Feeding Calcium without adding Nitrogen in powder / salt form

Basic Growing Info
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Hello people,

after getting great inspiration on my last thread I decided to make the next :slight_smile: I am not 100% sure if this is the correct subforum for this question, so if it is not I apologize.

I am looking for a water-soluble calcium fertilizer as a single salt / powder. I dont want to use bottled nutrients.

Currently I use calcium nitrate as my source for both nitrogen and calcium. In veg and for moms it is perfect, but in flower when I wish to keep nitrogen low i use canna mono calcium. Canna mono calcium contains calcium oxide which afaik is not water-soluble so i am unsure how they do it.

Any ideas what i can use? Calcium chloride dihydrate?

Would really appreciate some help.

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A Canadian company , Plant prod , do one called spike I think , they have promised me some samples of their mj line when things settle

I too would like an alternative to canna mono cal for same reason : )

@cdnBuddy helped me a lot with reducing my n in flower with the spreadsheets he uses : )

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If I’m remembering correctly Spike is EDTA chelated calcium. Opens up products to search for when you know what it is.

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I have done a bit of reading and came across calcium acetate. Might be a keyword to look into further…

@ifish Will look into it.

@Pursuer yup, also stumbled upon EDTA chelated calcium

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Add calcium carbonate to the list

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Plant prods spike is a 2:1 ratio of Ca/Mg which is very nice. I’ve used it once…sorta just on stand by if needed along with their full line that I’m now dipping into.

There is also RAW CAL/MAG – NPK RAW …less Mg.

If you fancy a breakdown of what you’re feeding…you may be able to work with what you have.

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You could give KNF A Stab WSCA ( water soluble calcium dissolve egg shells in vinegar and dilute out to the proper concentration. Easy peasy ! Cheap no bottles except what ya make and store it in!

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I’ve done just that! Had to toss due to a blackened surface, seemingly mold(?) but am gathering eggshells and heating them up for an hour at 200 degrees C. Unlike the first one, I’ll grind the eggshells in coffee grinder and then mix with vinegar. Let it rest for weeks…

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Doesn’t readily dissolve in solution.

What you want is:

Calcium sulfate (pH neutral and soluble, probably the best option)
Calcium chloride (chloride can have it’s own issues)
Calcium EDTA
Calcium phosphate

Calcium sulfate (gypsum) is so cheap it’s almost free. I’m sure it’s available in powder form, though I use it in pellet form for my lawn & garden.

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IIRCC less then a couple days is all that’s needed pretty quick reaction ratios of vinegar to egg shells may have been the issue with mold

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Hey @Tinytuttle, thanks a bunch. Ignorance is what keeps us from improving! So, only two days sitting and then extract the eggshell powder residue or leave it in the mix? How could one not love this site!? OG’s capability of connecting like minded people…!

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Ya one can filter through cheese cloth, I’d say skip the charring of the eggs shell maybe just clean them before to get the membrane out … 10:1 dilution rate By weight when extracting the calcium then for dosing I believe it’s a 1:1000 for dosing purpose 1ml in 1 liter 4-5 ml/ gallon of water.

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Hey guys, thanks for the comments. :slight_smile: I forgot to add that I am using hydroponics, my bad!

@vernal Thanks for the list. I havent had time to do research about the different compounds yet. Did you use gypsum in a hydro set up with success? I will look into all of them when I have some time. Thanks!

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Calcium glucoheptonate?

There’s a product called dyna gold calcium.

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How is bioavailability? Have you tried it?

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I have some I use on occasion. I’ve never used it regularly in a full time nutrient schedule though.

It’s an amino acid chelate, so it should be pretty good.

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It doesn’t readily dissolve in a solution of pure H2O but it does dissolve just fine in a hydro reservoir where there are multiple reactions that happen. As an added bonus it acts as weak buffer. In fact if he is using tap water and not RO he already has calcium (bi)carbonate in his water.

From Wikipedia:

Chemistry

Calcium carbonate shares the typical properties of other carbonates. Notably it

CaCO3(s) + 2 H+(aq) → Ca2+(aq) + CO2(g) + H2O(l)

CaCO3(s) → CaO(s) + CO2(g)

Calcium carbonate will react with water that is saturated with carbon dioxide to form the soluble calcium bicarbonate.

CaCO3(s) + CO2(g) + H2O(l) → Ca(HCO3)2(aq)

This reaction is important in the erosion of carbonate rock, forming caverns, and leads to hard water in many regions.

An unusual form of calcium carbonate is the hexahydrate, ikaite, CaCO3·6H2O. Ikaite is stable only below 8 °C.

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I think you’ll be quite happy with the plant prod line of nutrients . I went from 11 different liquid ferts of general hydro to 3 different salts of plant prod .

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Bud we don’t need a wikipedia article I’m simply telling you plainly calcium carbonate powder doesn’t readily dissolve in water for hydroponic purposes. There’s a good reason why more readily soluble salts are used.

Go try to dissolve powdered limestone in tapwater and see how long it takes. Hard water does have a lot of carbonates, because it comes from groundwater, which has been sitting in limestone aquifers for, in some cases, thousands of years.

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Okay “bud”. Chemistry stops working in hydro. Got it. Go bro science.

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