You will be missing calcium and magnesium. So unless you have very hard water, it would probably not work very well.
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I edited that post.
And my tap is 110-120 ppm @ 7.7ph (ISH)
@tamimes are these late bloom formulas? I think either could be ok, except iron seems to be critically low in the 2nd formula. I am not certain what the iron availability is in hard water sources. I think it’s probably not very available.
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Here’s a coco veg formula I’m testing right now. Lots of N and Ca, low K, S to help get a good calcium buffer established in the coco. I’m setting the pH to ~5.8, since this is a zero NH4 formula (using pure cal).
The coco I’m using is Tupur, which also has some basalt.
When I start flowering, I’ll raise the K significantly, hold P, and N, and drop Ca slightly.
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I agree with you about the magnesium is Jacks 3-2-1….
I only add a addition 40-50 ppm of magnesium!
Also I mix up by ppm vs weight or volume…
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additive review Cyco XL
I went down to the hydro store the other day to grab some coco, and they gave me a sample bottle of this stuff. Skeptical… interesting, I thought, let’s check it out. Their marketing team seems convinced it’s like monster energy drink for your plants.
First thing I noticed, looking at the back is that it’s derived from phosphoric acid (0-40-0). Concentrated stuff. In the ‘derived from’ listing it shows “superphosphoric acid”. That’s just a fancy way of saying concentrated phosphoric acid.
You can get more concentrated forms of phosphoric acid, but 40% is pretty strong. Maybe I should be wearing goggles and nitrile gloves when using this shit. Alas, no MSDS printed on the label. It is a viscous solution, which is not surprising for phosphoric acid. I think it’s probably slightly watered down superphosphoric acid, which is typically 69% concentration.
With nothing else listed on the label, I suspected it’s just concentrated pH down. It’s just an acid apparently only contributing HPO4- anions. If there were something in the bottle to balance out the pH, then there would be cations contributed. The fact that it lists nothing else tells me that either this is just phosphoric acid, like it says. If there are cations, even worse! because then I don’t know what the hell I’m doing to my nutrient solution.
Fuck it right? Let’s give it a go. Bottle says 0.5mL per liter of nutrient solution. Let’s do a little estimation…
The density of 50% phosphoric acid is 1.25g/mL. So 0.5mL is 0.625g. Now we need to convert P2O5 to P using the conversion table I posted here:
The conversion factor is 0.44. So 0.625g * 0.44 = 0.275g of P per liter. If you remember, ppm is the same as mg/L, so by their recommendations, they are trying to recommend adding 275ppm of P to your nutrient solution… these people really are Cyco.
I didn’t want to make any assumptions, so bottoms up. I mixed about 12 gallons of nutrient in my reservoir using a 321 formula that comes out to about a pH of 6 with my water. 12 gallons is about 45 liters, so they want me to add 22.5mL of Cyco. I added 6mL, and then tested my pH. Sure enough it read 3.5(!)
Sigh… this is going badly. On the label it reads IMPORTANT: Must adjust pH to 5.5 to 5.6. I had only just added about 25% of what they recommended and my pH is already a disaster… let alone the fact that in no world does a plant need 275ppm of phosphorus. This is ridiculous.
So what’s the problem now? I have to adjust my pH back up 5.5 using pH up. For god sakes, I’ve gotta add in a whole bunch of KOH to balance it out, which means that the amount of potassium I’m going to put in is going to be in similar amounts to the amount of phosphorus (+275ppm) that I just used.
By now, you should be thinking “hmm so if you add acidic phosphorus anions that cause your pH to drop and then balance it with KOH and add in a ton of potassium, why not just use… potassium phosphate - ie MKP?” Yes, fuck this stuff, just use MKP and don’t throw everything out of whack by adding 275ppm of P and then a similar amount of K to resurrect your pH from the grave. Not being able to bear the sloppiness of my nutrient solution, I drained the whole thing and started over.
Here’s the facts and conclusions. You can’t just dump a bunch of anions into your nutrient solution and not have to respond by adding a bunch more cations. This is why we use salts and not acids to make our nutrients. These extra large cycos want to convince you that you have some kind of shortcut to just cranking the phosphorus – and while high phosphorus (like 60ppm) during veg is probably beneficial, you have to balance it with the rest of your nutrients. Because if you use an acid to get your nutrients, you will inevitably have to balance it back out with cations and you should just choose a salt to use in the first place.
Options include – potassium phosphate (slightly acidic MKP or grow clean, slightly basic DKP), ammonium phosphate or magnesium phosphate. You can also use ICL peKacid, but it’s also very acidic.
Since Cyco XL is just concentrated phosphoric acid, it’s really not different than a phosphoric acid pH down, which is also a fine way to add a little phosphorus to your nutrient solution. But don’t swing your pH so low that you have to correct it again. There’s just no point.
Verdict: bullshit, I’ll water it down and use it as pH down instead
Edit:
In order to make this review more helpful, here are some more reasonable ways to add P to your nutrient solution. Assuming you start with about 30-40ppm of P and want to add 30ppm more in the 3rd week of veg, here’s what you could do.
MKP - 0.5g/gal this will add 30ppm of P and 37ppm of K. Disadvantages are that your plants probably don’t need extra K in veg. This will slightly acidify your solution slightly, so add this first and then adjust pH
DKP - 0.5g/gal this will add about 24ppm of P and 59ppm of K. I would not choose this, unless your nutrient solution pH is typically falling and you would otherwise use pH up
Grow Clean - 0.75g/gal adds 27ppm of P, 66ppm of K and 11ppm of nitrate nitrogen. Nice because it adds back in a little N, but not a substantial amount of P compared to other stuff. Probably skip this one unless you already have it
MAP - 0.4g/gal adds 28ppm of P and 13ppm of NH4. This is a good option, and it will cause your pH to drop over the next day or two. If you add it when your pH is high, as the plants consume NH4, it will drop the pH, so I’d suggest leaving your pH high and seeing what happens after a day
Magnesium phosphate - 0.5g/gal adds 32ppm of P and 20ppm of K and 5.5ppm of Mg. Great option, not much down side and easy to use. I don’t think this will cause much change in your pH
Fertilome or Carl Pool 9-58-8 - 0.4g/gal adds 27ppm of P, 7ppm of K and 9.5ppm of NH4. Perhaps a good middle ground between MAP and MKP. This is a good option as well.
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Wonderful review, when you said you had raise the pH with KOH, I literally laughed out loud.
This is why I stick to organics, I just got some fermented snake aminos that should double my yield. 
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It’s a little bit crazy the marketing campaigns that go on. Products like these people are selling are really capitalizing on the fact that nutrient solutions are challenging to understand, yet a lot of people need to rely on them. I’m always skeptical when the label or name starts out by overstating the product.
Those snake aminos are the bomb though. The oils are great at repelling pests too!
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I assume there’s probably an unlisted ingredient in the Cyco. All the expensive “supplements” do in some form. That shit is expensive…far easier ways to get phosphorous…plus it’s so strong, even with my water that would absolutely tank my pH. I use less than a mL of pH down per 5 gallons. If it is literally just phosphoric acid then it’s the greatest of scams lol. Especially since they already make a very reasonably priced very concentrated pH down that is simply phosphoric acid.
What hormones or PGRs are soluble and stable in acid is what I wonder? Salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, gibberellins, auxins, triacontanol, etc?
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This thread is GOLD
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For me personally, if they’re not telling, I’m not buying. I will always prefer to know what I’m paying for and understand what I am applying my grow. Too much money is wasted on voodoo and guessing.
AFAIK it is just superphosphoric acid, which may be polyphosphate rather than orthophosphate. I think that this is the most logical conclusion, because if you are going to use such extreme amounts, then orthophosphate would cause calcium precipitation wherever your nutrient solution started to become the least bit dry.
This is from their website:
Super Phosphoric acid is produced from phosphates by reacting with sulphuric acid. The acid is reacted with alkaline salts to produce purified phosphates.
Now compare with this page that describes superphosphoric acid:
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Phosphoric_acids_and_phosphates
Of the many phosphorus oxoacids, the phosphoric acids constitute the largest and most diverse group. The simplest phosphoric acid series begins with monophosphoric (orthophosphoric) acid, continues with many oligophosphoric acids such as diphosphoric (pyrophosphoric) acid and concludes in the polyphorphoric acids. But phosphoric acid units can bind together into rings or cyclic structures, chains (catenas), or branched structures, with various combinations possible. Each of these can form phosphates (salts or esters).
Phosphorus can be further oxidized while in the +5 state to paraphosphoric acid (H5PO5). Occasionally oxygen can be replaced by sulfur to form thiophosphoric acids. When the acid contains one more oxygen (+7 state for phosphorus) than phosphoric acid, it is called perphosphoric acid.
And later…
Superphosphoric acid
Superphosphoric acid is a blend of orthophosphoric and polyphosphoric acid, CAS Number 8017-16-1. Superphosphoric acids can be in the concentration range of 62-85% P2O5 (86-117% H3PO4), but at about 90% H3PO4 the amount of condensed phosphate species becomes significant.[21] The concentration range of the superphosphoric acids is a range of increasing importance in fertilizer technology.[21]
Superphosphoric acid is sometimes called multiphosphoric acid or polyphosphoric acid.
Superphosphates (salts or esters) can result from the use of superphosphoric acid. Superphosphate has been produced by acidulating phosphate rock with superphosphoric acid, where the superphosphoric acid contained about 49% of its phosphate as orthophosphate, 42% as pyrophosphate, and the remainder as polyphosphates.[22]
My theory is that it is just a polyphosphoric acid that can be used in extreme amounts without binding up cations like calcium, iron, zinc and copper and causing precipitations.
This statement is a fairly generic statement that can be made about any polyphosphate:
Plants need phosphorus and phosphorus containing compounds as they play a vital role in photosynthesis. Super Phosphoric acid also aids in root development and helps increase the uptake of iron, nitrogen and potassium.
Polyphosphates do not bind to minerals, but rather form very weak bonds that can be easily dissociated, like a chelator. So rather than forming a tightly bound solid precipitation, they have more of a protective quality. As for nitrogen, an anion, the same could be said about orthophosphates – simply that phosphorus is critical to all energy transfer processes:
Phosphorus functions as one of the main promoters of photosynthesis, nutrient transport, and energy transfer via energy-rich linkages (ATP).
Anyway, my objection is not that it doesn’t work. I tend to advocate higher than typically recommended levels of phosphorus in veg through stretch.
What I don’t agree with is the extreme amounts that they recommend, which then has to be heavily compensated in ways that throw everything off kilter. And secondarily, the inconvenience of using such an amendment, when a salt (such as grow clean) can provide both polyphosphate already balanced with potassium at a fraction of the cost. And third – that there is any scientific evidence whatsoever that adding 275ppm of any form of phosphorus is beneficial to plants. It is not clear to me that if you flood your anion ratio with phosphorus to the detriment of nitrogen, that it will net an overall beneficial result toward nitrogen uptake. But perhaps it is ok in short burst as a “precharge” to the early flowering stage when plant growth is most accelerated and demanding.
I would tend to prefer a “consistently high” amount of phosphorus from veg through stretch, which does not create exclusionary periods of nutrient uptake at any stage. Also, if you don’t use extreme phosphorus levels, you don’t necessarily need fancy polyphosphates. But I will also agree that there are a million ways to grow successfully, and cannabis tolerates a lot of different nutrient conditions.
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Thanks for the writeup, very informative. Like you said I fail to see how the ingredients as labelled could be that effective in the amounts used.
Remember Snowstorm Ultra and Purple Maxx and Gravity and all those “finishers”? If you ask them it’s simply a 0-0-3 supplement…but they get pulled off the shelves and reformulated periodically haha. Or even things like Canna Boost and Rhizotonic. Not just paclobutrazol and daminozide either, usually some other hormone or similar.
But I feel ya, I just want to know the ingredients lol. I don’t like magic elixirs.
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I think if I were going to consider using a PGR product, I would read about which are cheap/available/effective and then source them directly.
I will say that polyphosphate fertilizers are not especially common, but if that’s all Cyco is, there are some unique properties about them that makes the able to be used in high concentrations compared to orthophosphates. Pretty much all salts are orthophosphates, because they are simple molecules.
But if I’m going to pile in the polyphosphate, I’d rather use grow clean anyway, because it’s essentially pre-balanced with potassium and won’t cause the pH swing and ? amounts of potassium that I’d have to add back, in the form of pH up.
Here’s one thing I learned today about polyphosphates:
Why should I choose an orthophosphate over a polyphosphate starter product? Orthophosphate is readily available to a plant, meaning it can be taken up anytime. On the other hand, polyphosphate products need to undergo enzyme-driven hydrolysis, which generally occurs at or above 50-degree soil temperature for conversion (between 10 to 14 days) to orthophosphate.
It is not clear to me how this works in hydroponics, but the phosphorus in grow clean is 50% polyphosphate and 50% orthophosphate.
https://www.haifa-group.com/sites/default/files/files/Haifa_GrowClean.pdf
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i would not recommend cyco . I was having a rant. It killed my last grow.
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I’m sorry to hear that… if you were following the instructions for their recommended amounts, it’s a ton of phosphorus. Seems unnecessary and potentially harmful.
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I thought you knew that. I had major problems with the product. I got stuck with the product. @lefthandseeds i’ll have to tell you about it one day.
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I remembered you were pissed at the product, but I don’t think I know all the details.
It’s probably because I deleted everything. Lol. It’s all good I’m glad you said something about the product. Peace
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@lefthandseeds thanks for having a look so better add some iron to my second formula? Or a micro mix making all the micro a little bit higher?
Its not for late bloom formula i use it from day 1 to the end very small pots 0,5 liter have to keep them small have only 1 mtr hight and i have 150 pots on a 60 liter recirculating tank plants are in different stages in groups of 30 so i plant seeds or cuts direct on 12/12 every 2 weeks so i tought every stage take out its nutrient that its need (i dont want big plants) so as little N as possible i grow buds in a pot not plants so maybe there is a better formula to use
Cyco as im not mistaken was wit Pgr (cycocel -Chlorcholinchlorid)
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I would probably go with a micro mix, because Mn is a little low as well. Use something chelated, not sulfates. If you get iron, get DPTA – or if you’re using soil, EDDHA is a good choice too but maybe a little more expensive.
Nice, thanks for the info. This stuff?
“FOR USE ONLY ON ORNAMENTALS GROWN IN COMMERCIAL OR RESEARCH GREENHOUSES, SHADE-HOUSES AND NURSERIES”
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