Should I Add Hydroguard Every Top Off?

BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
My plants are at the stage now where I'm adding a gallon of water every other day to the 5 gallon dwc buckets. I'm not sure if I should be adding hydroguard every time I top off? It would make sense for me to, but it could be the hg bacteria is not all absorbed in the water the plant drinks, and if so I'd be gradually increasing the hydroguard strength in the res if I'm replacing .5 tsp every time I add a gallon of fresh water. Do you guys add helpful bacteria every time you add more water to the res?

I have been adding hg every other top off or less, and I haven't noticed any increase in foul res smell, maybe only slight by day 10 or so...yet I am wondering the proper way to do it, how frequently to add hg. I'm changing the res every two weeks about, though may start doing it more frequently since the plants are pushing further into their flower phase.

Surprisingly, the indica plant is the one taking off in height, much taller than the pure sativa. I wasn't expecting that. She is growing upwards 2 or more inches a day now. I need to keep raising the led light. Hopefully she'll slow down soon and focus more on filling out her buds, because I've only got a foot or so left in height available in the tent. Glad now I didn't buy a smaller tent :eyesmoke:
 
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BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
Airwalker16 said:
This is why you build a recirculating connected DWC with ONE res, and use a CHILLER. hydroguard or h2o2 isn't needed.
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well i'm only growing 2 plants and it's my first grow. i have an 80% indica and an 80% sativa, and the differences in their feeding preference is drastic, so one res for these two plants probably wouldn't be ideal. i don't plan on growing more than 2 plants at a time in the upcoming future, so for me, 2 single dwc buckets for 2 very differently designed cannabis plants, works well. and a chiller would be nice, but i'm trying to keep things simple and cut down on costs, both for equipment and electricity. My basement keeps a pretty cool temp year around, so it isn't something high priority for me. The hg is more precautionary, at least until i know for sure, through practice and experience, whether i could get by without it.
 
chasingwaterfalls

chasingwaterfalls

Active Member
Hm, I'm curious about this too - my guess is that you don't need to add every other day, but just once every week or two.

With my current dwc grow, I'm not doing any res changes, just adding back, and I readd microbes once a week - but this probably overkill! Would be interested to know what more experienced people think
 
BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
rkymtnman said:
i havent' used it but the website says to use it at 2mL/gal. so i would do just that.
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well i use that amount during the initial res preparation/every time i completely change out the water. but whether i should be adding it also on every gallon i add back to the res in between complete res changes, that i do not know.


chasingwaterfalls said:
Hm, I'm curious about this too - my guess is that you don't need to add every other day, but just once every week or two.

With my current dwc grow, I'm not doing any res changes, just adding back, and I readd microbes once a week - but this probably overkill! Would be interested to know what more experienced people think
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what size res do you have? i'm torn between changing and leaving the res every week. i'm feeling like bi weekly is the right way for me atm. i'm trying to/hoping i'm basing my choice on logic and not laziness lol
 
BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
Jypsy Dog said:
I got rid of Hydroguard after I found out how watered down it is. This is the same bacteria, only 1000x's more concentrated. I add it by the drops per gallon. https://southernag.com/residential-products/garden-friendly-fungcde-12x1-pt/
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awesome, thanks for referring. i've been wanting to use something different. i don't see a price on this stuff, but i'm imagining overall it is much cheaper. one tsp per gallon...excellent. only issue i can see is not being able to use it in time before expiration. hydroguard says to use it all within 6 months of opening. is this stuff the same exp time?

Airwalker16 said:
Salt based synthetic nutes basically nuke microbes, unfortunately
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I'd like to use more organic nutrients for further grows. i'm using ph perfect adv nutes and i'm not using ro water, so the ph self adjusting is worthless anyway. do you have a recommendation on organic nutes?
 
BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
1 pint of garden friendly is $16 on amazon. that's 96 gallons mixed worth. great deal, just curious on the shelf life. how much of the tsp mixed gallon solution do you add per gallon of fresh res water?

Edit: Just read this on amazon reviews...

"I just purchased this to replace Hydroguard, and as other have noted - it is 100,000X more concentrated than Hydroguard. This is 10^10 CFU/mL and Hydroguard is 10^4 CFU/mL. Thus, 1 mL/gallon of Hydroguard is equivalent to 1 picoliter/gallon of Southern Ag, which is an extremely minute amount. To put this into perspective - if you put one drop (~50 uL) into one gallon, that would be equivalent to 13.21 picoliter/gallon, which is still more concentrated than running Hydroguard at its full strength. I dilute it into four gallon DWC reservoirs - so just using one drop of this in four gallons of water is 3.30 picoliter/reservoir, which again, is still more concentrated than Hydroguard. In all, this is significantly more economical than Hydroguard."

...I'm sold!
 
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BadlyDrawnBoy

BadlyDrawnBoy

Active Member
Jypsy Dog said:
Not true of Bacteria. http://waytogrow.net/5-things-beneficial-bacteria/
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Something from that article which I'm going to start doing and may be helpful info to others who read this...

"If you are using synthetic nutrients, it is best to feed your plants first. Inoculate them with beneficial bacteria after feeding. Although beneficials works with synthetics, they don’t necessarily love each other. If you wait to inoculate after feeding, you reduce the risk of synthetic nutrients causing any harm to your inoculants, especially if you use a mix that also contains mycorrhizae."

Edit: Something else...

"Since microbes increase the bioavailability of all nutrients, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. You can actually cause nutrient burn if you give your plants too many beneficial microbes."
 
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Jypsy Dog

Jypsy Dog

Well-Known Member
BadlyDrawnBoy said:
awesome, thanks for referring. i've been wanting to use something different. i don't see a price on this stuff, but i'm imagining overall it is much cheaper. one tsp per gallon...excellent. only issue i can see is not being able to use it in time before expiration. hydroguard says to use it all within 6 months of opening. is this stuff the same exp time?



I'd like to use more organic nutrients for further grows. i'm using ph perfect adv nutes and i'm not using ro water, so the ph self adjusting is worthless anyway. do you have a recommendation on organic nutes?
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I had the same concern about expiration, looked all over. Never found an answer. I'm on my 4th grow using it. My DWC roots look like snow. I grow Lucas Formula, using Maxibloom. If salt based is an issue.... I'm not seeing it. It kicked the shit out of the Powdery Mildew on my Cucumbers also.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Jypsy Dog said:
If salt based is an issue.... I'm not seeing it.
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i think airwalker is wrong about that too. if he was right, hardly anybody would get root rot.

so what is your mix rate? is it really one drop per gallon?? i might buy a bottle and give it a shot. i was debating about using enzymes or chlorine this run in my waterfarms. maybe give southern ag a run.
 
Jypsy Dog

Jypsy Dog

Well-Known Member
I'm using 1/4 tsp. Per 3 gal. refills on 5ga. DWC. Have a Cucumber DWC on the patio. Had them All Summer. I'm in AZ. 110 degrees. NO CHILLER. My roots are thriving. If anyone stumbles across Expiration, SHARE! Hydroguard is manufactured 5 miles from my house. It'sTan in color. I use it at the 1/4 tsp because it's the easiest way to measure.
 
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