The Goldilocks Of A Moisture Zone

myke said:

Well thats odd,most from what Ive read people go from hydro to organic like myself.What made ya switch?I know the plants grow super slow in soil thats for sure lol.
Where are you located?

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Blazin Budz said:

Honestly, yield and health of my plants was the reason. I started up a new grow and bought 6 new HLG 320 QB XL LED's for my flower room. The learning curve for LED's turned out to be more drastic than I was thinking. I cant, for the life of me, get an organic super soil dialed in with these intense LED's. The LED's make the plants eat the nutrients waaaayyyy before the plants are finished flowering. I've tried so many different Super Soils including mainstream ones like Build-A-Soil 3.0 and I cant seem to get through a full cycle with water only. Even with extra amended organic forms of cal-mag.

It'll get to where ill have to start adding Cal-Mag then they'll start showing deficiencies again to the point to where ill have to start adding salt based nutes (megacrop) with extra cal-mag to fix my issues and by that time im hand watering because I don't have a specific plan as what to fill my res with. It just got to the point where I was forcing the plants to grow and trying my hardest just to keep them somewhat healthy. I like my plants to absolutely thrive. Also my yields are ridiculously low compared to what they should be. I feel like the only way I could make it work is to have a huge no till bed or at least use 10 gallon containers at a minimum and thats just too much space for the amount of plants im running at that point.

I could go on and on about the huge amount of money i've wasted this past year trying to unsuccessfully get an Organic Super Soil dialed in but bottom line is it just became too much of a pain in the ass to manage. With coco and salt based nutes, I can dial everything in pretty easily and run the amount of plants I want in the space I have.

I'll never hate on the quality or the taste of the herb with Organics. I think its a great way to grow for a lot of people but for me and my situation, it was just too much of a headache and loss of money to run organics with LED's. I've started my first coco run while im finishing out my organic soil plants and the glow my coco plants are putting off brings me sooo much relief.

Sorry for the long write up. I just haven't expressed my frustration over the past year of growing to anyone and you asked lol.

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Blazin Budz said:

Honestly, yield and health of my plants was the reason. I started up a new grow and bought 6 new HLG 320 QB XL LED's for my flower room. The learning curve for LED's turned out to be more drastic than I was thinking. I cant, for the life of me, get an organic super soil dialed in with these intense LED's. The LED's make the plants eat the nutrients waaaayyyy before the plants are finished flowering. I've tried so many different Super Soils including mainstream ones like Build-A-Soil 3.0 and I cant seem to get through a full cycle with water only. Even with extra amended organic forms of cal-mag.

It'll get to where ill have to start adding Cal-Mag then they'll start showing deficiencies again to the point to where ill have to start adding salt based nutes (megacrop) with extra cal-mag to fix my issues and by that time im hand watering because I don't have a specific plan as what to fill my res with. It just got to the point where I was forcing the plants to grow and trying my hardest just to keep them somewhat healthy. I like my plants to absolutely thrive. Also my yields are ridiculously low compared to what they should be. I feel like the only way I could make it work is to have a huge no till bed or at least use 10 gallon containers at a minimum and thats just too much space for the amount of plants im running at that point.

I could go on and on about the huge amount of money i've wasted this past year trying to unsuccessfully get an Organic Super Soil dialed in but bottom line is it just became too much of a pain in the ass to manage. With coco and salt based nutes, I can dial everything in pretty easily and run the amount of plants I want in the space I have.

I'll never hate on the quality or the taste of the herb with Organics. I think its a great way to grow for a lot of people but for me and my situation, it was just too much of a headache and loss of money to run organics with LED's. I've started my first coco run while im finishing out my organic soil plants and the glow my coco plants are putting off brings me sooo much relief.

Sorry for the long write up. I just haven't expressed my frustration over the past year of growing to anyone and you asked lol.

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JustBlazin said:

did you not top dress your plants with organic amendments?
I top dress my organic soil every two weeks in flower.
also have seen alot of people use the blumats with coco and salt based nutes and had outstanding results, you try the blumats with coco and salt nutes?

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myke said:

Well im glad you got healthy plants now,the hobby is no fun when things dont go right.I have a mix in my room of hydro/organic,definitely a challenge.

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Blazin Budz said:

haha like I said, I could go on and on about everything I tried to keep my plants healthy. I've ran pure organics years ago under HPS with no problems. Just slightly less yield than salt based nutes but the quality and taste were superb. This time around i actually threw money at going the organic route and still couldn't get the results I wanted. I make my own worm castings and compost. The topdressings just didn't seem to be enough in 5 gallon containers. I'd get through a couple weeks in 1 gallon pots and then transfer to 5 gallon pots to where id get through veg and maybe 3 weeks of flower before I had major deficiencies. Like I said, I think I could have made it work in a big no till bed or at least 10-15 gallon containers for each plant but thats not economical for me.

After FOFF, Build-A-Soil and Subcools mix didn't get me through a whole cycle in 5 gallon containers, I did a lot of research and came across a super super soil mix from a grower on a different site that went like this.

BASE
3.5 gal compost
1.25 gal coir
2 gal peat
.5 gal EWC
.5 gal Black Kow
.5 gal vermiculite
.5 gal permatil
1 gal perlite

~ 1.5 cu ft - 9.75 gallons of media

NPK Amendment Mix

This is added per 1.5 cu ft of media.

3/4c - alfalfa meal
1/3c - aragonite
1/2c - azomite
2/3c - bat guano(N)
1/2c - bat guano(P)
3tbsp - blood meal
1c - bone meal
1/3c - calcitic limestone
1c + 1tbsp - crab meal
3tbsp - diatomaceous earth/calcium bentonite (red Lake Earth at Tractor Supply)
1/3c - dolomitic limestone
1/2c - dry molasses (stockade Kandy Kid)
2tbsp - elemental sulfur
3tbsp - feather meal
1c - greensand
1/2c - gypsum
1/3c + 1tbsp - humic/fulvic
1c + 1tbsp - kelp meal
1/8c - potassium sulfate
2/3c - rock phosphate
1/3c + 1tbsp - sul-po-mg
1 2/3c - Symphony
1/2c - roots organics cal/mag
1/2c - gnatrol
Oyster shell


After going all in and buying all those amendments (around $800) I still couldn't get perfect plants. I think that was the straw that broke the camels back and made me switch to coco. I now have thousands worth of organics to use on my outdoor vegetable gardens.

Like I said, im not arguing against Organics. I love organic gardening and the quality and taste of the herb it produces. It just wasn't the right set up for me at the time and my losses were becoming too much so I had to switch to coco.

As far as blumats and salt based nutes, I've heard mixed reviews. I love blumats but im super anal and paranoid about getting them clogged so I didn't want to risk it. I took super good care of my blumats and never had any algae or clogs with them. I have already went with FloraFlex for the Coco runs and having good results with their setup. Nothing against blumats though but I personally would only run water through them.

Click to expand...

Blazin Budz said:

haha like I said, I could go on and on about everything I tried to keep my plants healthy. I've ran pure organics years ago under HPS with no problems. Just slightly less yield than salt based nutes but the quality and taste were superb. This time around i actually threw money at going the organic route and still couldn't get the results I wanted. I make my own worm castings and compost. The topdressings just didn't seem to be enough in 5 gallon containers. I'd get through a couple weeks in 1 gallon pots and then transfer to 5 gallon pots to where id get through veg and maybe 3 weeks of flower before I had major deficiencies. Like I said, I think I could have made it work in a big no till bed or at least 10-15 gallon containers for each plant but thats not economical for me.

After FOFF, Build-A-Soil and Subcools mix didn't get me through a whole cycle in 5 gallon containers, I did a lot of research and came across a super super soil mix from a grower on a different site that went like this.

BASE
3.5 gal compost
1.25 gal coir
2 gal peat
.5 gal EWC
.5 gal Black Kow
.5 gal vermiculite
.5 gal permatil
1 gal perlite

~ 1.5 cu ft - 9.75 gallons of media

NPK Amendment Mix

This is added per 1.5 cu ft of media.

3/4c - alfalfa meal
1/3c - aragonite
1/2c - azomite
2/3c - bat guano(N)
1/2c - bat guano(P)
3tbsp - blood meal
1c - bone meal
1/3c - calcitic limestone
1c + 1tbsp - crab meal
3tbsp - diatomaceous earth/calcium bentonite (red Lake Earth at Tractor Supply)
1/3c - dolomitic limestone
1/2c - dry molasses (stockade Kandy Kid)
2tbsp - elemental sulfur
3tbsp - feather meal
1c - greensand
1/2c - gypsum
1/3c + 1tbsp - humic/fulvic
1c + 1tbsp - kelp meal
1/8c - potassium sulfate
2/3c - rock phosphate
1/3c + 1tbsp - sul-po-mg
1 2/3c - Symphony
1/2c - roots organics cal/mag
1/2c - gnatrol
Oyster shell


After going all in and buying all those amendments (around $800) I still couldn't get perfect plants. I think that was the straw that broke the camels back and made me switch to coco. I now have thousands worth of organics to use on my outdoor vegetable gardens.

Like I said, im not arguing against Organics. I love organic gardening and the quality and taste of the herb it produces. It just wasn't the right set up for me at the time and my losses were becoming too much so I had to switch to coco.

As far as blumats and salt based nutes, I've heard mixed reviews. I love blumats but im super anal and paranoid about getting them clogged so I didn't want to risk it. I took super good care of my blumats and never had any algae or clogs with them. I have already went with FloraFlex for the Coco runs and having good results with their setup. Nothing against blumats though but I personally would only run water through them.

Click to expand...