This board is for questions about the Advanced Nutrients range. Advanced Nutrients is a fertiliser brand that makes products for cannabis. This post explains what the board covers and what the brand’s pH technology can and cannot do for you. It ends with two habits that prevent most problems growers post about here.
What this board covers
The board covers four parts of the Advanced Nutrients programme:
- The pH Perfect base nutrients. These are the main fertilisers you feed at every watering.
- Big Bud and the other flowering additives. These are extra products for the flowering stage. See bloom boosters for what this type of product does.
- The microbial products. These contain live beneficial microbes for the root area.
- The buffering technology. This post explains what it changes in your routine and what it leaves the same.
What pH Perfect is meant to do
pH tells you how acidic or alkaline a solution is. Roots take up nutrients well only inside a certain pH range. Advanced Nutrients gives one target range for pH Perfect: pH 5.5 to 6.3. Its pH Perfect page does not give a different range for soil, coco or hydroponics.
The pH Perfect bases contain buffers. A buffer is an ingredient that resists changes in pH. Here it is meant to pull the mixed nutrient solution toward the range roots absorb in. If it works, you may need less pH-up or pH-down.
Soft water, meaning water with few dissolved minerals, has little bicarbonate to work against the buffer. Rainwater and water from a reverse-osmosis filter (a filter that strips out most minerals) are both soft. Even so, Advanced Nutrients advises checking pH from time to time if you use reverse-osmosis or very soft water.
When the buffer is less reliable
There are two situations where the buffer works much less reliably.
- Hard water with a lot of bicarbonate. Bicarbonate is a dissolved mineral that makes water alkaline. It pushes pH up and works against the buffer. When there is a lot of it, it can overpower the buffer.
- Several additives in the same tank. Each extra product changes the chemistry of the solution. The more products you add, the harder the final pH can be to predict, so measure it.
Translator’s note: Growers in Thailand and Southeast Asia use very different water sources, such as mains water, deep wells, rainwater tanks or rivers. Bicarbonate levels can differ a lot from one source to another, even inside one district. You can ask your local water authority for a water-quality report. You can also test alkalinity yourself with a carbonate-hardness test kit (sold for aquariums as “KH” kits). Test your water once before you start with pH Perfect. Test again whenever you change source, for example from rainwater to well water in the dry season. That tells you whether the buffer can keep up with your water.
The tank is not the root zone
Advanced Nutrients says pH Perfect is designed to keep the root zone in its target range. But your tank reading only tells you about the mixed solution in your tank. It does not tell you about the root zone, meaning the growing medium around the roots. Once the solution goes into a peat-based pot or a coco coir bag, the medium and the roots start changing its pH.
Runoff is the water that drains out of the bottom of the pot after watering. Its pH can end up far from your tank reading.
Here is how to check. Water until some runoff drains out. Collect it and measure its pH and its EC (electrical conductivity, which shows how strong the fertiliser is). Compare both numbers with your tank. If the runoff moves further from the tank reading over several waterings, the root zone is drifting, even though the tank looks fine.
Translator’s note: At 30–35 °C, a nutrient tank warms up quickly. Warm water also speeds up microbial activity. If you keep mixed solution for more than a day, measure pH again before each use, not only when you mix it. If you use the microbial products, check the storage temperature on the label. A storeroom in the Thai hot season can be hotter than the label allows.
Two habits that prevent most problems
1. Measure anyway. You cannot see a buffer working. Until you measure, a working buffer looks exactly like one your water has overpowered. Use a calibrated pH pen and measure two things: the tank right after mixing, and the runoff. Write both numbers in a log. The log shows you whether your water and medium suit the buffer.
2. Treat the additives as optional. You do not need every product in the range. Start with the base nutrients alone. Then add one product at a time and wait at least one week before you add the next. Use the dose in the feeding chart published by Advanced Nutrients. Record the date, product, dose and how the plant responds. If the plant changes, you will know which product caused it.
Where to start
Start with this board’s usage guide below. Two other topics on this board look at the newer 8th Gen line: what “8th Generation” actually is and why temperate feeding protocols break at 31 °C and 85% RH.
Related reading elsewhere on the forum: the pH and EC topic linked above, on the Fertilizers board.
Translator’s note: Before you buy, see how to check that a fertiliser is legally on the Thai market. The Thai law on fertilisers is the Fertilizer Act B.E. 2518 (1975), amended by the Fertilizer Act (No. 2) B.E. 2550 (2007). For where to buy, ask an authorized distributor in Thailand. You can also ask other growers in the Equipment and Supplies board.
If you have a question about this range, post it below this topic. Include your water source, the pH and EC of your tank and runoff, your growing medium, and which products you use. With those numbers, other members can tell whether the problem is your water, your medium or one of the additives.