Hydroponic Nutrients & Fertilizers

There pros and cons to everything, and it’s no different when you decide to make your own hydroponic
nutrient solution. For some, this seems a smart way to keep the cost of the indoor garden to the bare
minimum. After all, the price of pre-mixed nutes at garden shops includes costs that have nothing to do
with the quality of what’s in the bottle. For others, it might be the key to making certain crop traits more
outstanding than others, a concept that hopefully follows some growing experience. And then there’s being
able to become totally self-sustainable if you decide to go off-grid and live off the land somewhere in BFE.
New gardeners may not realize that a single bottle nutrient formula is very different from a two-part or
three-part nutrient. Why all the fuss? It’s not just some tricky way to get you to part with more money, or
make hydroponic gardening more complex. Multiple part nutrients give the grower far more control over
plant and fruit growth, and ultimately harvest quality. The easy-to-use one bottle nutrients are general
purpose, and will give you decent results from many different crops. While a one-part vegetative nutrient
followed by a one-part flowering-to-fruiting nutrient will grow you a tomato plant that provides a harvest,
you won’t get that good old garden tomato flavor from the crop – because that requires fine tuning the
inputs you’ve used.

But we all have to start somewhere 😉 At least those one-bottle wonder tomatoes you grew will be vine-
ripened while still connected to the whole plant.

NUTRIENT QUALITY
You’ll only get out of your homemade hydroponic nutrient mix what you put into it. This means you want
top quality elemental salts. Purity in is a must if you’re going to have a great grow. The other super
important thing is accuracy of measurement. It’s not a teaspoon of this and a cup of that. The salts are
measured by weight, and an inexpensive food scale designed for kitchen use is not accurate. Find one
designed for lab use. Never use improperly stored salts either. Any moisture they’ve absorbed will change
their weights, which will affect your nutrient solution quality. They must be kept cool, and dry at all times.

HYDROPONIC NUTRIENT FORMULAS

These are basic, general purpose nutes – so if your goal is to tweak them, you’re on your own. They give
you a good starting point no matter why you want to know how to do this, and have proven successful with
many different hydroponic crops. The amounts in these formulas are for 1-gallon of stock nutrient solution.
If you want a bigger batch, you’ll need to multiply and/or divide the measurements per gallon
appropriately.

VEGETATIVE NUTRIENT
(Analysis: 9.5-5.67-11.3)
 6.00 gr Calcium Nitrate – Ca(NO3)2

 2.09 gr Potassium Nitrate – KNO3

 0.46 gr Sulfate of Potash – K2SO4

 1.39 gr Monopotassium Phophate – KH2PO4

 2.42 gr Magnesium Sulfate – MgSO4 * 7H2O

 0.40 gr 7% Fe Chelated Trace Elements – recipe below

FLOWERING NUTRIENT
(Analysis: 5.5-7.97-18.4)
 4.10 gr Calcium Nitrate – Ca(NO3)2

 2.80 gr Potassium Nitrate – KNO3

 0.46 gr Sulfate of Potash – K2SO4

 1.39 gr Monopotassium Phophate – KH2PO4

 2.40 gr Magnesium Sulfate – MgSO4 * 7H2O

 0.40 gr 7% Fe Chelated Trace Elements – recipe below

FRUITING NUTRIENT
(Analysis: 8.2-5.9-13.6)
 8.00 gr Calcium Nitrate – Ca(NO3)2

 2.80 gr Potassium Nitrate – KNO3

 1.70 gr Sulfate of Potash – K2SO4

 1.39 gr Monopotassium Phophate – KH2PO4

 2.40 gr Magnesium Sulfate – MgSO4 * 7H2O

 0.40 gr 7% Fe Chelated Trace Elements – recipe below

There are 16 plant nutrients to supply to crops

These three nutrients are available to the plants in the air and water. Of course, high CO2
levels and well-oxygenated water are important to optimizing these nutrients. Lack of CO2
(the only way that plants can attain carbon) is often a bottleneck on production for indoor
growers.
 C, carbon
 H, hydrogen
 O, oxygen

These three nutrients are usually available in the main fertilizer, an N-P-K mix. (Learn more
about that below.)
 N, nitrogen
 P, phosphorus
 K, potassium
Calcium is available to plants through calcium nitrate (CaNO3), another very common
fertilizer. (If you’re not using CaNO3 in your hydroponic system, you should be.)
 Ca, calcium
These two nutrients are available in magnesium sulfate, or MgSO4.
 Mg, magnesium
 S, sulfur
The last seven nutrients are so seldom deficient that they are practically negligible. If you do
see deficiencies, it will be with iron (Fe). Iron can be supplemented using chelated iron.
Molybdenum and chlorine, if anything, could cause toxicities in very high levels (this is also
very uncommon).
 Cu, copper,
 Zn, zinc
 B, boron
 Mo, molybdenum
 Fe, iron
 Mn, manganese
 Cl, chlorine
 You can tell if a plant is deficient if it shows symptoms like wilting, chlorosis (yellowing),
bronzing, or necrosis (dead tissue). Different symptoms indicate different deficiencies; see
the Deficiency Key to identify deficiencies in your crops. (Pssst… this is 80% off right now!)
Nutrients are available as salts – which makes
measuring very easy
I’m not talking about table salt, which is sodium chloride. A salt is a type of compound, and
many of the nutrients enter the system attached to something else as a salt.
There are two things that every hydroponic grower must understand about salts:
1. When they are dissolved in water, the ionic bond (which holds atoms together as a molecule using
charge) is broken, and the salt is split, leaving ions that the plant can use.
2. They change the electroconductivity of a solution. Fortunately for us, electroconductivity is very easy
to measure.

Calcium nitrate is one example of a salt. It is held together by ionic bonds (charges), which break when it’s mixed into water.

These two traits of salts make measuring nutrients very convenient: the number of salts in a
solution can be equated to the amount of nutrients in the solution. That means we can treat
electroconductivity (EC) as a measure of nutrients.
 EC and pH can be measured both at the same time using a dual meter like the NutriTest.
This measurement is crucial to running a hydroponic system. But even EC has its limits.
While EC will tell you the total amount of salts in the solution, it won’t tell you the ratios of
nutrient to nutrient present in your system water.
You might be thinking, “but hydroponic fertilizers are formulated to match plant uptake.. So
don’t all the nutrients get taken up at the same rate?”
Well, not exactly. Different crops and even different ages of plants in the same crop take up
nutrients at slightly different rates. This means that over time, one or a few nutrients may
accumulate, while others will decrease in concentration.
There are two ways to solve this problem: first, growers can balance nutrients one by one.
This requires using a many-part fertilizer, and detailed water analyses. Since both of those
can be quite complicated, most growers use the second option – flushing the system
periodically and “starting from scratch.” Flushing the system is still more sustainable than
using a flow-to-waste system (which may result in a lot of wasted fertilizer and water), as the
system is only flushed every six months or so (occasionally more often for very aggressive
crops). Growers who flush their system (most small to moderate sized hydroponic farmers)
can still use practical and affordable 3-part hydroponic fertilizers.
Choosing a fertilizer: types of hydroponic fertilizers
Hydroponic systems require a carefully crafted fertilizer to mix into a nutrient solution for
crops. Different fertilizers are formulated for different crops. For instance, nutrient-hogging
tomatoes will need a very different formula than reserved lettuce.
These fertilizers will come either as a liquid or as dry granules, both with pros and cons.
 Liquid fertilizers are a complete fertilizer (one part) that growers can simply mix into water
to create a nutrient solution. These are simple and easy, but present more costs in shipping
(you’re essentially shipping water) and storage. Powdered fertilizers are more complicated to
mix, but are cheaper to ship and store, and often come in bulk.
Most commercial farmers use dry fertilizer, while hobbyists often find that liquid fertilizers
serve their purposes best. (We’ve seen the most success with Dyna Gro Foliage Pro, a
premixed liquid fertilizer with a 3-1-2 NPK ratio.)
How many fertilizers do I need?
Dry or powdered fertilizers come as 1-part mixes, multi-part mixes, and many part mixes.
 One part mixes are easy to mix (simply mix at the rate on the bag), but aren’t great for making stock
solutions as some nutrients will precipitate (form solids) in high concentration.
 Multi-part mixes are the goldilocks option that most growers choose. This is fairly easy to mix, and
allows growers to make stock solutions since problematic compounds are kept separate.
 Many-part mixes are typically only cost effective for huge (and I mean HUGE) operations. These can
be up to 11 different fertilizers, which are all mixed and stored separately.

Typical 3-part fertilizers includes NPK, CaNO3, and

MgSO4
The most common way to fertilize a hydroponic system uses a 3-part fertilizer mixed into
two stock solutions.
1) N-P-K mix
This is the basic mix that contains three of the most plentiful nutrients. There are different
formulas for different crops; for example, lettuce, tomato, and strawberry formulas.

2) Calcium nitrate, CaNO3.

This provides calcium and additional nitrates to your plants. Since calcium doesn’t really play
nice with the next part, magnesium sulfate, it bunks with NPK in stock solutions. (Calcium
and magnesium sulfate are the culprits involved in precipitation.)
3) Magnesium sulfate, MgSO4.
(Also called epsom salt.) This is used to supplement magnesium and sulfur, and is mixed and
stored by itself.

When these 3 parts are kept as stock solution (either for manual addition or for automated
dosing), they are kept as a Stock A (NPK and CaNO3) and a Stock B (MgSO4), often
alongside a pH adjustor.
Read more about mixing hydroponic nutrients here.
 Adding nutrients to your system
If you are growing in a Farm Wall or other liquid-fertilizer system, adding nutrient solutions
is easy. Simply mix the amount of Dyna Gro or other liquid fertilizer specified on the
instructions when you start the system, and replace the solution with a fresh mix each time
you replant. If your plants transpire a lot or your system loses water through evaporation, you
can top off with a diluted (⅙ dilution) until it’s time to start over.

To add nutrients to a larger hydroponic system, you’ll want to be as precise as possible. Only
add nutrients when the EC level (electroconductivity, as measured by an EC meter) drop
below your target EC. (Target EC should be determined by the overlapping range between all
of your crops.) This will be somewhere between 1200 and 1500 parts per million, but you
will have to find a small range within that to target.
Our crop-guide posts and Recommended Crop List are great places to start:
 Recommended Crop List
 Crops: Chard
 Crops: Kale
 Crops: Chives
 Crops: Bok Choy
 Crops: Lettuce
 Crops: Strawberries
 Crops: Mustard Greens
 Crops: Parsley
pH dictates the “usability” of nutrients
Another thing that is crucial when adding solution is pH regulation. pH dictates the
“usability” of the nutrients by plants and microbes. If you are hand dosing your system
(testing the water yourself), you will want to check pH levels once or twice a day.
The most convenient way to check pH is to buy a pH pen (or an EC meter and a pH pen
combined like the NutriTest), or to completely automate both processes. Farmers who
automate their hydroponic nutrients and pH use an auto-dosing system – a computer with
sensors and pumps hooked up to your stock solutions. The computer’s sensors test the water
in your sump tank for you every 5 or 10 seconds and corrects it automatically. One such
dosing system is Autogrow’s IntelliDose.
To adjust pH, hydroponic growers can use pH Up or pH Down. (These are extremely easy to
use and our recommendation!)

So what are the best hydroponic nutrients for your

system?
Remember, before you go out and buy any old solution, there are a few things to keep in
mind.
You’ll first need to decide whether you’re leaning towards convenience or price. Are you
willing to spend more on less hassle and potentially fewer mishaps? Or are you looking to
save costs and experiment with mixing your own?
There are several incredible resources out there on hydroponic nutrients, and we outline more
info and tips on testing hydroponic nutrients and mixing hydroponic nutrients in other
resources. As always, we provide free resources for growers like you so that you can have a
successful system.
Ready to apply your knowledge to farming?
From DWC to Dutch buckets and ZipGrow Towers, hydroponics can offer unique market
opportunities, rewarding careers, and a competitive advantage over other producers. Want to
try out hydroponics for yourself? Learn how to turn this growing technique into a real-life
farm through Upstart University, the online farm training platform.