Nutes?

Are nutes nutes? Lol... I see them from $20-$150 for the same size containers. What's the bigg difference? Are some easier to work with than others? I understand that some that provide the same stuff are stronger than the next, but that much of a price difference. Any suggestions/advice on ones to use and to stay away from. You ask people there and they'll always take you to the most expensive. And, also some people run 4 things and some run 14...is it just a preference? Thanks...

Well if you are like most people, at some point you are going to feel like you should spend the money to see for yourself. If I had one recommendation to anyone new to growing though - start with a basic two-part (grow and bloom) nutrient line without any additives and keep it simple until you have at least one successful grow under your belt before trying all the additives being sold out there.

If I had a second recommendation, it would be to stay away from nutrients lines that are marketed solely towards cannabis growers and that also carry a steep price tag (like the poster-child for overpriced/overhyped nutrients: Advanced Nutrients). There's nothing special about cannabis when it comes to growing it - don't get fleeced, at least wait until you have a better idea of how to grow before dropping the money on them.

Well put Sablezen..was going to say very close to the same thing...IMO all you need is your 2 part formula and cal-mag...maybe add a bloom booster (molasses) to jump start flowering or possibly some hygrozyme or aquasheld if growing in a DWC-
for growing in soil organic compost and water is still the best way to go but this is not easy to market to growers....some ppl like the idea of buying something from a bottle to give them results- it's way cooler to say dude just gave them tiger blood than to say dude I watered them. Fox farm, Technaflora, General Hydroponics, etc all contain pretty much the same shit diluted with water:npk & macros

This is what you do to get it out of your system. Go to your hydroponic store and let them sell you everything under the hood. Then after you grow up as a gardener you will learn about overhyped out products and you will learn how to save money. You will not learn until you buy it all....Most don't

Well I'm deft not planning on buying everything, and like i mentioned at the shop they would go straight for the most expensive..thanks sable & midnite, i was planning off starting simple. Veg, flower, bloom, and just taking it from there. Just wanted to know if anyone found a brand that was better/worse than the rest. When i was doing soil all i used was foxfarm, maybe wanted to try something different. Then i start looking on these threads and people are using much more than the basic. Also, wanted to know if all those additives are needed? Are people using those for problems they encountered or to prevent.. thanks again.

The additives are used to up yield a hair once you have learned how to successfully grow in the first place. Like others here I would recommend going with a well known and used 3 part like Fox Farm or General Hydroponics. These nutes are tried and verified with thousands of post asking questions about them. I started out with GH 3 part and all it took was a simple google search to answer any questions I had about ratios/mixing/performance etc..

If you want very cheap, but effective, hydro nutes, get calcium nitrate, potassium nitrate, mono potassium phosphate, and magnesium sulfate (epsom salts), and for good measure, get potassium hydroxide. These 4 salts by far make up the majority of most hydroponic mixes. The other ingredients are used in tiny amounts compared to these.

Then get something like JR peter's "MOST" or salts containing those trace elements (like a chelated form of iron, sodium borate, sodium molybdate, manganese sulfate, etc, in very small amounts.

Jack's M.O.S.T. (Mix Of Soluble Traces) Guaranteed analysis includes sulfur (15%), magnesium (1.43%), boron (1.4%), copper (2.34%), iron (9%), manganese (9%), molybdenum (0.0423%) and zinc (4.48%).

It seems complicated, but it will ultimately save a lot of money as a pound of yara calcium nitrate costs about 2-3 dollars and goes a long way. You could get a pound of each of the macro salts for about 10-15 dollars total.

Best part of doing it this way is complete control, and no "additives". Just more of one ingredient or another. For example, mono potassium phosphate is the main ingredient in most bloom boosters, but is also the main source of P and a bulk of K in most hydro base nutes as well. Two birds with one stone.

Soory church but I think as a newb I'd be scared as hell to buy anything other than a premixed solution. It was daunting enough to make the switch to hydro lol. I was constantly checking and expecting to find my girls had died a quick death lol. Not saying your advice is not sound but the KISS method for a newb would imo be the better route takin. As for overpriced nutes, they all are imo, just some worse than others. I tried many but have found that they basically all do the same thing with PH swings being what I found to be the deciding factor. Also some of the ones I used turned my roots off color and didnt like that lol thought it was root rot. I'm lucky enough to have a manufacturer close by and get my nutes there at a really good price, they will even custom mix nutes to the specs requested although I have yet to do that. My advice would be to use a mid priced popular product and see how it reacts with your system. Also its nice to do some research before entering a hydro store as they will, as is their job, try and unload as much product as they can. Been there and done that lol. I have seen many post where people are using like 5-6 or more products and i'm just amazed.

midnitetoak said:

Well put Sablezen..was going to say very close to the same thing...IMO all you need is your 2 part formula and cal-mag...maybe add a bloom booster (molasses) to jump start flowering or possibly some hygrozyme or aquasheld if growing in a DWC-
for growing in soil organic compost and water is still the best way to go but this is not easy to market to growers....some ppl like the idea of buying something from a bottle to give them results- it's way cooler to say dude just gave them tiger blood than to say dude I watered them. Fox farm, Technaflora, General Hydroponics, etc all contain pretty much the same shit diluted with water:npk & macros

Click to expand...

Molasses is NOT a bloom booster. http://www.thesoilguy.com/SG/Molasses

Soory church but I think as a newb I'd be scared as hell to buy anything other than a premixed solution. It was daunting enough to make the switch to hydro lol. I was constantly checking and expecting to find my girls had died a quick death lol. Not saying your advice is not sound but the KISS method for a newb would imo be the better route takin. As for overpriced nutes, they all are imo, just some worse than others. I tried many but have found that they basically all do the same thing with PH swings being what I found to be the deciding factor. Also some of the ones I used turned my roots off color and didnt like that lol thought it was root rot. I'm lucky enough to have a manufacturer close by and get my nutes there at a really good price, they will even custom mix nutes to the specs requested although I have yet to do that. My advice would be to use a mid priced popular product and see how it reacts with your system. Also its nice to do some research before entering a hydro store as they will, as is their job, try and unload as much product as they can. Been there and done that lol. I have seen many post where people are using like 5-6 or more products and i'm just amazed.

Sorry for the ramble! Gotta stop reading this stuff high lol!

Do people even use molasses in hydro? Just asking cause not sure if I'd pour that in my nice clean sparkly res ��.

waterdawg said:

Do people even use molasses in hydro? Just asking cause not sure if I'd pour that in my nice clean sparkly res ��.

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If you like a messy foamy ressie, sure. Molasses is to feed microbes in an organic soil.

Uhmm nope lol.

Try Botanicare Pro. It's as close to organic as you're going to get. Tastes almost as good as soil.

You want simple?

Rapid Start and FloraNova Grow for veg and FloraNova Bloom for flower.

buy some General Hydro Ph Up and Ph Down, a Ph/ppm/ec meter and your good to go.

FloraNova get's hated on but it's a great product. People find a lot of excuses to diss on it but do some reseach. FloraNova always gives me happy and healthy plants. Forums are filled with people who never used anything but Canna or House and Garden, or Advanced so they swear by them and because they pay way more then everybody else and they have a couple harvest under their belt, they think every drop of snake oil they bought is the reason for their success.

Or they spend so much money on this or that it has a placebo effect-it MUST of done something, "If my buds look like this and I spent $$$ then they wouldn't of looked that way if I didn't"

I use a lot more stuff then I mentioned, but it's more because I enjoy the hobby. Additives only work when you know how to use them. Additives have injured many a newb and hobbist's plants.

Keep it simple. Root stim and base nutrients. You don't need anything else for your first run-anyone who tells you other wise, or trys to say you need more just doesn't understand how plants work.

Here's proof. Go look at a body building magazine, you'll probably get a good laugh at how 90% of the magazine is advertisement for supplements(and how similar it is to the hydro mags they give you everytime you leave the hydro store), a lot of them even have graphs and site scientific studies to back their claims. They also have guys on steriods claiming certain supplements are their sercret, just like the fertilizer industry. NONE of those supplements work, and the few that have any effect at all are minimal-the only way to build muscel is to work out and eat calories, yet the supplement industry is massive and the people who use all these supplements and go to the gym everyday swear by them. "Hey, just look in the mirror pal, you think i'd have these 24" pythons if wasn't taking my $500.00 P90x Extreme Horny Goat Muscle Tonic?"

SableZen said:

Well if you are like most people, at some point you are going to feel like you should spend the money to see for yourself. If I had one recommendation to anyone new to growing though - start with a basic two-part (grow and bloom) nutrient line without any additives and keep it simple until you have at least one successful grow under your belt before trying all the additives being sold out there.

If I had a second recommendation, it would be to stay away from nutrients lines that are marketed solely towards cannabis growers and that also carry a steep price tag (like the poster-child for overpriced/overhyped nutrients: Advanced Nutrients). There's nothing special about cannabis when it comes to growing it - don't get fleeced, at least wait until you have a better idea of how to grow before dropping the money on them.

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Since u mentioned AN, I assume you're talking about using 2 parts of a 3 part nute? I also assume u meant MICRO (not grow) and bloom?

What do u consider a "successful grow"? How many grams per watt of flowering lighting for a decent yielder?

A~~~

waterdawg said:

Sorry for the ramble! Gotta stop reading this stuff high lol!

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Don't do that-----a stoned mind is a terrible thing to waste!

A~~~

I think, and please correct me if wrong, it was a long time ago in a galaxy far away, i used flora grow and bloom. Does it have a mud like consistency? If not, then yes wrong stuff. But i remember clogged nozzles when using it. Again its been years.