I received my trio in mail and was looking at feeding schedule for growing in soil. I understand that but it looks like I also need Sledge hammer flush. Do I use it as scheduled or only if plants show signs of stress?
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It seems like that stuff pretty much requires the scheduled flush treatment. You probably don’t need the sledgehammer, you can flush without it. Just usually takes more water.
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How do I know if it’s flushed enough? Do I keep watering till I have a certain amount of runoff then test the ph? This part is what I really need to learn, ph and ppm is confusing me alittle
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@dbrn32 is correct. Follow the flush schedule with fox farms. Sledgehammer will reduce the amount of water you need to flush, dramatically. But you can do it with plain water. A lot of plain water.
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When using fox farms nutes it’s really important to follow their flush schedule. Especially if you’re using their soil.
Sledgehammer isn’t required, there are other flushing agents, but it makes the flush easier and requires a LOT less water.
If you haven’t already, get a decent pH meter. Not one of the cheapo 3 way prong type.
You test the water with a tds/ppm meter. When it reads below 300 you’re done.
If you don’t want to buy the tds meter, and don’t want to use a flushing agent, it usually takes 3x-5x the container size worth of properly pH’d water. So a 5 gal container would need 15-25 gallons of water run through it.
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You’re looking to get back to the base ppm of your water. Or at least close to it. Then you go back in with nutrients to bring that Ppm back up to the level on your schedule. What you’re doing is flushing out the salts (plant waste) and starting fresh.
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Sounds easier to get the sledge hammer flush and is the ppm meter totally different from ph meter? I’m going to start 3rd grow, 1st one went pretty good but harvested way early and with good nutes buds should be alot bigger. My 2nd grow is in 1st week of flowering but I’ve just been going on what I thought I knew, boy was I way off I thought that the nutes and ph readings weren’t important now I know I was wrong. I’m trying to get 3rd grow started right so my questions will continue. Thanks so much
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There are some meters that combine pH and tds/ppm. But you can also buy them separately.
I use this one, but you can get cheaper ones.
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That’ll be fine.
They do typically need a storage solution, and frequent calibration (also with additional pH4,pH7 and pH10 for 3 point calibration. You can get away with the first two).
But no, it does not measure tds/ppm
I will check Amazon cause I can return this one thank you
I think most people have one of each. The pH meter is essential to good cultivation. The ppm/tds is slightly less important.
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Even using the sledgehammer you will still want to verify your flush with ppm meter. The others have you set though.
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Does this test ph and ppm
You can get by with that ph meter. You just have to calibrate weekly. So you’ll want to order more 6.86 and 4.01 buffer. You can get this for Ppm readings (tds). Doesn’t need calibrating.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01FPG89CE/ref=sspa_mb_hqp_detail_mobile_aax_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Should I calibrate before using 1st time? Now can’t wait till I get up tomorrow to try this out and I’ll order stuff for calibration and this meter for ppm very reasonable so will order also. Thanks again
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Definitely calibrate before first use. Even the more pricey ones need calibration out of the box. The cheaper ph meters are accurate but fall out of spec much faster than a more expensive version. The tds meter won’t need calibration. When you do receive the tds meter, test your tap water and use that as a baseline for future reference.
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I like to recommend this pH meter. Mine has been accurate and rarely falls out of calibration.
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