This is my understanding of how to use Advanced nutrients, and it has worked great for me, I was taught this by my mentor grower... If it's wrong, can someone please either correct it, or tell me why it works. Here's 2 questions people have PM'd me about and I've seen it asked else where on the forums more than once.... How do I use the Advanced Nutrients additives and fertilizers together? How do I reach those target PPMs? If you've ever used the nutrient calculator an the Advanced Nutrient website... At first, it's a little confusing to say the least... It lists most of the products in every feeding/fertilizer plan... But what if you aren't using all the products listed? Does it still apply to you?... The answer is yes, just ignore what you don't have. Hopefully I'll answer these questions to your satisfaction... If I don't, feel free to ask Start by adding the recommended amounts of the additives you have, find these amounts on the Advanced Nutrients calculator by selecting your product line, then your feeding program from the drop down lists, then enter your reservoir size. Once you have added the recommended amounts of your additives, measure the PPM. You shouldn't be at your target PPM yet, if you are, you probably did something wrong. Next, slowly add your fertilizer(s) in the proper ratios(for instance, equal parts for Connoisseur) to your reservoir until you reach your target PPM. Now just aim for the Target PPMs every week using this method... Lets' say that you were later on into flowering and now your additive amount is zero, yet your PPM is still up there, easy, just add the fertilizer all by it's self to your reservoir until you reach your target PPM. That's it!! It's actually quite simple and once you get the hang of it, it's super easy..... Happy growing!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My personal favorite Advanced Nutrients recipe is as follows: The Connoisseur 2 part fertilizer used with Big Bud, Carboload, Sweet Leaf and Sensizym. For the sake of mocking the competition, I'll call this Crazy's Formula. Also use Advanced Nutrients' Final Phase for flushing. This recipe will produce buds comparable to those found in BC, if you grow in hydro. P.S. This recipe is only for flowering. Use the amount of Sweet Leaf recommended on the bottle, except while you flush, for some reason it's not on the nutrient calculator
AN calculator assumes all your plants are in the same stage of growth. What about using in a system that uses SOG?
I used advanced nutrients BigBud for flowering this outdoor season and I just read the back of the container for how to use it it explains it clearly. It worked great it is my new favorite flowering product I had no nutrient taste in my bud and the buds got absolutely huge and tasted amazing compared to the ones I used schultz 10-54-10 on. It brings the crystals out like crazy as well.
If you're doing SOG and everything is fed off the same reservoir you would have to use the weakest ppm, or risk burning your smallest plants. It's a trade-off. Great, ain't it? I gave a bottle to a buddy of mine, told him I had some really great stuff for him and when he got the bottle he looked all disappointed and said he thought I was talking about weed. I just laughed. I told him, "That stuff IS weed."
Hey Crazy, I found a couple videos about this very thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_s67JTDL-A and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQcj77Z4G9E What's your take on this?
Hello all, hydrocut I took a look at these videos and in the first one "mixing hydroponics nutrients, hs 40" He tells us about the correct order to mix the nutes. He goes into an explanation of how most base nutrients are added first due to the "calcium?" in the base that needs to dissolve. After reading what CrazyPot head wrote here and going http://www.gchydro.com/advanced_nutrients.asp and finding the link Advance Nutrient Schedule which is a PDF I was under the impression that adding the ADDITIVES first and then the BASE. The guy on the video says BASE then ADDITIVES. ON the 41st episode he addresses this and states that there is no real right way to do it i.e. BASE first then ADDITIVE or ADDITIVE then BASE... he says it doesn't matter. My question is does it matter? I've gotten mixed signals from a lot of different people about how to use AN. I just want to know how to use them right, but I hear something different all the time about how to mix my nutes. Thanks!
Well I was actually talking about this with that Erik Biksa guy, I sent him an email and we been talking back and forth a little. I thought I knew this stuff pretty well... dude, that guy makes my head spin. Basically what I've been able to learn suggests the jury is still out on certain things, but that you can't go wrong measuring your base nutrients first. If you're going to use a whole load of additives and you don't have tons of HPS and CO2 and a heavy-eating strain, it'd probably be best to start off with light feeding and additives and work your way up. (That's just always a good idea until you've got things dialed in.) Theoretically there could be an "optimal" order to mix your stuff in, and that's something Erik is trying to figure out right now but I don't know how that's going. The biggest concern with mixing additives first then base nutes up to target ppm is that you might not get enough base nutes if you're using a lot of additives, which would be bad. But how likely that is I don't know, I haven't tested it myself. There's an easy way to figure it out yourself, though. Just mix up like Crazy here suggests. If you don't have enough ppm left over for a decent dose of base nutrients add the smallest amount you think is "enough" and add a little more water to lower the ppm back to your target. You gotta make sure you leave some room for extra water that way, though. But that'd let you know to drop everything else by a certain amount next time. Anyhow, I'd tend to point to the guy in the video as being more of an expert, no offense to Crazy Pothead. So until I hear more I'm gonna follow Erik Biksa's advice.
Ah, nice to be back at the city, I haven't been on in a few months... Well, after reading the posts here and watching the videos, all I can say is that there's more than one way to skin a cat... My recommendation would be for people to carefully document their grows and harvests(you should be doing this anyways) and try both methods and see which yeilds better results Personally, I'm going to stick to my method, and I'd suggest that others do the same unless they see a sign of nutrient defs or they see better results using the other method. To sum it up... Try as many different things as you can, because the nutrient needs vary from strain to strain and even from pheno to pheno... But the best peice of advice is for you to record everything in detail, what works and what doesn't, a log book is your best friend.
The main point of SOG is to have your plants all at different stages, and each of the 4 flowering zones should have their own resivoir to give you the best yields. P.S. I know you can have more than 4 flowering zones in SOG, but 4 is "standard".
Definitely, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Try some different methods and figure out what works for you. And the record book is a must for any serious grower.