Florida Growers Thread; Reloaded

[ChasingGreen]

Question - If I run DWC fine with tap water that hasn't been set out overnight, would there be any reason why I would need to do it for soil? Is soil MORE sensitive to it or something?

Oh and I think all my issues are caused by nutrient burn. Going to do some serious flushing and see how things go.

 

[Hugh Midity]

The chlorine or chloramine in your tap will likely kill any beneficial bacterias if you're doing organic, if you're not then no,straight from the tap is fine

 

[Catatafish]

I know i will be beat down for saying so but .... i never had any problems running organics with tap. Did water only with a supersoil-esque mix for years in our nasty tap. Either it doesnt kill enough or they already broke down enough food before watering starts (cooked for 1-2months). That being said, your probably better off with something better or a filter to remove the chloramine.

Dont yell at me if it fails, hugh warned you ;0

 

[bugman52]

i use roots organic in my tap water,& it worked ok ,im sure it kills some benes, i do have better luck whin i use distilled or spring water only for roots organic.

 

[bugman52]

Question - If I run DWC fine with tap water that hasn't been set out overnight, would there be any reason why I would need to do it for soil? Is soil MORE sensitive to it or something?

Oh and I think all my issues are caused by nutrient burn. Going to do some serious flushing and see how things go.

CG what nuternce u use?
whats the ppm's
ive been lowering my feed,was feeding at 900-1000 ppm
now im feeding at about 500 ppm
less is more.
im useing less food & getting biger buds & my plants r drinking more water/feed

 

[ChasingGreen]

Right now if I just use tapwater and nutes, I will get bacteria growth in my DWC res. I started adding Great White and the problem has been solved, just one scoop of that at the start of the grow and one scoop when I flush and go to bloom res (leaving a little in each time when re-filling to keep the bennies). So if I'm having that issue, it seems like there's no chlorine in there?

I have a filter on my house, not sure exactly what it does though. I know it softens the water, but it also has this NASA (branded NASA) filter of some kind, but I don't think it's RO (as I installed an RO at work and it was very different).

I didn't like the results of the RO with keeping my water ph stable.

Anyhow, my thought process is that if I use tap and bennies and it's defeating the bad bacteria, then perhaps I don't need to let my water sit for 24 hours? I'm looking to flush (3) 5 gallon buckets, so I would have to own (and I do... lol) and have space for (15) 5 gallon buckets sitting around with water letting it sit out overnight. Trying to avoid that since I don't do it for DWC.

Was hoping there was some kind of a chlorine test.
Bugs - I use FloraDuo. I flushed the plants, they looked pale green but better, then I added nutrients back, haven't gotten dark green and the damage is already starting again. I'm pretty sure all the damage photos I've posted are from nutrient burn. Perhaps I'm just overdoing it since I'm so used to DWC. For my DWC, I run Flora Duo + Calmag + Hydroplex + Great White. I keep the ph stable at 5.8 for 2 weeks no problem, just adding 5.8 to top off, every other time with Hydroplex. I keep the DWC ppm around 800 in flower. Anything higher and I'm seeing burn with this plant. Last plant could handle 1,000ppm max.

What I don't understand are:
What is the PH of my soil? Is it the runoff ph? Doesn't the input PH affect that then?

What does the runoff ppm mean? When I take a bag of FFOF and run water through it (150ppm tap), it comes out at 3500ppm. That seems CRAZY high. The plants that were in just FFOF all had a lot of burn. I flushed them, but the burn returned it seems. Going to flush again today, just hoping I'm ok not letting the water sit out. After I initially flushed them the runoff went from 3500 to 1500. One of the plants I put into a FFOF / Regular Soil / Perlite mix and it's looking fantastic, leading me to believe I must of just had a crazy hot bag of FFOF?

Does anyone have photos of what happens if there is chlorine in the water? Just kills the bennies or damages the plant?

 

[bugman52]

did i understand u right ,tap is 150 ppm,& runoff on new soil is 3500ppm.
if thats so your soil is too hot.
i use tap water,& last mounth my water had alot of chlorine in it ,my plants suffered because of it , lack of growth,slow about taking in water/feed,& the bigest part was causing ph swings.
one day it;s 6.2 the next it was 5.7 , if i dident up the ph next day it be 5.2 or lower
i dont know if the chlorine cause the ph swing, but i sure could smell it.
my water just got better in the last week or so.
edit; my tap water checked out at 170 ppm & 6.5-7.0 ph

 

[ChasingGreen]

Just taking some measurements to post as we speak, I really appreciate all the soil advice, I feel like someone trying to navigate a map in a different language.

Here is what happened when I just flushed 2 gal through one plant as a test into a big saucer and then measured that with my electric meters, correct? Do you toss out the first bit, wait until it all drains, etc? Never been shown how to flush if there's some specific tricks. Do I need to PH the water I use to flush with? Do I add anything after flushing or just put them back in the tent? The plants are a week into flower.

Tap PH: 7.9
Tap PPM: 162

Runoff PH: 6.0
Runoff PPM: 1260
The Runoff was a dark yellow piss looking color...

That all seems pretty good, doesn't it? I cut off all the bad yellow and brown leaves yesterday and today there's a few more yellow ones. There are red specks on the last node to grow out already, so I assume it is indeed nute burn?

Bugs - It's interesting you say that about your water, I feel the same way, and I know we're pretty close in distance. Water had been terrible last month, and that's when all these problems started, ph from my tap was 7.3 one day and 8.1 a few days later. I also noticed some kind of a white residue on my clear hoses that had never formed before.

 

[Hugh Midity]

I remember ffof being hot as hell straight from the bag, I'd flush it down a bit,that's where your burn is probably coming from I'd think

 

[bugman52]

i had a simler problem with happy frog soil mix hot as hell caused ph problems & nutrence lock out

 

[bugman52]

CG your ph is fine
your ppm is still a little high.
just feed with water a few times till ppm is down. no nutr maybe some great white
i dont like to flush out soil mix as it holds alot of water [causing root rot] just let dry out some befor watering again.

 

[ChasingGreen]

I flushed the hell out of them with tapwater, 12 gal per 4 gal pot. I left them to drain in a tub. I checked the little bit of runoff that was left and and it was at 450ppm now so I then put them back in the tent about an hour later or so and they're looking as happy as ever, leaves pointing up towards the lights

I went ahead and flushed the mother as well since she was in 100% FFOF. I also re-potted the GSC, pics tomorrow, into a mix of about 25% FFOF, 50% Professional Potting Soil, and 25% Perlite, plus some dolomite lime. Watered that and tested the initial runoff and it was at 2500! I gave it about 2 gallons initially to get that runoff reading, then added another 3-4 gal until the runoff tray finally read 1400. Going to leave it there and see how it does.

 

[ChasingGreen]

For putting up with my bullshit and the journey through soil, I'd like to introduce everyone to Larry. Larry was a gnome that was tragically killed in the great sky fall of September that I noted a few days back. Larry lost both legs in the apocalyptic event that destroyed most of the Super Sweet Tooth clone shown here. A single branch survived.... and so did Legless Larry.

 

[Hugh Midity]

Thank god Larry made it, this senseless plant on gnome violence has to stop

 

[Asslover]

Chlorine in the water is actually beneficial. Keeps things nice & sterile. However, you probably need not worry about Chlorine cuz most Fla municipalities have switched over to Chloramine <-The very same ingredient in Dutch Masters's Zone.

 

[bugman52]

this is my seedling room,i start an only run seedlings in this room.[about 7'x7'x7']my last run was 42 seedlings ,was expectng about 1/2 males, but i ended up with about 30 or so females a little croulded.
this run i have about 15 seedlings [was expecting some tester beans to come in early july ,they never showed so room was a little empty, so i put about 8 or so big clones[moms] in there to fill up the space] the seedlings r in a soil mix 3gal pots, the clones r in coco in hempy about 2 1/2 gal pots.
O 8 seedlings r SG1 testers 4 Kraken, 4 Goblin King, the other 6-8 seedlings r my gear.

 

[blue_tick]

just stopped in to see what was going on and see guys talking about ph pens and soil. they don't go together in my opinion. ph pen is for hydro (synthetic's ) soil/soil-less that is correct should buffer the ph on it's own. i have read that when people use ffof and amend it they all use dolomite lime in it.the mix i make (not store bought) does not need to be ph for any reason. as far as chlorine goes bubble that shit out of your water before you use it if you want the micro herd to thrive. sterile is not what you want. use organic nutrients if growing in soil/soil-less medium. i amend sunshine mix with organic nutrients and just water till harvest with no problems at all. bone, blood, kelp, lime. water with liquid karma at 5ml per gallon water.here are a couple pic's in this mix.if any one is interested in my mix let me know

hope it helps

 

[bucketswithsoil]

im with flboy,a good soil,compost all the goodies,alfalfa,neem,kelp,plant/garden tone,glacial rock.dust,guanos,blood,bone etc.etc.etc.....im alongs that boat,i couldnt even tell ya what the hell my PH is and or my PPMS...i had all those gadgets in the beginning but as i started rooting around and reading abkut soil and what not...i just mix up a killer batch let sit.for a while and plant...

i actually use water from my.chiclid aquarium to water with,and that seems to work just fine...every now and then ill make a tea with some compost and kelp,...so not having to worry about.feeding schedule and what not...

tomorrow will be 8wks,chop time very soon..

 

[bucketswithsoil]

these are bringing up the rear....

 

[blue_tick]

bucketswithsoil. that's what i'm talking about. i use to be a slave to my plants hand watering every other day in coco test meters, ph pen,up,down,high dollar chemicals and had to flush my ass off to get some of the flavor i was suppose to get.but now the girls work for me. you use more goodies than i do at this point but i am planning on trying the buildasoil for pro mix. a little pricey but i want to see what it is about.

your girls in your last post look spot on by the way. i bet they will be tasty morsolas as well.