November 21, 2024

VIDEO: How to Prepare Water For Hydroponics [Updated]


If you’ve ever wondered how to make sure your water is in good shape before you start using it to grow hydroponic plants, this is the video for you. When I first starting growing hydroponically, I didn’t know what I was doing and made a ton of mistakes (if you look up one of my earlier videos, you can see the proof!).

***Remember to check your pH again 30 minutes after you mix nutrients and adjust accordingly***

These days, I’m a *little* bit smarter, so I figured I’d remake the video with less mistakes and hopefully more information for all of your beginners out there. I might not have done everything PERFECTLY, but it’s good enough for beginners to hydroponics and it’ll get the job done in my garden just perfectly.

This is a 20 gallon tank for my Tower Garden that will be producing exclusively leafy greens like kale, spinach, bok choy, watercress, and mustard greens. Anytime you’re growing something that you’re not taking through to the flowering / fruiting phase of growth, you have a bit more leeway in how you set it up.

IN THIS VIDEO

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Other links may be affiliate links in which we receive a commission.

→ Hanna HI9814 Multimeter: http://hannainst.com/hi9814-ph-ec-tds-multiparameter.html
→ Campden Tablets: http://amzn.to/2wBTsgX
→ General Hydroponics Flora Series: http://amzn.to/29VmBeQ

SUPPORT EPIC GARDENING

→ Buy Birdies Raised Beds: https://shop.epicgardening.com
→ Buy My Books: https://shop.epicgardening.com/collections/books
→ Support Directly: https://www.patreon.com/epicgardening

LEARN MORE

Epic Gardening is much more than a YouTube channel:

→ 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/epicurbanhomestead
→ In-Depth Articles: http://www.epicgardening.com/blog
→ Daily Podcast: https://apple.co/2nkftuk
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/
→ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicgardening
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@epicgardening
→ Discord Server: https://discord.gg/cuXxvKRwKN
→ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/epicgardening/
→ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/epicgardening
→ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/epicgardening

DISCLAIMER

Epic Gardening occasionally links to goods or services offered by vendors to help you find the best products to care for plants. Some of these may be affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if items are purchased. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. More info on our process: https://www.epicgardening.com/disclaimer/

30 thoughts on “VIDEO: How to Prepare Water For Hydroponics [Updated]

  1. Good thing you corrected your last video! I just hope those watching the first one are paying attention to the comments section and keeping in mind everyone's process is a learning process, always do your own research. Youtube videos are great for cross referencing but not ideal as scientific data.

  2. all in all a good video, however (if i may) i would like to state some points: while GHE does mention a specific amount of nutrients on the label, please be aware that this is based on pure RO water, that starts out with an EC of 0 (most manufacturers instructions are based on that).. so if you start out with 330ppm tap water (i assume that's the Hanna method of calculating ppm.. Truncheon and Eutech also use ppm, but they are NOT the same, 500ppm Hanna are 640ppm Eutech and 700ppm Truncheon, so i'd stay away from ppm completely, as it can get very confusing when someone says "use 500ppm" and you don't know which of those scales is actually meant… so i'd say just use EC instead, that's clear in millisiemens/microsiemens), then you're basically at 0.66 mS .. this is on the higher side, but still ok (my tap-water has 0.8 mS, so i use an RO filter and then mix some RO water and tap-water together to get a starting point of around 0.3 to 0.4 mS, as with pure RO i wouldn't have enough calcium and magnesium and i don't want to re-add that chemically.. my bottle of "hard water GHE micro" is still too full to replace it with the regular one that includes more ca and mg) and it basically means that you have a lot of salts in the water already..

    i highly suggest checking EC after having added the nutrients, so you know how many combined salts you will actually feed your plants.. if you follow the manufacturers advice, but don't remove your baseline EC first, you might overshoot what the plant can uptake and go into a nutrient saturation or even lockout (which is definitely worse and more difficult to get out of than a deficiency).. for most plants there are tables what a good EC for nutrient uptake is, based on their vegetative stage (seedling, veg, flowering), but if you really want to be clear on not over- and not under-feeding the plants, you should monitor the PH and EC levels each day. As you're using a recirculating system, when the EC in your reservoir drops down from what you have mixed, then the plant is using more nutrients than water, so you can up the nutrients by a little. If the EC goes up in the container, then it means that the plants take up more water and less nutrients, and you should lower the amount of nutrients.. it'd be perfect if the amount of EC stays around the same over time. (this does not take any water evaporation into account).. there might be some PH drift as well (mostly upward during veg and downward during flowering), which is ok, and should closely be monitored daily as well, but that's a different topic..

  3. HI! Thank you!!! I have a chart which show the different PPM and EC needs for each plant. I discovered that the Aggressive Flora mix is still way under those numbers when mixed. I am thinking about tomatoes and cucumbers at this moment. What do we do? Ignore it or try to increase the measurements?

  4. I bought general hydroponics pH up and down and was going to buy the 3 bottle bundle, but then I looked into GH and sadly it looks like they sold out to the big corporations, Monsanto, Scott's miracle gro, whatever it is, so I'm gonna go to my local store hopefully they have better stuff

  5. Hi. I have been thinking about getting a tower garden (juice plus) for quite a while now but I don't like the fact they you are supposed to use their "tonics." I assume from this video, it isn't an issue to use a different brand of fertilizer? Thanks so much! I am trying to learn as much as I can.

  6. I’m confused
    You used three bottles of liquid to make the nutrient solution food the adjusted ph
    All I use is the first bottle called micro flora 5 0 1 general hydroponics solution and then adjust ph
    Am I doing it wrong? Should I be using all three

  7. okay, so the water stays stationary? i have read/seen about use of water pumps and air pumps. what would u suggest abt that? I wana experiment hydropony for the first time, but don't have the pipe setup, so was wondering if i can use a tub setup like this, and what pumps will that need

  8. What other nutrients can I also use I got something called Black Magic a black magic be is that okay to also add with the same type of nutrients you added? I'm growing tomatoes literally tomatoes. I know Tomatoes want a higher PPM than leafy greens and I have a chart or totality what PPM Tomatoes prefer but kind of wondering what additional nutrients I can add to make my plants grow better. Thank you love your videos!

  9. Just a little heads up: because ph is logarithmic and the ph down solution has ph itself, the linear rule that 1/2 ounce reduces 0.6 ph does not work at all in theory. It maay work decently well in the 6-8 scale though, but it's something to keep in mind since re-measuring the ph takes little to no work.

    In any case, I really like your videos both the hydro series and the dirt series. Keep it up!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *