NUTES ! So many choices

After a whole bunch of reading, mostly on this site. I've decided to go with superthrive, alaskan fish fert, and terracycle granular worm castings. For this bloom cycle, general hydroponics flora bloom, along with superthrive. Went into darkness sat. 10pm. Started the 12/12 with a 400watt GE hps lamp thru a nextgen dig. ballast on mon. morning. How am i doin so far ?

Jerry Garcia said:

Oh, and Fox Farm's Big Bloom liquid fertilizer is a nice supplement throughout any grow. It's basically worm castings and bat guano...has pretty low N-P-K ratio but lots of trace elements and good stuff. Be careful with FF though, as the Grow Big and Tiger Bloom fertilizers are INORGANIC...this doesn't mean they are bad, just not organic.

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I would have to recomend that you don't vary off of a full product line for at least a few successfull crops. I would have to say the best well rounded company to go with would be Fox
Farms, if you don't use the soluables, and go abit heavier on the Big
Bloom, you will not have to worry about your plants not getting what they need. if you start mixing and matching from many companies, you most likely will have some problems. Stick to the basics for now is my suggestion. Also there is a company called Aurora, they have an organic line I think called Roots, they have been on the up and up. GL with your grow partner! oh yeah, is there a reason why you are only running a 400w? If possible, I would ditch the spendy little ballast and get an inexpesive magnetic 1k, you will yeild lodes more...GH makes a three part nutrient line called Flora, with out the Micro and the Grow, you can count on problems.

1sofakingg said:

After a whole bunch of reading, mostly on this site. I've decided to go with superthrive, alaskan fish fert, and terracycle granular worm castings. For this bloom cycle, general hydroponics flora bloom, along with superthrive. Went into darkness sat. 10pm. Started the 12/12 with a 400watt GE hps lamp thru a nextgen dig. ballast on mon. morning. How am i doin so far ?

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if you're doing organic you might have extremely good luck with myco, something like sub culture or plant success, and kelp/big bloom/organic everything as stated before maybe even a compost tea once in a while would be plenty.

guano is easy i only top dress once or twice a month and make teas sometimes and my girls are lovein it.

but wat you said should work just make sure you have enough micro nutes. also use the sub culture or plant success it makes ur roots more effecient.
and if using tap water with organics let it sit for a few days to declorinate (clorine kills the micro-herd)

i heard superthrive makes them finnish slower (just hear say tho)

I would deff go for Thrive or Super Thrive , Thrive for younger plants I'd do though and you can get Bone plant food fish meal and such at Wal-Mart for a decent price

tcoupemn12 said:

guano is easy i only top dress once or twice a month and make teas sometimes and my girls are lovein it.

but wat you said should work just make sure you have enough micro nutes. also use the sub culture or plant success it makes ur roots more effecient.
and if using tap water with organics let it sit for a few days to declorinate (clorine kills the micro-herd)

i heard superthrive makes them finnish slower (just hear say tho)

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If using tap water and you do let it sit for a few days does the pH change at all??

lonleysmoka said:

If using tap water and you do let it sit for a few days does the pH change at all??

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yes it does , my friend grows and he had water sitting out for a week stright and it droped 1 hole point , 6 to 5

EGDayz said:

yes it does , my friend grows and he had water sitting out for a week stright and it droped 1 hole point , 6 to 5

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sometimes buffers take time in order to set in so if there are nutrients added and the pH looks a little too high you may wanna wait to adjust it because you will most likely notice a drop after a short time and over adjusting is a common problem.

dbo24242 said:

sometimes buffers take time in order to set in so if there are nutrients added and the pH looks a little too high you may wanna wait to adjust it because you will most likely notice a drop after a short time and over adjusting is a common problem.

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yes but I've heard and I dk if its true or not but I got told when you add your nutes it will drip the PH level some please correct me if its not true

EGDayz said:

yes but I've heard and I dk if its true or not but I got told when you add your nutes it will drip the PH level some please correct me if its not true

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Yes that's true... Level straight out of the tap is around 7 for my house... I add nutes, and some other things.. brings it down to 6ish.. and still add a bit of pH 'down' to about 5.8

Skroatz said:

Yes that's true... Level straight out of the tap is around 7 for my house... I add nutes, and some other things.. brings it down to 6ish.. and still add a bit of pH 'down' to about 5.8

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ok thank you very much

Yeah i guess i left some info out. Yes i'm a newbie. They had distilled water on sale at the supermarket a few weeks ago, and i got 12 one gallon jugs. I know my tap water is on the hard side, and has clorine and flouride and lord knows how many minerals, so i went with distilled for now. Sure wish the fert. companies could sell their products in smaller quantities. I know there are many small timers like me with one to 6 plants that would greatly appreciate not having to buy a friggin quart to experiment with. I'm sure going with the same company for all nutrients is the better idea, but i'm using half the recommended dosage on all of these products. Again Thank you sofaking much for the input ! RIU is the SHIZZLE for sure !

EGDayz said:

ok thank you very much

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General Hydroponics always worked good for me. You can use it in hydro or soil.

Also forgot to mention i'm using the 400watt setup because i'm in a 3'X3'X6' grow tent in my office/extra bedroom, and the 400watt light fills the tent real good . Got a 6" exhaust fan that is very good at controlling the heat, the light is about 12 to 14 " up from the canopy with an oscillating fan spreadin the air around pretty good.

doitinthewoods said:

General Hydroponics always worked good for me. You can use it in hydro or soil.

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1sofakingg said:

They had distilled water on sale at the supermarket a few weeks ago, and i got 12 one gallon jugs.

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hey bro, if you're using distilled water with a soil medium then i've been finding that, to avoid pH issues, you're going to want to supplement your water with hydrated lime (i'm boosting with 1/8tsp during veg and cutting back to 1/16tsp during flower)...
distilled water reads neutral (ie pH 7) out of the jug, but quickly drops down to its nominal range in the low 5's... too low for soil [!] (especially given that the soil is going to acidify during veg), so give it a little boost with the hydrated lime to pull your pH up to c6.5-6.8 and make those girls happy.
also, it's a good idea to aerate your solutions using a cheapo little fish bubbler and some air stones.
of course, a pulverized lime buffer in your soil mix is a very fine thing as well/in addition...
cheers
-g

they are steering you right

Checked the soil ph just now. All containers are a solid 7 on my cheapo meter. All containers have plenty of moisture, checked 2" down in the soil w/ my finger and the cheapo meter. Money is tight here lately, i'm in day 5 of 12/12. I'm takin notes here so i don't have to keep back-searchin RIU. Y'all are sofaking helpful i wish i could buy y'all a bag of buds !

tcoupemn12 said:

they are steering you right

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those cheapo meters (rapitest) are crap...
a soil test kit is pretty inexpensive and will give you better (ie an actual) readings...

sprry to ask here but i dont have a cheapo meter it was expencive!
but if i check the runnoff what should i look for? im in coco with guano and earth worm castings as a top dress what # am i looking for?

tcoupemn12 said:

sprry to ask here but i dont have a cheapo meter it was expencive!
but if i check the runnoff what should i look for? im in coco with guano and earth worm castings as a top dress what # am i looking for?

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if you can buy a ph level tester kit there's a couple kind

1 - paper strip tester kit (never used this so I can't help you much on this one)
2 - Drop tester kit (comes with a small vile, drops and a colour chart to tell you what the ph rang is)