your photos look great. You seem to have a good microscope, maybe you can buy some stains (not very expensive unless you buy good stuff to quantise) and even do some charecterisation.
From what I got, you have a mildly basic master batch, which you dilute. Regular tap water should not have a pH more than 9-10, and if you want the final batch to be neutral, then you need your master batch to have a pH of roughly 3-4. Since you have a mostly basic master batch (kOH in reasonable concentration alone would make it 13+). Most other salts would be mostly neutral. I dont know what phosphorus form you are using, if its phosphorus oxide (P2O3 or P2O5, though latter is very unlikely) then mildly acidic, if Calcium phosphate then mildly basic. If you target for a pH of 8-9 or plants (I dont think any higher would be suitable, though depends on plants, can you check for any residue (salts) on plant parts, if so, your stuff is way to basic).
Getting back on point, purely to get rid of any live growth, you can add anything which generates free radicals (peroxides (hydrogen, or sodium or potassium), or iodine (you can get tinctures), or even ozone (you can buy ozonator, somewhat expensive), or if you want to set something up, just perform some electrolysis in portions of master batch, but please ensure you don’t inhale stuff. And electrolysis will make system more basic.
My bigger question is, is this growth really problematic or not, if plant health is not getting hampered, i would not actually do anything, and maybe add some small amount of worms (if in soil, then even earth worms work). They can feed on this growth, and help in tilling.
Again, I am a gardening noob, and not a chemist, so what I may have said may as well be shit, please feel free to correct me.
i am not into gardening much, but your photos look great. You seem to have a good microscope, maybe you can buy some stains (not very expensive unless you buy good stuff to quantise) and even do some charecterisation.
Thanks! 💚 Most of the pictures were just shot in macro mode on my phone, I’m a bit ashamed to admit it 😄
But I do have a microscope too, and the pics of the springtails were shot with it.What stains do you recommend?
I believe I have Methylene blue lying around somewhere, maybe that might be useful for a living-dead-characterization?But to be honest, I didn’t think much about looking up the stuff under the microscope, because I was pretty sure it was mold. I think you can even see the hyphae on the colony on the picture.
From what I got, you have a mildly basic master batch, which you dilute.
My fertiliser is a two-part solution. I mix them with demineralised water, and the final diluted solution has a pH of 6,2-ish, without pH adjuster. But I didn’t test it with the part A solution, which is the one that got moldy. It is probably moderately acidic.
[…] Adding Peroxide/ other oxidizers
Not a big fan of that idea. On the first glance it makes sense, but my arguments against that are:
- I highly doubt that the fertilizer is resistant against bleach. There are quite a few chelated minerals in it, and I’m sure that they will get destroyed or at least precipitate out of solution. And
- Even though mycorrhizae (and bacteria) are not remotely as important in hydroponics as they are in soil, I still highly value a healthy ecosystem of healthy microbes, that keep the bad guys at bay. If I add a oxidizing agent to the nutrient solution, it will kill a lot, mainly the good guys. And then bad things, like root rot, happen.
I’m now trying to mitigate that problem by pressure cooking small batches (a bunch of 200 ml bottles instead of 1 liter) and keeping them sealed until use, which will only last a week or so until used up.
My bigger question is, is this growth really problematic or not
It is. In hydroponics, everything should be as clean as possible. Not sterile-clean, but at least not full of slime or dirty.
If there is (too much) organic contamination, it will attract pests. And those specs are organic matter, and I already got the spring tail infestation from it, as I already mentioned in the post.Regarding worms: I also have a few pots with organic soil (no-till, cover crops, etc.) outside, with a very healthy ecosystem, and an absolute shit ton of earth worms. If they would be a tiny bit bad for plant health, I would consider them as infestation :D I’m glad they aren’t.
After a rain fall and temperature drop in early winter, there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, crawling around on my super small balcony, just from the three pots or so!
Again, I am a gardening noob, and not a chemist, so what I may have said may as well be shit, please feel free to correct me.
Please! You sound both like a chemist AND someone with gardening experience. You seem to already have quite a lot of knowledge, keep going on! 😊
I have some background in chem (not in chem directly,but material synthesis), but absolutely none in gardening.
About stains, yes methyline blue can tell live from dead, but that is not that great of thing, i don’t remember names, but maybe you can find some good examples in the thought emporium yt channel or just in general, you can practically any stains, most will stain nucleus, or at least the nucleolus, and then you can take some good photos, for charecterisation, standard procedure is to check for absorbance, and then check for presence of particular organelles under really good microscope.
But damn the macro shots look good, i never use my macro lens, maybe will try in future.
1 More thing I missed earlier was hydroponics (sorry i did not open the link earlier), on checking, maybe the largest component making system acidic would be the MgSO4, and depending on temperature and solubility of MgOH, that can be mildly acidic (more than other corresponding mild bases)
[…] Adding Peroxide/ other oxidizers
the fun thing is, there weren’t any “oxidisers”. This is a gross oversimplification, but most things that i wrote are free radical generators, which can oxidise/reduce. About the chelations, most of these should be stable under free radicals, but most organic stuff (read stuff with free easy H+ or other alkali or alkaline earth metals) will have positive ions stripped, generating anions. But most chelates are any way anionic. so most of these would be “okay” (in reality, you may have some singlet donations, or some other fancy substitutions, but your chelates are “stable” enough for that(the forward rate constant would not be high)). If you dont want to add anything, then maybe consider electrolysis. For this I would recommend finding SRP (Standard reduction potential, fancy way to put how readily they want to reduce, if you really want to do fancy, find the concentration, diffusion and gas overpotentials too for really accurate calculation) for all ions involved. when you electrolyse a salt solution, lets say MgSO4, NaCl, and H2O, (I am pulling values out of thin air here, dont take the result here, just the methodology), and suppose Cl- is more readily reduced among Cl-, SO4 2-, and OH-, and H+ is more readily reduced among Na+, Mg+ and H+, then H2 and Cl2 will evolve, and you would be left with a basic medium. This way, you would have in-situ Cl generated which can kill anything. but you can control rate by controlling the current (voltage would be determined mostly by srp). This is pretty much what bleach has, a Cl in some positive valency, which will readily oxidise anything, but with bleach, you can only control concentration, here you can control both conc and current (that is rate) to figure things out. Experiment with this if you have time, and this can be cheap (for a cheap setup, you require table salt and a 5 volt battery with rheostat). For stability of chelates, you can look up ligand exchange energy, for standard stuff, you can very easily find values.
Yes it will kill everyone, good and bad guys. But for good guys (and considering it is hydroponics) - maybe you can add a small amount of algae later on. Be wise in its addition, as it can very easily bloom in such nutrient conditions. This is, in case you ever want to venture into aquaponics. I don’t think you require much bacterial culture anyway, if you do, I would recommend to maintain some good strains, and add later
None of the photos are loading for me…even when I visit slrpnk.net
It’s inevitable that something will start growing where suitable. You’d have to sterilize everything, including the air and the water supply. All you can do is minimize growth, e.g. by making the mix and using it within a few days, and cleaning the containers after use.
Yeah, that’s what I was also thinking. We live in a microbe filled world, and even if the content in the bottle is sterilized, opening it up once will result in another contamination.
Coffee filter to remove floaties. Then use like normal.
