Hello, I'm trying to grow some veggies on my rooftop. I've few kratky setup containing water spinach. Recently I've planted 2 tomato, 2 eggplant and 2 bitter gourd plant, also in kratky. Besides, I've 2 watermelon and 3 rock melon, but they are in the grow bag + hydroponic solution system. In these grow bags, I'm using rice husk mixed with a very small amount of coco peat, because cocopeat is not that cheap in my locality. I've made a small drip system to fertigate these bags.
For Nutrients, I'm using Potassium Nitrate, Calcium Nitrate, Mono Potassium Phosphate, Epsom Salt and a locally available micro mix liquid for foliar spray, which claims to contains all the micro nutrients, but I don't think so. So, I'm also using chelated zinc, solubor boron and copper sulfate in the solution.
No other micro nutrient is available in my country.
Most of the time my plants suffer from Iron deficiency, so, recently I'm using Ferrous Sulfate, which I made by mixing irons with sulfuric acid. It seems to work.
My water is little bit alkaline, normal PH is around or above 8. So I use diluted Sulfuric acid (Battery Acid) to lower the PH because it is cheap, cheaper than vinegar.
Now, the problem I've always faced, is that Calcium Nitrate. I always add all the fertilizer salts in the kratky container, except that CN. Then after an hour or two, I dissolve the CN in a small amount of water, and then mix that solution drop by drop in the container. And the calcium always reacts with someone and forms insoluble precipitate.
So, in my grow bag system, in one day I fertigate the bags with all the fertilizer without CN. Then the next I fertigate them with CN only. I'm repeating this cycle, don't know what is going on deep inside. But so far, the melons doing great.
I'm using Hydrobuddy V1.100 to calculate the amount of fertilizer.
But I can't avoid this precipitation problem in my kratky systems. I've no idea about how to solve it.
Can you please help me?
Thanks in advance,
Regards,
Sukdeb Biswas.