Pete Moss Hydroponix!

[Mr Mcfah Q]

I would like to know if anyone else is using pete moss as there grow medium????
I have a 1000 watt HPS setup using Optimum Hydroponix neutrents and there schedual. My 1st crop is allmost done and looking very stinky, crystaly and good to smoke. I have 1 califonia hash plant (DNA feminized) 1 clone white widdow and 2 seed white widdow (white label seeds feminized). I would like to generate some Q & A comments, tips, links and anything you would like to add.

Happy toking!



I will upload some pics as soon as the uploader starts working again....

[cloner_357]

I've tried it before, and it made my water green. and nasty.. I wouldnt recommend it.. but again thats My Opinion.

[Mr Mcfah Q]

Originally Posted by cloner_357

I've tried it before, and it made my water green. and nasty.. I wouldnt recommend it.. but again thats My Opinion.

I use BX pro pete moss mix it has no neutrents and little macro and micro trace elements and some perilite. When you buy it like this it is dried and very absorbent I pot my plant and mix the neuts as the bottl instructs but I only make as much as the plants need, then i pour that into a kiddie pool where my plants sit in and soak up the liquid from the bottom up. The pete is also brown/black so no green water for me.

[burntwood]

Are you using the whole product line from Optimum Hydroponix. It looks like they have a 2 part for soil/soiless grows.

[AskEd]

I haven't tried peat moss, but I've used sphagnum moss quite a bit with great success. It works really well with hard water and drains great, tends to be a bit acidic so you have to keep an eye on the runoff ph. Good stuff.

[Mr Mcfah Q]

Originally Posted by AskEd

I haven't tried peat moss, but I've used sphagnum moss quite a bit with great success. It works really well with hard water and drains great, tends to be a bit acidic so you have to keep an eye on the runoff ph. Good stuff.

Yes! that is what im using sphagnum BX pro mix. I think sphagnum is a type of pete moss but you are right, it works very well! Also I water from the bottom up so there is no runoff and when im done with the plants i throw away the used medium so no chance of ph or old neut build up.

[AskEd]

That's really a great way to go, there are a ton of pros to using sphagnum... it's light, bugs don't care for it, super airy, works great for any type setup (including your wick type), and best of all it's cheap!

One thing I would suggest is testing it to see how it plays with the ph. If you do a top feeding one time and measure the ph going in then again in the runoff, you can see if it's doing anything with it. I've had some moss drop the ph by as much as a full point and some not affect it at all. This is good to know if you ph your nutes in the 5.8-6.0 area.

I'm going to give this coco coir stuff a try, mixing it with perlite and a drip system. I just have bagseeds right now but it's good enough to play with until my trip to Amsterdam in a few months - wife won't let me mail order :-(

What size pots are you growing in? I used to use 5gal buckets and my plants would get huge fast.

[Mr Mcfah Q]

I would say my pots are 2 gal to 2 1\2 gal. they are pretty big!

[OCdaddy]

askEd and mr mcfah q, you guys using that in hydro!?! im impressed, mediums like that in hydro always sounded dirty to me. i just may have to play around with this! +rep to you guys!

[AskEd]

Originally Posted by OCdaddy

askEd and mr mcfah q, you guys using that in hydro!?! im impressed, mediums like that in hydro always sounded dirty to me. i just may have to play around with this! +rep to you guys!

Right on bro, much thanks. To be honest the moss is really clean to work with, you don't get crap up under your fingernails and I've never seen any kind of algae or mold grow on it from nute build up or light exposure. And like Mcfah says, just toss it after harvest so you always start fresh.

It's good stuff, I could go on and on about what a great medium it is.

Lately I've been really interested in this coco coir stuff. I've researched it pretty hard and am really pumped to try this.

Tonight I mixed up a 50%/50% batch of coco & perlite. I'm just blown away with the texture, all I could think of was how clean this stuff is, it's like a super high grade soil with no smell. This stuff is for the most part inert and rests in the 5.8 ph range. With water ph'd the same, this should be a perfect match and should open up those nute highways.

Just got my schwaggseeds to break the surface, almost time to get them in some coco and see what's up!


Coco coir & perlite mix, 50/50

[HardDrive]

Phototrons uses the pete in a course and fine mixture and it works very well.
They want you to keep a puddle in the bottom, I used the auto watering thing they sell.

[Mr Mcfah Q]

Here are those pics said I would get up! The first three are California hash plant and the others are white widow.

[AskEd]

Dude those are fucking sexy! Beautiful buds, are you trimming them to be like that or is that the way they grow?

[Mr Mcfah Q]

Originally Posted by AskEd

Dude those are fucking sexy! Beautiful buds, are you trimming them to be like that or is that the way they grow?

I do 3 major trimmings during the bud cycle and take off so much leaf, small buds and small branches that some people think it is overkill. As you can see that all the energy that goes into the monster buds instead of crappy little buds and leaves it no longer needs anyways. I did that trim the day befor I took those pics.

[AskEd]

Nice, well you can't argue with results. I like your thinking, I'm working on a CFL closet grow and this could solve a few lighting issues I'm concerned with. Seems like side lighting could be real effective using a trimming regime like you have.

I'm assuming you topped that to get all the colas like that? (sorry for all the questions)