EI Ferts - Where do you get yours?

Where do you all get your chemicles for EI?

I know AE do them all but I've heard garden direct do them to for a fraction of the price.

Which ferts do you buy from where?

 

Before AE started selling ferts I used to buy from Garden Direct, but now use AE as I tend to buy other things at the same time.

James

 

Are there different strength ferts?

For example, should all potassium sulphate be of the same concentration?

I'm looking at buying from garden direct due to how much you get for your money but want to be sure its as good quality as QE

 

All exactly the same. Levels of impurities may be different but have never seemed to cause any problems.

James

 

Levels

Yeah there are nominal differences but you're talking 1% either way

I get my macros from work and my traces from Tropica PN.

Andy

 

I'm sure I remember on APC someone talking about getting ferts with a percentage purity quoted on them as their ferts were agricutural in origin and not as pure. If you have got that then all you have to do is work out the percentage and up the amount used appropriately. E.g. if they were 80% pure you'd need to add an extra 20% to get the same level.
Most ferts are way more pure than this and to be honest, like Andy said, they are usually just one or two percent and this doesn't really matter for our purposes.

 

I work for William Sinclair (J Arthur Bowers) and I am the man who buys the ferts.

With something like Potassium Sulphate it is around 41% potassium or something like that. I'd need to check.

All the ferts we sell are mixes of pure ferts but agricultural and consumer fertilisers for the garden should never be used in an aquarium due to the amount of ammonium, lime etc that are put into them.

The only one I could find that was OK was the pot sulphate, but the KN03 I buy is pure KNO3 and the KH2PO4 is pure KH2PO4. Its just that we don't sell it as an individual chemical. They are used as part of a cocktail for garden ferts.

Andy

 

See.. you could supply ferts to all those on UKAPS

 

I will ask but you'll be putting Richard out of business. lol

If they let me and sell me at the prices I buy at it would be (per kilogram)

Potassium Nitrate - 28p / kg
Potassium Phosphate - 48p / kg
Potassium sulphate - 18p / kg

All plus VAT of course

I also buy chelated iron, copper, magnesium, zinc,
Epsom Salts, Sodium Molybdate (£20k / ton....phew)

Loads more but can't think. lol

andy

 

The purity is above 99% in most all cases, these are high temp salts and easy to separate out. You can weigh and make reference standards and they come out as predicted

So the purity has to be extremely high.
Since folks eat the ferts that plants use, the purity needs to be rather high and not have other things in them.

If it's good enough for you and your food, it's good enough for your plants.

One troll was running around trying to spread fear and bad mouth Greg Watsomn, who had already sold the business to Alan, that we should all be using Lab grade pure chemicals(at about 10X or more the cost).
A mod mentioned the ISP number matched another member who had a history of trolling

Go figure.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

Now thats what I'm talking about!

If theres any chance you can get me some then that would eb awsome. I'm forever running out and find the cost really hard to cope with at th emoment.

 

Forever running out??? Do you have a 1000 gallon tank with 12 WPG??

If I take a cupful it will last over a year in my 125Ltr with 2.5WPG!!

I spoke to my boss and because it's not a retail item he said that they couldn't sell it!!

Then he said take a cup and get some yourself, at which point I told him I was really after a few kilos at a time, which he then said Oh, well maybe not then.

I gues I could take the same amounts I do at the mo which is approx 250g of each at a time but I can't supply to many people I'm afraid.

I will keep asking though.

Andy

 

I've been experimenting so its been going quite quickly. Not to mention my mistakes
If you can get any i'm happy to pay.

Lee