Selecting hydroponics water solutions

When selecting a hydroponic solution you need to take a few things into consideration first.


  • What crops do you plan on growing?
  • Does the crop produce and fruits?
  • Does the crop need any special nutrients?
Most hydroponic solutions come in a generic 1 mix solution (meaning that you don't need to do any mixing) but I prefer to use a 2 or 3 part solution product as this allows you to custom blend your solution for each crop and each stage of growth to get maximal benefit.
That being said there are three main types of hydroponic solution/nutrients. And depending on what type of crop you are going to plant will depend on the solution, you may end up using all of the three solutions or only one of them. Below are the three solution categories.
  1. Vegetative Nutrient - Used mainly for the purpose of building vegetation on your crop. Especially well suited to leafy crops such as lettuce. Also used to start other crops and then switch nutrient solution over to either fruiting nutrient or flowing nutrient
  2. Fruiting Nutrient - Used to assist fruit growth in crops - ie tomatoes
  3. Flowering Nutrient - Used to assist flowing of certain crops - ie flowering stage of tomatoes or flowers.
Having proper concentration of nutrients within the hydroponic solution is critical, as hydroponically grown plants rely only on what is mixed with the water for food, and different plants have different or varying nutrient requirements.