Using home made cal and mag supplements

[anon93244739]

I’ve always used a cal mag supplement of some kind, and I usually ad epsom salt too. I was thinking, could I make a liquid solution of epsom, and one of gypsum, then use them as my calmag? Or to supplement? I’m trying to break my bottle additive addiction. I started out that way using fox farms way back when, and even though I’m in wonderfully amended organic soil, I still reach for my roots organic bottled nutes and mr muchastache calmag.

For my main nutes I’m going to try using just the roots terp teas this run, SST’S, and cal mag. But I want to stop using liquid calmag if possible on my soil and use what I have for my hydro experiment. I have some liquid guano and fish emulsion I’ll probably add during flower, just to use up.

Help me break from the bottles!

[Blue]

DIY CalMag+ (using eggshells and molasses)

I already put together a different DIY for CalMag+, however if you want to be even more hands-on, you can make some 100% organic CalMag+ at home using only egg shells and molasses and apple cider vinegar, for just pennies a gallon. Considering that it currently sells for around $20 a quart, that is quite a savings. Gather together the equivalent of a dozen egg shells. Wash the egg shells and allow them to dry. Make sure that the only part remaining is the shell - remove the inner lining of…

dunno if that helps you at all…?

[Blue]

DIY CalMag+ style (calcium and magnesium with iron) supplement

CalMag Plus is a vital part of growing marijuana, and you can make your own comparable version easily for a fraction of the price of commercially available ones. This is a highly fortified calcium, magnesium and iron plant supplement that is designed to correct common deficiencies. Recipe: 77.83 grams of Calcium Nitrate 77.83 grams of Magnesium Nitrate 7.89 grams of 13% Iron EDTA 1 quart of distilled water Usage: soil gardens: 4.75 ml per gallon of water hydroponics: 9.5 ml per gallon of…

[anon93244739]

Nope, somehow didn’t come up when I searched, thanks!

[Foreigner]

I have done the vinegar eggshell technique and used it with some success.

I didn’t ever see any deficiencies BUT I ended up going back to a traditional bottled calmag because I could never be certain of the dose and I didn’t like that.

YMMV

All the best.

[anon93244739]

So im thinking I can do the chemistry to use a slight mod of that tek. Let me write it up and think about it, and I’ll post back.

In theory I could use gypsum as my Ca source, and it would just release Sulphur oxide/dioxide yielding Ca acetate, then add dissolved mgso4 as my mag source, ph it with KOH which should make some MgOH and KSO4 too, then just use molasses for Iron, trace minerals and as a carb source? Let me burble my brain now that I have a framework.

[J-Icky]

How do you plan on getting the gypsum into solution in a known quantity? Yes some will dissolve but most won’t and will give you dosing issues.

[anon93244739]

So, im going to base it off my vinegar solution, if its approx 5%, then I have 5 ml in 100, I already rinsed some of my gypsum, leaving a gray powder, now I soak it in white distilled vinegar until it stops bubbling (holy crap does it smell like sulphur btw).

So basically… molarity of pure acetic acid is 17.416 (I’m assuming 5% concentration), molarity of caso4 is 136.14. So for 1g clean and dry caso4 I’ll need about 156 times the weight of vinegar, about 160 ml, to have a slight excess. This will give me 1g in solution per 160ish ml, with minimal mag, n, p, or anything else. Acetic acid breaks down into water and co2.

[Abbbian]

Hi, we were having this discussion here too… hope it helps.

Feeding Calcium without adding Nitrogen in powder / salt form

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.

[anon93244739]

Caso4 is 29% calcium. So every gram of caso4 i dissolve into 160 ml vinegar will give me about .29g of dissolved calcium

[anon93244739]

Cal mag is 3.2% ca , this will be a .2% solution. So use 16ml for 1 ml calmag bottled.

[Seamonkey84]

Would the calcium and magnesium part of this be of any use?
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

[anon93244739]

Extremely useful! Thanks my friend

[Seamonkey84]

I used that formula for my reef tank for years, I figured that it may be useful but not sure if it’s too much chloride with the calcium part.

[anon93244739]

I see where the chem is leading. I like it alot. Thanks again

[Seamonkey84]

Well good, glad to help. Let me know what you come up with and how to use it lol.

[anon93244739]

So, I’m thinking the gypsum dissolved into vinegar might work well as a foliar, but far too dilute to use as a cal mag supplement. I mean you need 16x to equal cal % as calmag. Now if you used a higher concentration vinegar… then were making something usable.

Now to read more in depth on that page and modify my idea.

[anon93244739]

I have crystalline citric acid on hand, I could turn the gypsum into calcium citrate, or rather calcium sulphate chelated with citric acid. Looks like thats a good foliar spray. How would a citrate salt work in soil though?

6% Calcium Citrate Foliar Spray — CultivAce

And sulphur kills molds right? Not a bad thing to put onto leaves

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1040%26context%3Dideafest&ved=2ahUKEwjt_OC0tc_uAhUCHc0KHXQPAYIQFjATegQIExAB&usg=AOvVaw1Sd8-MC-86TtKRu8cFX8kR

I think I’m onto something

[anon93244739]

Iron reacts with citric acid , yielding ferrous citrate FeC6H6O7. … While the magnet is holding the residual metallic iron , you can pour out the colorless ferrous citrate solution. Hydrogen peroxide H2O2 oxidizes iron (II) to iron (III), forming a yellow ferric citrate FeC6H5O7 solution.

There’s the iron for a liquid supplement.

Tomorrow gonna be a fun chemistry day lol