No you are fine <"for a while"> yet.Do dry ferts have a shelf life? We are using some we bought over 5 years ago and are still seeing some plant deficiencies even dosing ei levels, Jenner wondering if it's not as potent over time.
Interesting, our containers are not air tight and the kno3 and kh2po4 has lumps in. The mgso4 is okay.
No you can just crush the lumps, or add the lumps to the tank, they are still KNO3. If you want an analogy it is the difference between granulated sugar and sugar lumps.Should i consider buying more if its gone lumpy?
RO or DI water would be best, but it isn't essential. You may find that you have precipitation with tap water, or possibly some of the salts coming out of solution if you make up a really strong mix (via the common ion effect).A quick follow on question regarding this. Should I be using just normal tap water to make up my dosing mix? Been reading about people use RO/distiller water, or boiling the water etc.
Hi all, RO or DI water would be best, but it isn't essential. You may find that you have precipitation with tap water, or possibly some of the salts coming out of solution if you make up a really strong mix (via the common ion effect).
If you have a precipitate you could add an acid (white vinegar would do) to the stock solution and you may find that the salts go back into solution.
Boiling the water will remove temporary/permanent hardness, but not anything else. If you boil the water you need to strain it into jug etc. immediately. Otherwise as the water cools any solid CaCO3 ("limescale") will go back into solution, via the carbonate ~ CO2 equilibrium.
If I didn't have an easy to obtain source of RO/DI water, I'd use rain or boiled water.
cheers Darrel
Try a dash of white vinegar, if the precipitate doesn't go back into solution you could try warming the solution (the solution with the vinegar is fine). If neither of those work then you will need to throw that one away.we have some precipitation with our solution
It just needs to remove the fine particles of CaCO3 from the water.If boiling then what would I strain it with (how fine should the strainer be)?