So i’m planning out my second grow. I learned a lot my first grow about pH and nutrient lock but i know I’ve still got lots to learn. I’ve got questions about bottled nutes and flushing still. I’ve seen videos and read articles where people give their plants nutes almost every watering and never flush but how do they never get nutrient lock? Fox farms recommends flushing in between every stage it seems like but then how does that work. For example do I flush before or after I transplant before veg. Do I kinda just eyeball the ppm’s right before hand?
Also how often do I give bottled nutes. My hose water is around 7-7.5 pH and 500-580 ppms, would anyone recommend I pH/ add more nutes every watering/ every other watering? or should I just water with that straight and give FF nutes as needed
sidenote: how do I use the fox farm trio nutes, their schedule is a little confusing, am I supposed to mix the nutrients?
The key is runoff if you’re constantly pushing old stripped salt out of the bottom with water ppmed perfectly in a perfect aeration medium like coco coir you get explosive growth without clogging. Yes you mix ff trio but do half of what they recommend they tend to be hotter then advertised. Oh and always ph your water its the most important thing or else you’ll run into lock out later. I personally do organic and never flush ever. But bottled nutes most people recommend at minimum flush right before flower and 2 weeks before harvest.
This past grow I grew three plants, A Candy Kush and two AK’s. The Ck being my very first plant I didn’t pay much attention to pH’ing my water, and it winded up being the only one that got a harvest. One Ak winded up getting bud rot (also was given non ph’ed water) and the other one winded up having its soil become too acidic (or at least I think). That Ak was given pH’ed water from the start and winded up having some real issues, it lost all it’s leaves and got really yellow even on the stem. I nver really knew at the time what caused it but on a new grow I had a similar problem. I started another Candy Kush plant about 3 months ago and was giving that pH’ed water. That one was going great until about halfway through veg creeping up on the beginning of flower. Around then it started having the same issue as my previous AK. The leaves started to turn yellow and get brown spots and within a week the poor thing was losing leaves like crazy. This is when I ordered a TDS meter and Apera ph20. After testing it’s runoff I learned my soil was super acidic around 4.3 and my ppms were around 2200. It was interesting though because I hadn’t given it any nutrients accept one feeding during early veg and another with some flower nutes about a week or two before the issue happened. I’m not sure how my soil became so acidic, the only thing I can think of is my pH reading drops I was using before I ordered a digital meter were off and was reading more basic than reality.
Well yea you were phing your water blind and root death is at roughly 4.0 with ph down hydroponic acid it takes exactly 11 drops to bring a gallon from 7.3 to 6.0
If you’re growing in coco and watering everyday to run off with ph’ed water, you shouldn’t have to flush until harvest.I personally feed 2-3 times a day and rarely check my ppm because I’m consistently adding fresh nutes and not letting the coco dry out
Fox Farms suggests flushing because of the way their products are formulated. Other brands don’t necessarily require flushing. If you transplant you get to reset the flushing clock because the new soil doesn’t have buildup yet. If you regularly flush the buildup using fox farms schedule you should be able to avoid lockout. Fox Farms suggest using their Boomerang product which allows you to flush the salt buildup without flushing all the nutrients out of the soil which happens if flushing with lots of water.
I feed once a week with fox farms mixed at full strength, other waterings during the week are water or water with root development products. The most important measurement you need to make is pH’ing the water and nutrients going in. Your ppm for hose water is quite high so that may cause you to have to cut way back, but it kind of depends on what is in your water. You should get it tested.
If the feed chart for week three says to use Big Bloom and Grow Big you would mix both those into your water and adjust the pH before feeding.
You didn’t mention what you were growing in so I assume fox farms soil. If so, the runoff ppm of a new bag of soil will fall between 2000-3000. Don’t get carried away flushing out your nutrients.