Homemade Miraclegro Liquafeed Refill

[MrSalvage]

Originally Posted by Rajun Gardener

I'm glad you have time to tinker and get it right.

I've been playing too, I have a dutch bucket hydro system and have a PPM meter so I did some testing. I hope this makes sense

I bought some bulk MG, it's blue compared to the green stuff in the bottle and twice as strong. The blue is 24-8-16


The bottle refills are 12-4-8


The MG Tomato food is 18-18-21


I'm not exactly sure how PPM changes with different strengths but it took 6 tbsp of the blue MG mixed with a little water to reach the 450PPM that matches the prepacked bottle.

The instructions on the blue stuff


I went out and started testing all the mixed solutions
I set up the feeder like directions say for the feeder and tested the supplied bottle and out the hose the PPM is 519
I then mixed a batch of the blue stuff, 1 tbsp-1 gallon of water and it tested 885, this is closer to what my hydroponic mix is but maybe it's too strong for the garden to feed more than once a week because we already have most of the requirements to grow compared to hydroponics soil-less mix but I'm just guessing.
I changed the solution in the bottle and ran that home mix of the blue MG I mixed earlier, it was only 186. This should confirm that the fertilizer in the bottles are made from different stuff and I don't have a meter to test so from here I'm winging it.
I mixed another 4.5 tbsp and then it tested 265
I added another 4.5 and it went up to 366
That's a total of 15 tbsp to get 366, I'm guessing another 6 tbsp and it would reach the same PPM as the bottle but about half as much as the recommeded mix in the directions.
I used 1/2 lb of the 1.5lb box I bought for $5.00, that $1.66 for 40 gallons

I haven't been using MG so I can't say if works good mixing it lighter than recommended. I'm sure that most of us amend the soil before planting and that should help to not need a full strength mix as a weekly feeding.

I think it'll work great as a light feeding once a week and I'm gonna start off with 10tbsp and see how it goes. Thoughts?

I just want to confirm what your saying. It's been a lot of work getting to this stage and i don't want to burn my plants up.

If i buy the 24-8-16 and add 1/2 pound to a gallon of water. Then fill up 8 used pint bottles with it. I should have about the same mix as whats in the original bottles. Or are you saying that it would be half strength of whats in the bottles and i could feed weekly with it?

Thanks for your time.
Bill