DWC: Advanced nutrients vs General Hydroponics

I've used AN 3-part nutes for the last 17 years and tried the Sensi for grow and Connoisseur for flowering. Using the 3-part again now as it gives me more flexibility to customize my feeding. After the stretch I like to use the Lucas Formula style of feeding.

All I use other than the base 3-part is Rhino Skin and Big Bud. Any old CalMag tho may get AN's when I get some new stuff soon. I also use some Epsom Salts and grind up some of my own supplements like zinc, iron, ascorbic acid, (Vit.C) and b-complex. Bought some B-1 tabs as B-1 is the main B vitamin that is used by plants.

Bud candy and carboload are basically the same thing and as far as I'm concerned are to feed bacteria and fungi in soil growing and not of much use in hydro unless you are running beneficial bacteria and I never do. Voodoo Juice is outrageously expensive and again more for soil imo.

I got a free 500ml jug of Bud Factor X last year and plant to try it on a couple plants soon. I have two each of AK47 and Critical Mass so will give one of each the BFX in addition to everything I give the other two and see if there is a noticeable difference. Have had a few guys growing in hydro tell me it really does blow up the buds and adds a lot of resin.

If you use GH you are supporting Mon$anto as Scotts/Mon$atan bought them out a couple years ago along with Botanicare and Gavita. Very basic nutes designed to grow flowers and vegetables better than pot where AN has been tweaking their formulas just for pot and proudly said so since they started unlike all the rest who have always shunned us pot growers. Watch them all jump on the bandwagon now as pot becomes legal all over in the next few years.

Don't follow the feed chart recommendations from their website but go by ppm. 1ml/L of all 3 gives about 300ppm which is a good place to start clones at when they get put into DWC. Then I just bump up the amounts of nutes to raise the ppm higher as they get bigger and rarely change the nutes until after the stretch when I may change and use Lucas Formula style feeding from then on at lower ppm than during the stretch like around 750.

Out of the 50 or so DWC grows I've done since 2001 about half never got a nute change for the whole grow but I use RO or distilled water only so don't have to worry about mineral buildup from using the 400ppm crappy tap water they have in town. The water we use in the house comes from a dugout on my property and is even worse.

I also give a half dose Big Bud a week before flipping to flower to 'prime the pump' and the other half at the flip along with some extra nutes. I'll make sure they have extra light, feed and supplement with CO2 for the 3 or 4 weeks of stretch so they grow like crazy and set lots of buds sites then tone it down after stretch is done.

 

I used to use peroxide to prevent root rot but built a DIY chiller using a water cooler and as long as I kept the nute temp around 65F had zero root problems without peroxide. Hydroguard seems to work for some folks so hope it works for you.

Whenever I try out a new product I'll run a couple of identical clones from the same mother using the new product on one and not the other keeping everything else the same. Did that with both OverDrive and Bud Ignitor and could not see any reason to continue using them so don't any more.

I did that with Big Bud when it first came out and the difference was very obvious so hate to grow without it. The ratio of P to K, (15%P - 35%K), is much better for pot than most others that are higher in P than K and better suited for tomatoes than pot. 10% Sulfur in it really kicks up resin production too tho the mix of aminos, citric and ascorbic acids may help as well.

Voodoo Juice is a root thing and should be used with Tarantula and Piranha for total beneficial coverage. If you are going to use Hydroguard you shouldn't need any of those. I still believe all that stuff should be reserved for dirt farming.

"Each of these three products contains unique beneficial microbes that contribute to the nutrient healthiest root zone so your plants grow their best. The microbes in these three products combine to form a symbiosis with your roots and each other to provide even more root enhancement."

One of those marketing ploys that IMO are of little benefit to a hydro grower and really run up the cost of growing pot for little or no kick-back.

Bud Factor X is for boosting bud production and a totally different product. Supposedly it's the crustacean blend and proprietary bloom enhancing plant extracts that force higher resin production. Maybe the glucosamine helps too but doesn't do anything for my arthritis. lol Has willow bark extract too.

Looking forward to seeing what if anything the BFX does. The test plants are already to flower soon as I rig them up on a screen.

 

Those are some very good comments LabRat. You ever try the Maxigrow/bloom line?
I'm a Canuck and some of the hdyroguard (and similar products) are more difficult to obtain, so I was going to test a newer product line... more clones, more time...

 

Maxigrow = Mon$anto so I've never tried it tho did try the GH trio many years ago and didn't like it. Would not maintain pH properly compared to AN and that was before the pH Perfect came out. Now I never check pH whether growing in ProMix HP or DWC.

here too. Northern Alberta where men are men and sheep are shy!

 

Well then mr. GrandPrairie... hee hee, my folks live near Edson as a matter of fact...
so there's a new line of nutes I wanted to try from guys called Plant Production; they have a product called RootShield; I havent' tested it yet, kinda expensive, but not really. A box of it was $150 and it needed to stay in the fridge, but the box will last like a long azz time. They also came out with a Cannabis line and are hitting up LPs; kinda why I wanted to try it out. Also, another line is BC Northern Lights; I haven't tried their nutes, but I did pick up a bottle of plantacillin and its totally protecting my roots atm. I'm running (constant) top drip hydroponics and had a rough start without it. These are Canadian producers so you don't get the border hassle.

Northern Alberta... where every child by the age of 8 has the ability to take apart an engine and rebuild it by the morning.