Anyone else have problems with Fox Farm?

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by alpha_Baked, Nov 18, 2008.

  1. I am new to hydro but not to growing. This has been my first go with a hydro set up and I started with Fox Farm nutes. Now I introduced the Big Bloom to my res at one and a half weeks into veg and noticed a ring forming in my tray. The ring got heavier over the next few days and had turned the flood tray from black to a fairly heavy brown in a week. Along this time I started to have some wild ph swings up to 1 point in as little as two hours. Also ended up getting some light nute burn on the new leaves after about a week of using the Big Bloom at full strength. I changed the res, flushed my system and had a thick mud in the bottom of my res. I went to a local Hydro store talked to the guy there about the problems that I have had and he said that the Big Bloom was intended for soil growers and that it needs some time to further break down and decompose before it is really working for your plants. He recomended that I switch to the GH line and I have now been using them with out problems for a week now. Now it seems that I was getting alot quicker and thicker growth with the Fox Farm nutes but at the risk of killing my girls I think I will stay with the GH. I was wondering if anyone else here has had similar problems with Fox Farm and found a way to work with it or is there some step that I am missing in their use?
     
  2. Hmmmm. I am on my first hydro grow too with all of the Fox Farms nutes, and a rule of thumb from a couple different sources that I've read is that you should start out using the fox farms line at half strength until you flush right before flowering, (that is unless you have huge plants that can take all the nutes and high ppm levels) As far as the brown muck, that's just part of the way it goes with their nutes. I get it in my flood tray also but not as bad as you are describing it. My water just gets a little yellow/brown tinge to it. I also had the light nute burn on the leave tips, so just lowered my ratios. If you're just dumping your nutes into the res without stirring I would suggest adding them to a gallon jug of water and shaking the crap out of it for about 20 seconds and then slowly pouring it into your rez, things just mix better that way and might not gather on the bottom of your res. Oh and keep those ppm's below 1400!
     
  3. I am running an eight gallon res I fill to five gallons then take three gallons of plain ph adjusted water then ad the nutes to those jugs each jug for each part was my plan but I had been splitting the grow big and the big bloom between the three. I was shaking the hell out of the nute bottle before messuring and then making sure it was well mixed with the water before adding to the res then stirring with a wisk for about two or three minutes then ph testing and correcting to between 5.8 and 6.2. I have added a small air pump with two air stones to my res to boost the Oxygen available to the root system and to hopfully keep the nutes mixed while they set in the res. I have not bought a PPM meter but I was trying to err on the weak mix side for fear of nute burn and lockout. I have read alot of good reveiws on Fox Farm products online and since I really have no clue what to expect from a Hydro system I was thinking that I might be just over reacting to something that everyone sees, but with the recomendation of the owner of my local grow shop and he sells the complete Fox Farm line I have switched to the GH Lucas formula.
    JofD how often have you been changing your res? I was compleatly switching out water and nutes every 5 days for fear that I could get some build up and since I have been too cheap to buy a PPM or EC meter to monitor the res. Before anyone flames me for being stupid and not buying one, I have had very nice grows in the past in soil and am really just trying out hydro to see if it is really as great as everyone says, and after spending nearly a grand on an experiment I was hesitant to drop another 150 on a meter that IMO is only helpful if I were running a larger res or letting my plants go longer before switching out the water.
     
  4. Well, the ppm meter is a must, it's like your left nut, and the right nut being your ph meter. Hydro mainly just grows faster from what I've seen..... and if you love science and getting things wet that you're not supposed to, then hydro is for you! I just changed my res out for the first time today, it went fourteen/fifteen days and I noticed over fert issues so I changed it all out and loaded in the "flowering phase" of nutes. I clocked my res at 50 gallons, but I know it is holding closer to 55-57gallons. I pretend a few gallons are not there just in case I overdo the nutes. I have ten plants going in there, they are only like a foot tall. In hydro you will get some massive ph fluctuations when adding your nutes to fresh water, and from what I have read from people you should give it an hour to "settle down" before getting a solid ph reading. As far as your muck and that ring buildup, I'd say to a certain extent it is natural, unless it starts to turn green and grow mold/moss/algae. We are after all adding fish poop/emultion and soil based nutrients to water, so our setups won't look like shiny new plastic forever.:rolleyes: Your two airstones seem like more than enough. My res is divided into two equal containers, and I only have two of the 4" long air stones.

    What's your entire room setup?

    You should be able to go 7 days without a change. If not now, then when the plants are older you can get away with it.
     
  5. I'm using the fox farm nutes too. Right now just growbig, and superthrive(not fox farm) and checking the PH of the water. Am I missing anything? Any nute or is that it?
     


  6. In the past I have used super thrive in soil grows and really dident like the results here is a link to a page that says it better than I can http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fig/msg031955499481.html

    The feeding schedule published by Fox Farm indicates that depending on what stage of growth you plants are at you should be using between 1-2 tablespoons per gallon of water, or 15-30 mililiter's of Big Bloom per gallon of water in your res.

    Another reason to avoid using superthrive is that most of the three part systems are made to work together, the chemestry of the seperate products can have a negitive value on your plants, IMO if you are really experianced with biochem and hydro growing then you know what your doing but if your just taking someone else's advice then I would stay with what the people that make your nutes say to use...
     


  7. ahhh ok I see. that make sense tho. fox farm makes the kit and superthrive aint in it... So i'm not missing anything? all im using is growbig and checking PH. Do i need to check anything else?
     
  8. here is a link to the fox farm feeding schedule, I was using just the three part system. Which is Grow Big blue label, Big Bloom which contains all of your trace minerals and all the organic goodies, then when you go over to flower you switch from Grow big to Tiger Bloom. Also there are some other dry mixes that they suggest you buy but I was not using them so I dont know how effective they are.http://www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/feedingfox.html
    This link takes you to a group of pdf documents that you can download, bear in mind that they say to only veg for three weeks but you may want to extend that period to maximize your yield.
     
  9. I use superthrive, (the concentrated little brown bottle) but only one drop per gallon for seedlings, and I use it once for the first week of 12/12, but just a few teaspoons.
     
  10. Some people I know swear by the superthrive, and I have not tried it in a hydro set up but it dident really wow me in past soil grows with a couple different kinds of plants. Up untill my small freakout about the brown ring I had been wowed by the Fox Farm line and IMO these kind of chemicals are made to work with each other and I am scared that I would mess that interaction up if I tried to add different stuff to the mix.
     

  11. so u use growbig and bigbloom for veg?

    are u suppose to do that? how are ur plants reacting?
     
  12. My plants were doing great, very thick bushy dense growth. I did have some light nute burn but I think that was another issue. The reason I stopped using the Fox Farm nutes is that the Big Bloom left a brown ring in my res, and in the flood tray. I talked to my local grow shop and they suggested that I switch, but that could also just have been them wanting to sell me more stuff. The Big Bloom is safe to use all the way through both veg and flower, I just got a little worried and I think blew things out of preportion.
     
  13. I know this thread is really old, but I have something of value to add.

    I had this exact same problem through multiple grows and I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening. I'm using FF full line.

    My plants were infected with some sort of pathogen. I think it's naturally in the BigBloom, but won't get a foothold unless you do something very wrong. Then it's next to impossible to get rid of it.

    Finally I tried spraying my plants with Green Cure (kills botrytis) and flushed my roots with some h2o2. My pH has been very stable for quite a while now, miraculously.
     

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