Hey guys I am just about to finish with my first grow. I have another 7 plants going I am having trouble keeping my ph in soil at acceptable levels always struggling with low ph. I am using Ro water that finishes at 7ppm. I struggle with figuring out how much cal mag to keep my plants happy. I have read about using lime (dolomite) to raise ph there is also calcium and magnesium in the lime. Question can I top dress my plants with lime and forget about the dam bottle of cal mag. If not some pointers on how much cal mag I should be using would be appreciated. 4 plants are in straight happy frog and the other 3 are in a mix of happy frog and ocean forest.
Ideally you would mix the dolomite lime into your soil. You can top dress, but that’s more of an emergency action. The lime will eventually get hard like concrete from being watered. Dolomite lime will add some calcium and magnesium though, and help buffer ph.
The big difference here is usually between being organic or synthetic. If you’re using other synthetic nutrients I don’t really see a reason to get away from the calmag. And you can flush your medium to get root zone ph up. If you’re trying to stay organic, then you can even use the lime suspended into water and apply it that way.
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I always use 1tsp/gal and my plants seem to love it, I do this throughout the entire grow. But my runoff still continues to be 5 when my solution goes in at 6.5. I have no idea wtf to do. And my plant also seems 100% healthy, so I don’t even know if it’s a problem… 
What if I literally just flushed 1 week ago to get runoff from 5 to 6.5, and already 6 days later it’s back at 5? Wtf is going on? My plant seems completely healthy too. I’m using HF. Idk what to do
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I’d say there is an issue with something you’re using or how you’re using it. If you have a journal tag me in, if not you should start one and list support ticket.
I just use the Grow with Jane app to document everything I do. But I mean all I’m doing is feeding it like once a week. Going by the FF feeding schedule and adjusting PH to 6.5 every time. I don’t see what I could be doing wrong. Someone said it might be something up with the soil and how it’s reacting to the nutrients which is weird bc it’s Happy Frog soil and I feel like it shouldn’t be messing with my nutrients. I don’t see why it would, it’s organic soil. Also soil is soil.
All soil definitely isn’t the same. And ff nutrient schedule is garbage in my opinion. Their products are fair, but their schedule has you overfeed plants and then strip all the buildup away with flushes every couple of weeks. That’s a waste of money and more effort than necessary. If you’ve been using ff recommended schedule and not flushing could do this.
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Okay. I’ve read multiple people say they’ve done the schedule exactly as it is and had great results. But then half the people say that they modify it. So I’m not sure what to do it being my first grow, I thought this would make it easier. I mean I don’t see why a really successful company would just put out a dirt shit feeding schedule, no one would come back. Idk, I feel like there is a bad stigma against FF. Everything about my plant and the feeding schedule has been great except for this damn runoff PH level. So idk. It does seem like salt build up is a pretty common thing with their nutrients so I’m kind of leaning towards what you’re saying. That sucks man, what do I do about that? Is there any way I can use their nutrients and not have this happen? Why does this happen?
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My hero!
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For sure. Make sure to flush build-up out as recommended by the schedule is one way to keep things a little more even. Sounds like you have seen those that use it at a reduced strength successfully too.
No nutrient schedule is going to cover every plant in every possible situation either. So some level tweaking occasionally should be expected no matter what the name on your nutrients is. Ff just seems to be excessive.
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Okay, I will definitely use something else once I have the money to buy different nutes. What nutes/soil would you recommend if I’m not making my own composite from scratch? Also, are orange pistils a sign of potassium/phosphorus deficiency? My flowering plant is showing some of them and I’m wondering why.
I think roots organic original is best bang for buck in comparison to most user friendly.