Very clear explanation. I especially love it where he explains how if a plant uses more water than the nutrients in solution it will actually increase EC. It must be a challenge to get it all balanced.
It took many hours of searching but I am so glad I found this channel. So much good information and it is actually presented intelligently and clearly. Thanks guys!
Thank you for this video I've been trying to find lots of videos explaining EC lots of them are very vague as well lots of them are explaining PPM instead of EC I've grown a few times but this video has given me some good insight on EC for my next grow thank you so much!!
You are one of the brightest educational speakers I have found on you tube and this video saved me from getting the wrong one 😂😡 thank you for time that you put in to the educational videos and I'm in Florida and would love to work on a farm. I'm a graduate student from THC University it's ok to laugh, and Senci Grow FL. I did leave a message on the westside about working on farms but I'm not sure you guys have made it down here yet. Well a have a few more things that I have to learn so till next video. Have a great day.
OMG Ethan! Thank you! Finally an exceptional explanation of the part of hydroponics I don't find particularly interesting but entirely necessary to know to be successful! You were enjoyable to listen to, made it make sense, and easy to understand! A thousand thank yous! :)
Thank you for your easy to understand vid about ec. I was so confused watching vids but your explanation was so easy to understand. Thanks boss. Subscribed mate.
The unit is correctly siemens, after Werner von Siemens. Nevertheless, as an electrical engineer, hobby gardener, I really learned a lot from your summary with plenty of very useful practical considerations. Thank you indeed.
Thank you for this helpful information! We just got our EC meter, and your video helped us understand how to use it. Janine and Paul of GrowStrong with Tower Gardening, Louisville, CO, USA
Glad we could help. You are also welcome to join our Facebook group where you can share your successes or pose a question. facebook.com/groups/zipgrowers
It really made me understand. So I check my water. Tap water came to 3742 EC and drinking water was 72. First I thought my meter was broken. PPM for my solution was 832. Can I still use dechlorinated tap water?
@@davidrosa3182 "calibration" is not needed ... however cleaning of the contact points are required (about once per month). After cleaning the Truncheon is tested in 2.77 Conductivity Fluid to see that the contact points are clean and again taking accurate measurements.
Love your videos. I'm a new subscriber! One thing i'm still confused about tho: EC represents the electrical conductivity in a solution, and we use it to give us an indication of how much nutrients are present in a solution, since more nutrients = higher EC. But are all EC enhancers necessarily nutrients? I think they say that lettuces require an EC of about 1.4, so lets say i'm growing lettuce and therefore aiming at an EC of 1.4. Scenario 1: My tap water is 0.3. Therefore I should add a decent amount of nutrients to get to 1.4. Scenario 2: My tap water is 1.1. Therefore I should add a small amount of nutrients to get to 1.4. Will both scenarios lead to the same results? Is the difference between the original tap water EC in the two scenarios (0.3 vs 1.1) necessarily due to the 1.1 tap water containg more nutrients, and therfore requiring less plant food to be added to the solution? Or does it contain other random particles you might find in various water supplies? And even if it contains nutrients, are these nutrients necessarily beneficial to the plants im growing? Hope I was able to convey my question :)
4:20 - Oh god, I have been reading about gardening for almost 10 years and this is something I never heard of before in which PPM is not a good unit of measure as compared to EC unit of measure for hydroponics, interesting. You think it would be a good idea if I took my PPM sensor meter and reverse engineer it by placing some math calculations to shoot out EC unit readings?
Great explanation. But I'm still confused. My EC meter (Vivosun) reads 148 for plain water and 1446 for my solution. On PPM it reads 68 in plain water and 690 in solution. I don't see 1.2 or 2.5. There are numbers at the bottom of the screen:78.0 and 63.0. I don't know what any of this means. :(
The electrical conductivity of water is normally measured in millisiemens per centimeter (mS/cm). This unit of measurement would give you either the 1.2 or 2.5 you are looking for. In regards to converting from PPM to EC, you can take the reading of 690 and divide it by 1000. This will leave you with 0.69 and then multiply that number by 2. You should end up with an EC reading of 1.38 (mS/cm).
I love all of your videos, they have helped me understand what is going on in my garden. I checked the Bright Agrotech link for Bluelab combo meters and the link was broken. I checked other sources for this meter and it is quite expensive for a backyard gardener. Do you have a cheaper suggestion. I see some on Amazon but they read in ppm not EC. Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.
My Hanna Gro Line Combo HI 98131 meter does EC/TDS ppm with the option of 500 and 700 conversions setting. I've also noticed the meter when set for one of the ppm setting it shows EC first for a couple seconds then the ppm so you get to view both.
Hi, thanks for your question. Anything under 0.4 mS is passable without RO. You’ll need to adjust your dosing to compensate for a baseline above 0.0 however. Having said that municipal water is safer as it goes through treatment already whereas with well water you’d probably want to have it tested for biological activity and/or heavy metals.
I have well water and the EC for it is 0.40. My 3 part hydroponic solutions guide says to use an EC of 2.0. Does this mean that I only add 1.6 EC solution of nutrients for a total of 2.0 or do I add an EC 2.0 of nutrients for a total of 2.4?
Hello! The latter is what you should do… if forgoing an RO unit you should use the incoming EC as if it’s 0 and then add the recommended nutrients accordingly 2:45 Target EC is raised by same amount as incoming source water
I discovered that diffrent temperature has diffrent ec reading. what time of the day do you recommend to measure my ec ? when its the hottest or the coldest ? it ranges from 29-35degrees celcius
So helpful!! Thank you! But dang it, I got a ppm :( ... question about combining what I learned from your diagnosing plant deficiencies video & this - if a plant is in soil that does not have the correct ph so certain nutrients are not available... can you correct or at least help that deficiency by spraying a custom mixed nutrient solution on top? Is this why people get those misting spray things?
Hi, good informative video. Just one small query. Understood the concept of EC, and how to increase or decrease it. But what should be the ratios of each individual nutrients if i wish to increase the EC?
Your additives are always the same, it's just your base nutrients (grow or bloom) that you vary. Put your additives in first and then just keep adding your base nutrients until you hit your desired EC value
@@GodDamnBender additive as in what? Since we did not discuss any here in this video, if i am not mistaken. Btw you people have a nice channel, keep going :)
Is it possible to differ EC from salinity? How these two parameters interact? I know you dont use salt in hidroponics, but I wonder if i found a use for my EC Meter in my Aquaponics system.
Thank you for your question. There are a lot of variables that contribute to how EC fluctuates in your system, and there is no concrete answer to this. In hydroponics, typically your EC would decrease as it becomes used in your system; however, this all depends on the type of nutrients you use, what type of system you are set up with, what crops and how many of them are currently growing, etc...the list goes on.
This might sound dumb but am gonna ask anyway. 1. What standard solution do use to calibrate your EC parameter(specifically)? Can I make my own solution for this? 2. I have some standard solution to measure PH alone for lower end and higher end but any means I can make my own solution that I can use for testing? Thanks.
technically you could produce your own standard solutions, all it takes is the ingredient salts and distillated RO water, a fine scale and the rest is mixing a big batch to reduce your inaccuracy in measurements. In practice, even in a lab with all bells n whistles you just grab a pack of standard and rip it open. Due to the fast denigration of these standards labs use single use packages too - so go figure what that means for your big batch ;) So for the economical question, get a cheap source of these standards in little packs and stocking a stash of 7.01/4.01/1,413µS/KCL will get you the furthest.
Easy and very informative. I got a question please, if I have a city water of ec 0.4, will amino acids help to chelate those insoluble nutrients and make them available to the plant (especially calcium)?
WHy s sulphure used on soils. DOes it replace hmic acids? is it needed to increase the conductivity of the soil. Nitrogen can get stuck to clay particles does a high ocnductivity change this help take nitrogen off the clay?
nice information...thanks. in my region wich is saline track the ec is more than 2 and sometimes go up to 4 for soil as well as water. how can we help the farmers in this region. due to less affordable capacity farmers cannot afford to install RO plants. can you suggest the remedy/ solution for the problem
I have two meters which are reading in ms and one is reading 2k and the other is reading 5k. There is no calibration for either and they both are new and cheap designs. What gives?
It took me a while to understand that EC measures ALL the nutrients in solution, basically the sum of all the ionic compounds. You can't measure how much phosphorus you need to add, because it's just a part of the reading. If you keep adding an "all-in-one" solution, at some point you have to dump everything out and start over because the proportions are out of whack. How do you know when you get to that point?
As usual, a very informative video. I do have a question, though. It seems like EC and exactly what contaminates are in the water are two separate 'readings', is this correct? Clearly, EC doesn't actually tell you the exact names of the chemicals that are in the water, more just how much of them there are, so is this a 'problem'? I ask this because I live in Saudi Arabia and the ppm of the water here is over 2000 which means it is out of range for my Hanna Instruments EC / TDS meter (for both scales). If, I am able to get the EC to within an acceptable range, is this all that matters, or do I actually need to know what is in my water (the exact names of the chemicals) and somehow 'balance' them out too? Thank you very much in advance. :)
I have watched your video many times most of it, to understand whats all this EC, ppm, TDS, etc. I understand somehow, I only have a ppm measurement, so 1k ppm depends on which conversion EC . well when I measure my water there's already a ppm like 300 then I tried the rainwater it is like only 30 ppm most likely. so its not ok to just minus the ppm in the water so you can come up to what EC you want like I need 1k then when putting the nutrient solution I will gEt a 1300ppm. Is this ok?
One question Ethan please - While planting the lettuce seedlings, I set up the EC on 1.0, and as I know, I have to increase it step by step, but what is the exact period when I have to set it up at 1.5 and 2.0? or above them?
Hello! I would generally recommend with Lettuce that you hold the EC at 1.2, any higher and you are wasting nutrients and risking nutrient lockout by too much Calcium or Magnesium! Thanks for watching
@@ZipGrowInc Thank you so much too, and one more question please - If you set up the EC at 1.2, what is your TDS and the concentration of macro elements in grams per liter water?
@@onisezivzivadze2193 Hello Onise, this typically depends on the nutrient mix you use, so depending on those ratios your macro elements will be affected. The only real way to get these numbers is to send them off to a lab after mixing your nutrients, or calculate based off the fertilizer bag and how much water you added Thanks for watching!
Are there other ways of measuring EC? I can't justify spending 200 dollars on a meter and I don't trust the 15 dollar one to be accurate. What can I do? Will not checking it make a huge difference? (I'm only growing a few trays of microgreens and some tomatoes)
Usually we only trust good quality EC Meters such as the Hanna or Bluelab Meters. If you cannot justify the cost, as long as you are replacing your solution every few weeks and dosing consistently you should be fine with microgreens and some tomatoes.
I am a beginner wrt Hydrophonics. I had questions wrt EC value.what is the relationship of EC wrt Temp..i am seeing strange values ex morning 1.1 to 1.2 temp 18C evening .7 to .9 temp 22C for continuous three days. Need help on this
