Hi all,
I’m in week 6ish of veg. plants have been doing very well, no signs of any real issues. but i know plants do really well until they don’t. i’ve been concerned with salt buildup. I know to feed/water to 20% runoff but honestly have just been eyeballing. They’ve been getting 1 gallon because that’s the size of my watering can. They’re in 3 gallon fabric pots. I’ve been feeding 100% per their recommendations, 4ml sense A and B per liter and 2ml/L B-52.
I’d say on average I feed every 4 days when the medium is dry and the pots are light.
Flushing question. Yesterday I gave them 2 rounds of 1-gallon of feedings to wash out the salts. Advanced Nutrients recommends flushing with full nutes. They also said I should be feeding 1-2x PER DAY which seems a little crazypants. don’t have the time or money for that. Mixing and feeding twice was more than I wanted to do.
In terms of flushing… is there any reason I can’t give them a gallon or so PHd water (or even un-Phd) to flush the salts first and then feed the full nutes right after?
Is anyone out there who uses AN feeding and watering every day??
There’s been somebody nibbling here and there on the leaves and i see a tiny few edges that may be be burned, but overall i’m quite pleased. My grow light shows them with a crazy metallic coloring and sheen which has caused some panic, but when I take them out they look ok.
Advanced told me the same thing about feeding 2x a day and I agree that’s ridiculous. I’m on week 7 of flower and I water with nutes every other day with a gallon and a half until I get some decent runoff. I tried using plan water every other feeding but I noticed that’s when I started to run into deficiencies. If you are really concerned over salt build up I’d reccomend getting a ppm meter so you can track how much your plants are eating by measuring the runoff water. As far as loading it with plain water before adding the nutes I don’t think that would be a problem. I use the coco A&B , b52, and epsom salt . Although 4ml of both A&B seems really high. My feeding schedule from advanced calls for .51 ml of A&B and .26ml of B52 at week 6
- I only flushed my plants once , right before I switched to bloom nutes. Never had a build up issue
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What sized pots are you using? did you PH the water when you flushed?
I don’t even want to get into PPM. i DID measure and it was like 1800 going in and 2300 out after two 1-gallon feedings (it was higher first “flush”). i know that’s ridiculously high. maybe i’ll flush next feeding, but as you mentioned, worried about deficiencies, too. it made me wonder if there was something wrong with my pen. I watched a few videos of people measuring PPM with the 4ml/L and the solution was like 700ppm.
The 4 ml per liter (16ml per gallon) is what they state on the back of the bottle. This is for Grow. I don’t have the Bloom bottles yet - are the instructions different?
@watt-sun, your measurements look like fl-oz, not mL. I just looked at the AN calculator online.
whoever decided the US should be on the imperial system obviously never tried to grow weed. such an unbelievable PITA to have to covert for every stinking thing I want to add… cups, oz, liters, gallons, ounces…
Good catch. Yes I’m in fl oz.
Many people feed their coco-based plant three times a day. The plant growth will be phenomenal.
I like you though, agree that this is just too much unless you have an automated watering system.
Once a day is perfectly fine and you will still get great plant growth.
As far as PPM goes, here is what I aim for:
Seedling: 150-300
Build up to: 400-600
Eventually aim for: 800-1000
There’s no specific time, really. I just build up the feedings and keep an eye on the leaves and the runoff PPM. If you are starting to get a little nutrient burn, back off on the nutrients but keep the supplements the same - unless you see evidence of an excess in them.
The only time I’ve flushed is when I realized my conversion of mL/L to mL/gal were incorrect and I was waaaay overfeeding.
Here is the feeding schedule I go by. You don’t necessarily need all of these supplements. Read up on them and decide for yourself:
The one non-AN supplement you will see there is Orca by Great White. I bought that in lieu of Advanced Nutrients Tarantula and Piranha thinking it would save me some money, but when I did my calculations again I realized there was really no savings. So, feel free to utilize either set of products as a massive root growth expander.
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I did not ph my water when I fed without nutes but my run off was within range. I’m in 5 gal cloth pots
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Oh, there’s one other thing that’s not in my chart:
At one point I switched from tap water to reverse osmosis water because, even though the plants looked fine I was a little uneasy about the high runoff pH.
Because of that, I add 4mL/gallon of General Hydroponics Cal-Mag. The Sensi Grow has this in it already, but I’m just being on the safe side because of the reverse osmosis water being so free of minerals. Also, the reason I chose General Hydroponics over other brands is because it has the least amount of nitrogen in it - that I knew I did not want to increase on top of what Sensi Grow already has.
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I would reccomend adding silica to your feedings at some point to thicken and strengthen your stems like rhino skin if you want to stick with AN lines. Like @TommyBahama said the growth in coco is tremendous. I didn’t, and regret it now . I’ve had to tie up most of my branches because the bud weight is too much for the stems ( I know it’s a tough problem to have lol)
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thanks so much for sharing all of this. looks like you’ve upped your feeding rate 2x but also cut back on the concentration by as much. so that all makes sense. it’s just more work but i can see how this would diminish any salt issues.
I actually just picked up the Rhino and then read something stupid on the directions like feeding per square foot and i got pissed off and put it back in the closet for now. my brain just refused to do one more stupid conversion. lol. I also picked up some Sensizyme, FWIW.
those are some gorgeous babies! i’ll be scrogging so will be good on the support and they better not get that tall or i’ll be in trouble. wish I had that kind of room. had to rent out my basement to pay those electric bills!
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I was on the fence about scrogging but I waited to long to start it. Didn’t realize just how big they would get lol
I was thinking to start it before flower just to train and run the branches under, though the more I’m reading people do it after. want to do it just so that I can get a better visual of how much longer I need to veg to fill the tent.
I’d say you have a fine handle on your grow!
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@Agrestic I came up with a once per day schedule for you that I think will work nicely. It includes Rhino, and also Tarantula/Piranha should you choose to use them. You will notice that the primary nutrients are ramped up to help the plant adjust.
As always though - don’t take this verbatim. Keep an eye on your runoff PPM, adjust as needed, and feel free to expiriment.
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@TommyBahama wow thanks so much!
