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Cheap Nutrient Line for Commercial and Home Grows?
- Thread starter BillFarthing
- Start date
Old Uncle Ben
Well-known member
"Cheap Nutrient Line for Commercial and Home Grows?"
Yeah, I have a cheap line but you sure won't find it at some cannabis rip off site.
Food cost - Osmocote 15-9-12 with micros - about 1.00 USD for the 9 pots, if that much. That's all I'll need.
Rainwater - free
Soil - whatever I have stockpiled. I have to laugh when I read the word "super" soil stuff. Yeah, I have "super soil". I just grab some bags and start dumping.
Smoke is always smooth and potent. Will go 12/12 on the oldest in a few days, front row, all afghans.
Am I correct that the folks stuck on the cannabis specific foods are from Euro countries and Australia?
Uncle Ben
Yeah, I have a cheap line but you sure won't find it at some cannabis rip off site.
Food cost - Osmocote 15-9-12 with micros - about 1.00 USD for the 9 pots, if that much. That's all I'll need.
Rainwater - free
Soil - whatever I have stockpiled. I have to laugh when I read the word "super" soil stuff. Yeah, I have "super soil". I just grab some bags and start dumping.
Smoke is always smooth and potent. Will go 12/12 on the oldest in a few days, front row, all afghans.
Am I correct that the folks stuck on the cannabis specific foods are from Euro countries and Australia?
Uncle Ben
There's no root rot for sure, i'm using hardish uk tap water so there should be some buffer
had zero issue when using standard bottled nutes and in veg there has been no issues.
also forgot to mention i'm using silica, the issue got even worse when I added mills vitalize over normal silica I noticed a lot of bubbling and ph went from 5.7 to 4.0 over night. Also put calcium hypochlorite to keep res sterile.
I have now done a full change out with no silicone supplementation and just kristalon, calcicinit and epsom salt. the ratio of kristalon;calcicnit being 3:5 and if the PH continues to drop I will have to go back to the bottled nutes.
had zero issue when using standard bottled nutes and in veg there has been no issues.
also forgot to mention i'm using silica, the issue got even worse when I added mills vitalize over normal silica I noticed a lot of bubbling and ph went from 5.7 to 4.0 over night. Also put calcium hypochlorite to keep res sterile.
I have now done a full change out with no silicone supplementation and just kristalon, calcicinit and epsom salt. the ratio of kristalon;calcicnit being 3:5 and if the PH continues to drop I will have to go back to the bottled nutes.
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thanks pal i've read a lot of your posts you clearly know your npk's lol
how would you combat the quick loss of K from the solution? theoretically it should not be an issue though because I've got a top off res on a float valve constantly feeding a fresh solution as they drink.
I added it first to plain water in my pre mixing res I never add silicone right into the dwc system because theres always a small amount of water with nutes in there, used a powerful pump to circulate but maybe wasn't long enough.
I could be using too much of the silica, I've used the dosages suggested on the bottles so far with no ill effects until now but maybe the mills needs a much lower dosage
I've seen great results from silica, but it does seem to be a bit of a headache sometimes
I could be using too much of the silica, I've used the dosages suggested on the bottles so far with no ill effects until now but maybe the mills needs a much lower dosage
I've seen great results from silica, but it does seem to be a bit of a headache sometimes
Ca++
Well-known member
Not a lot you could do. I would watch for signs of excess K in the plants though, to see if it's a possibility.
I'm drawn to the silica comment about bubbling.
I would mix a liter of feed, both with and without. Leave them a few hours, and see what you have. A side by side test, that doesn't involve the plants at all.
Old Uncle Ben
Well-known member
What are those signs?
I will do that and see
After a res change out with zero silica things are perfectly stable (for now) so clearly silica is the issue, I also tried two different types of silicon and had issues with both. ph dropped much slower with the shogun silicon but as soon as I added mills the PH dropped like a stone.
I had no issues when using shogun silicone with bottled nutrients from the shop, but switching to the kristalon / calcinit combo seems to give ph problems
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Ca++
Well-known member
Thanks for sharing this. What I used was potassium silicate, which is again, K raising pH. However the bubbling sounds like a chemical reaction. Not the plants taking it. I can't say what the reaction is, but the K present seems interesting.
You are over the hurdle, which is what matters. I'm going to save this idea for when my pH is soaring up and out of range though. It might not be useless
Yes indeed, I initially thought that maybe nute manufacturers put in some sort of PH stabilizer that the raw materials don't have which was causing me the PH issues.
I rarely see pH climbing, since I'm usually pushing my plants to the limit with feed. Since using kristalon/calc they seem to be able to take a higher feed of 1.2 ec at the end of veg / early flower when usually it's around 1-1.1 ec. I have set the top off resevoir to 800ppm so they will constantly be able to take what they need
I rarely see pH climbing, since I'm usually pushing my plants to the limit with feed. Since using kristalon/calc they seem to be able to take a higher feed of 1.2 ec at the end of veg / early flower when usually it's around 1-1.1 ec. I have set the top off resevoir to 800ppm so they will constantly be able to take what they need
