Be skeptical of your measuring tools

It's frustrating, sometimes my hydrometers read about the same, sometimes not. The accuracy of most is listed as +/- 5%

Cpappa27 said:

Thats a really good point. I wonder if half of these cannabis plant problems and burns are from faulty equipment. Also I noticed those little RH and temp meters used for curing are very inconsistent.

So which one is right lol
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These should be reading 60% according to both a sht-41 and a bme-280 sensor located just behind the hygrometers

Best 8 out of a 12 pack, the other 4 were much worse and inconsistent.
I write the offset on the back. For curing in jars, they do the job; I'm more concerned with whether RH is rising or falling than the absolute value.

curious2garden said:

From the pattern I believe the bleaching was your lights not your nutrients. Unfortunately once damaged the leaves never recover. I think you'd have a much easier time with only Flora Micro, Grow, Bloom and Ca/Mg to start. The others I've found to be not required.

The Maxi's are simple and you don't buy water. I still with Flora because that's all they had in '96 when I started. So it's dead simple for me. But I keep looking at Maxi.

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I know you think that, but I have switched back to my old faithful blurples weeks ago, and all my new growth keeps coming in bleached, then dying.

And i am not using any of the GH extras now, and haven't for weeks. Just the "simple" recipe for coco, and I did use armor si yesterday

I flushed the plants really good with Flora clean, which I really don't think they needed anyways, but I did it anyways. New growth still bleached, on about half my plants, and none of them are growing with vigor.

And here the really weird thing...I had some seedlings yellow and die. I haven't had that happen ever, in 20 years.

I had none of these issues on my 1st coco grow doing everything exactly the same. I'm starting to think I got some bad bottles of nutes on Amazon, as I had to buy more micro and bloom. From reading other reviews, others are having the same issue. There is so much counterfeit, defective shit being sold there, I can't help but wonder....and at this point i don't know what else it could be.

Billy the Mountain said:

These should be reading 60% according to both a sht-41 and a bme-280 sensor located just behind the hygrometers

Best 8 out of a 12 pack, the other 4 were much worse and inconsistent.
I write the offset on the back. For curing in jars, they do the job; I'm more concerned with whether RH is rising or falling than the absolute value.


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A salt test is a simple and inexpensive way to calibrate a humidity sensor. It involves placing a small amount of salt in a sealed container with the sensor and measuring the relative humidity inside the container. The relative humidity should read 75%, which is the equilibrium point of salt at room temperature.
Hope that helps get them back on track, or at least weeds out the bad sensors.

manfredo said:

I know you think that, but I have switched back to my old faithful blurples weeks ago, and all my new growth keeps coming in bleached, then dying.

And i am not using any of the GH extras now, and haven't for weeks. Just the "simple" recipe for coco, and I did use armor si yesterday

I flushed the plants really good with Flora clean, which I really don't think they needed anyways, but I did it anyways. New growth still bleached, on about half my plants, and none of them are growing with vigor.

And here the really weird thing...I had some seedlings yellow and die. I haven't had that happen ever, in 20 years.

I had none of these issues on my 1st coco grow doing everything exactly the same. I'm starting to think I got some bad bottles of nutes on Amazon, as I had to buy more micro and bloom. From reading other reviews, others are having the same issue. There is so much counterfeit, defective shit being sold there, I can't help but wonder....and at this point i don't know what else it could be.

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Yes, and I'm really sad to hear that it has continued in spite of the lighting changes. ^^^^ that's exactly what I would suspect too. I would have asked if you bought directly from Amazon as the seller but I bought a counterfeit item directly from Amazon as the vendor not too long ago so I wouldn't even trust them directly. I'm so sorry manfredo that sucks. I get mine face to face at my local hydro store. But you live kind of out of the way, right? I think your idea of changing to Maxi is solid. Can you get it someplace besides Amazon?
Yes that was my initial thoughts.

HydroKid239 said:

A salt test is a simple and inexpensive way to calibrate a humidity sensor. It involves placing a small amount of salt in a sealed container with the sensor and measuring the relative humidity inside the container. The relative humidity should read 75%, which is the equilibrium point of salt at room temperature.
Hope that helps get them back on track, or at least weeds out the bad sensors.

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Yeah, I've done the NaCl slurry test before; it's brilliantly simple and accurate.
I'm actually fairly impressed that 8 of12 "dollar store" hygrometers were within 3-5%.

Cpappa27 said:

Thats a really good point. I wonder if half of these cannabis plant problems and burns are from faulty equipment. Also I noticed those little RH and temp meters used for curing are very inconsistent.

So which one is right lol
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The calibrated one?

manfredo said:

Thanks for the quick reply, and I was thinking of trying MaxiBloom for the simplicity...Like you said, once you know your measurement it's the same every time.

I use RO water too, and I think that's where some of my issues are. I was adding Armor Si at 5 ml per gallon the first 2 weeks, then dropping to 2 ml, and ran into some deficiencies. I read some people use 5 ml per gallon start to finish.

Sounds a lot easier than this...and I am running into some weird burn / bleaching crap this new run already...Hence looking to change!

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Try masterblend.if you have strong lights you will have to add more magnesium but the nute works perfectly for hydro.it was made for tomatoes its in powder form soo it will last for years.i am still using my first bag after 3 years

Billy the Mountain said:

These should be reading 60% according to both a sht-41 and a bme-280 sensor located just behind the hygrometers

Best 8 out of a 12 pack, the other 4 were much worse and inconsistent.
I write the offset on the back. For curing in jars, they do the job; I'm more concerned with whether RH is rising or falling than the absolute value.


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I did the same thing with my hygrometers., I wrote the offset on the back. Is there a reason these arent reading properly and is there a way to calibrate them so they do?

Fangthane said:

More and more, I'm thinking coco may actually end up being my groove. Once my tents clear out and cooler weather is here, I'm planning on doing a coco run to see how it suits me. I have a TDS pen I rarely use; and have gotten by just fine with my GH pH test solution so far. I'm thinking that if I'm gonna be doing hydro on a regular basis, I should probably bite the bullet and buy some decent meters. I've just had shit luck with them so far and hate having to rely on dodgy tech.

In soil, I kinda just pick my starting point as X% of the recommended dosage and make adjustments from there, without typically dusting off the TDS pen. I'm guessing that may not be a great recipe for success in hydro?

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I was considering doing hydro or coco run. Ive never done it before except once in peat and perlite and did pretty good.

We should do a challenge on here. All coco growers who have never grown in soil grow in soil one run and then all soil growers who havent tried coco, do one coco run. That would be a cool thread.

calvin.m16 said:

General Hydroponics Armor Si 5ml/gal
General Hydroponics MaxiBloom 7 to 8 grams per/gallon (totally base off plants, if they are light green then add more, dark green add less)

MaxiBloom is designed to measure in volume too, so once you figure out 3/4 cups weighs roughly 220 grams per example you can scoop that same amount every time without weighing.

I get duke nuke em cannons without any additives and I use RO filtered water hence all the armor si, if you have high pH water then skip the armor si. It's literally my pH UP but I do think the silica helps the plant somewhat.

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Duke Nukem cannons I love that. I remember that game. "its time to kick as and chew bubble gum, and Im all out of gum"

HydroKid239 said:

A salt test is a simple and inexpensive way to calibrate a humidity sensor. It involves placing a small amount of salt in a sealed container with the sensor and measuring the relative humidity inside the container. The relative humidity should read 75%, which is the equilibrium point of salt at room temperature.
Hope that helps get them back on track, or at least weeds out the bad sensors.

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Thank you I didnt know that.

curious2garden said:

Yes, and I'm really sad to hear that it has continued in spite of the lighting changes. ^^^^ that's exactly what I would suspect too. I would have asked if you bought directly from Amazon as the seller but I bought a counterfeit item directly from Amazon as the vendor not too long ago so I wouldn't even trust them directly. I'm so sorry manfredo that sucks. I get mine face to face at my local hydro store. But you live kind of out of the way, right? I think your idea of changing to Maxi is solid. Can you get it someplace besides Amazon?
Yes that was my initial thoughts.

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Many hydro and grow stores online I found have cheaper prices than amazon many times for nutrients.

curious2garden said:

Yes, and I'm really sad to hear that it has continued in spite of the lighting changes. ^^^^ that's exactly what I would suspect too. I would have asked if you bought directly from Amazon as the seller but I bought a counterfeit item directly from Amazon as the vendor not too long ago so I wouldn't even trust them directly. I'm so sorry manfredo that sucks. I get mine face to face at my local hydro store. But you live kind of out of the way, right? I think your idea of changing to Maxi is solid. Can you get it someplace besides Amazon?
Yes that was my initial thoughts.

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I actually do have a hydro store about 30 miles away, and I am going there today hopefully.

I started reading reviews on Amazon for MaxiBloom, and there were a bunch saying that is was a great product but they had gotten a bad batch or fake on Amazon that killed their plants.

Then I read the reviews for Flora, and same thing, there are a bunch of bad ones saying it's fake or bad.

And my plants are about at throwing away point....Burning that started on top has worked it's way all the way down the plants now. But only on about 50% of them....The others have no burn, but no strong growth either.

Yep, no more buying nutes from Amazon for me. I'm sure some are fine. People were even saying you are better off buying on EBay. Ugh!!

Cpappa27 said:

Many hydro and grow stores online I found have cheaper prices than amazon many times for nutrients.

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Yeah it's just the convenience of Amazon, but I have gotten many fake products from them now. From clothing to drugs to now nutes. I almost didn't renew this year it's so bad.

manfredo said:

Yeah it's just the convenience of Amazon, but I have gotten many fake products from them now. From clothing to drugs to now nutes. I almost didn't renew this year it's so bad.

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I've been considering not renewing too. I've had a similar experience.

Used one of these like 14 years ago is was a piece of shit bought my blue labs combo meters cause I have 2 and never looked back.

calvin.m16 said:

General Hydroponics Armor Si 5ml/gal
General Hydroponics MaxiBloom 7 to 8 grams per/gallon (totally base off plants, if they are light green then add more, dark green add less)

MaxiBloom is designed to measure in volume too, so once you figure out 3/4 cups weighs roughly 220 grams per example you can scoop that same amount every time without weighing.

I get duke nuke em cannons without any additives and I use RO filtered water hence all the armor si, if you have high pH water then skip the armor si. It's literally my pH UP but I do think the silica helps the plant somewhat.

Click to expand...

Do you use the MaxiGrow in veg, or the MaxiBloom the entire grow?

Gonna try and hit a hydro store today.

Fuck. I'm already about half convinced that some of the bags of FF soils I've gotten from Amazon were fakes. Don't make me start doubting the authenticity of the nutes, too. There's a crummy little nursery about 45 miles away that has seriously overpriced nutes, and soils that they habitually store outdoors in the elements, but the nearest actual hydro stops I know of are about 190 miles due east of me. Not a drive I wanna make unless absolutely necessary.

Cpappa27 said:

We should do a challenge on here. All coco growers who have never grown in soil grow in soil one run and then all soil growers who havent tried coco, do one coco run. That would be a cool thread.

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I'm made it a point to avoid the Solo Cup challenge. Your idea sounds a little more interesting to me. I have one hydro grow so far, but that was with bubbleponics. If the growth rate is anywhere near as explosive, I'm probably gonna dig coco.