Oyster shell as a calcium source?

Kelp kelp kelp has literally everything in it. Oyster fell flour gypsum, crab/crustacean meal

anzohaze said:

Kelp kelp kelp has literally everything in it. Oyster fell flour gypsum, crab/crustacean meal

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If you check my soil mix above you'll notice kelp is my main amendment. Wouldn't dream of growing without it.

I think you'll be fine on the calcium and magnesium. The oyster shell will obviously supply a ton of cal, but you also are giving them azomite and kelp meal. along with ewc, guano, and bsm in a tea, I'd be shocked if you needed more mag. what's your water source anyways?

I've got a 50 gallon resovior with an airstone in it. I fill it up with city water and let it bubble for 24 hours before I use it on my plants.

check your city's water plan. it should be readily available online. I would assume a decent amount of calcium in it already. But it's always good to know what's in your water. Only the chlorine will evaporate though, chloramines and flouride will not afaik.

Right on I never thought about checking that out before.

it's important stuff. Not sure where you're at, but some cities have great water. Most of SF for instance, get's their water from the hetch hetchy resevoir in yosemite. My city's water plan is to the brim on the legal amount of everything that they put in the water. It's 450ppm out of the tap. That sucks. Needless to say, I use an RO filter, and bring that down to around 5ppm. which is why I generally need to supplement the cal & mag.

I'm in the high five state, I heard my cities water is one of the top rated in the country for taste but I gotta go online and see what's in it. I'll have to pick up some new batteries for my ppm wand I haven't used it since I went organic.

meh, throw out the wand. Just check the plan. It's just a simple awareness thing to keep in the back of your head when mixing things together. It sounds like your water is fine though.

also, just throwing this out there maybe consider the ecological impact of using/buying bat guano, and get some seabird guano. I have a few bags of sunleaves bat guano too, but I won't be buying more once I use it all up. I've already replaced it all with seabird guano. I'm really liking the seabird guano, and It feels good not supporting the demolishing of bat caves.

I also like growing with the ocean, and seabirds have quite the diet. The teas I've made with seabird guano are wicked.

Yeah I haven't had much use for the wand for a while.

My plants seem to like the water just fine but definitely best to know what I'm putting into my girls!

Don't most people get calcium from their tap water?

I guess so! I was unaware.

mr sunshine said:

Don't most people get calcium from their tap water?

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Yup. Along with iron. Mg. And who knows how much flouride. Im just gaooyw to be on a well myslef. Still comes out at 300-350ppm. Plants love it though.

elephantSea said:

meh, throw out the wand. Just check the plan. It's just a simple awareness thing to keep in the back of your head when mixing things together. It sounds like your water is fine though.

also, just throwing this out there maybe consider the ecological impact of using/buying bat guano, and get some seabird guano. I have a few bags of sunleaves bat guano too, but I won't be buying more once I use it all up. I've already replaced it all with seabird guano. I'm really liking the seabird guano, and It feels good not supporting the demolishing of bat caves.

I also like growing with the ocean, and seabirds have quite the diet. The teas I've made with seabird guano are wicked.

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I got a couple big ol' bags of seabird guano, along with a few different bat guanos. They claim to harvest from sustainable sources though, they get away with lying?? Do you ever worry about too much nitrogen from the seabird guano while you're in flower?

I'll be honest, I'm not too familiar with sunleaves harvesting techniques, or if they're even the ones doing the harvesting. But it's simple enough to avoid either way, so I choose to.

there are high phosphorous sb guanos that dont have the nitrogen. I think down to earth makes one, Dr earth maybe too. Roots organics has a seabird guano at 0-7-0.

a bit of fishbone meal, and the sunleaves sb guano at the start of flower, and I can generally get by with just the high p sb guano for the rest of the time. I suppose there's a bit of n in the ewc too. But I generally get fairly yellow leaves towards the end. It's easy enough to add a bit of n if they yellow too early.

I'm also a huge kelp fan. the kelp, oyster shell, fishbone meal, and sb guano in my soil, makes me feel warm inside.

Hell yeah sounds like a good mix. I always use lots of kelp. I've got a big bag of fish bone meal to use and I'll look into the high phosphorus seabird guano once I run out of the bat guanos I've got in stock. You ever mess with any of those bottles of seabird guano? I'm intrigued but I'm always worried I'm just paying for water.

My soil is a 3 way split, peat/humus/rice hull + amendments, for what it's worth.

I haven't really seen much bottles of seabird guano. But I'd guess they're not worth the money, or as rich in nutrients. there's just something about the dry ingredients and the substance it brings to a grow that I find attractive. IMO of course.

I feel like I could make dozens of bottles of liquid seabird guano from just a small bag of dry seabird guano. lol.

HockeyBeard said:

My soil is a 3 way split, peat/humus/rice hull + amendments, for what it's worth.

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Ive been looking for rice hulls forever. Finally gave up. Now im using perlite/pumice mix for airation. Seems work very well compared to straight perlite

green_machine_two9er said:

Ive been looking for rice hulls forever. Finally gave up. Now im using perlite/pumice mix for airation. Seems work very well compared to straight perlite

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There's a company in Missouri, the guys who do Ricelands Best. They sent me 2 50lb bales as samples, delivered, for free. Their price otherwise was also way reasonable.