Hey guys, hope all of you are doing well. So I've finally received my lights and grow tent kit. Currently working on a grow room and I'll post pictures once I have everything set up in the room. I wanted to mention that I'll be growing in 2, 5x5 grow tents with an 1100 watts led each. One tent will grow Cali og kush haze and the second will grow crown royale. I will put 5-6, 5 gallon pots in each tent. I had a few questions on how to go forward. 1. What would a better mix for a grow medium. A. 50% Peat moss 35%Perlite 15% vermiculite B. Pro-mix HP biofungicide and mychorezzae. I'll have to get this imported and will have to pay 5 times the price so plz advice this if you think it will give a superior quality end product then the Other medium. If it does provide better quality then I am willing to pay the extra $. 2. I will be using the flower power starter line and the add on foliar, and some cal/mag. Does this fertilizer mix work for the grow mediums I've mentioned above? If so then should I use the hydroponic ph recommendation while watering them with this fertilizer? Also since it will be an indoor grow then Should i decrease the quantity of fertilizer to half or even quarter? Should I start feeding on day 1 seedling or give it a few days before starting to feed. Plz reply in detail, all these questions need an answer before I can get going on a successful grow. Thanks in advance guys.
I really like promix but if it's hard for you to get yourself you can just build your own. The main ingredients of promix are readily available. I use sunshine promix 4 and mix in about 10% course precision perlite. Sushine promix is Peat Moss, Coco, Perlite, and dolomite lime along with some organic wetting agents. I would try 50% peat, 25% coco, 20% perlite, and some dolomite lime. This is going to be pretty close to some of the commercially available promix around. Don't forget the lime because that is your ph buffer. Promix is known for not being as picky about ph as some other hydro mediums but you should still feed in the hydro range which is 5.8-6.2. I like to go with about 6.2. My plants seem to do better a little higher up. I'm a huge fan of GH floranova bloom. I veg with it. I add a small amount of budcandy and in flower I'll add some liquid koolbloom. I'm really happy to have found FN bloom it is a time saver. It's a single bottle all in one nutrient. It even has cal/mag, as much as many supplements built in. 3-4ml/gallon @ 6.2ph /done.
Use 6.4-6.8 pH for soil. (I prefer 6.8). If the nute feeding schedule is for hydro, use 1/2 the recommended dosage for soil. With most quality soils you should not add any nutes for the first few weeks (the plant will use the nutes that are in the soil so you don't need to add any right away)
I agree pistils but he's basically making a soiless medium so he should feed hydro ph especially if you don't add any lime.
Thanks guys for the quick reply. Tbone do you think one of these two mediums is superior to the other or are they both about as equally good? Is promix hp reusable? Because if it is then my ROI will be on point after reusing the promix a few times. For the mix you recommended. 50% peat, 25% coco coir, 20% perlite and dolomite lime. Shouldn't there be more perlite in the mix then just 20%? Someone else recommended 50%peat and 45%perlite with dolomite lime. Would this also work? Will flower power nutrients work well with the mixes mentioned above? Also after I have made the mix, how will I check if the ph level for the soilless medium is on point and not too acidic? Thanks guys for your help
Thanks guys for the quick reply. Tbone do you think one of these two mediums is superior to the other or are they both about as equally good? Is promix hp reusable? Because if it is then my ROI will be on point after reusing the promix a few times. For the mix you recommended. 50% peat, 25% coco coir, 20% perlite and dolomite lime. Shouldn't there be more perlite in the mix then just 20%? Someone else recommended 50%peat and 45%perlite with dolomite lime. Would this also work? Will flower power nutrients work well with the mixes mentioned above? Also after I have made the mix, how will I check if the ph level for the soilless medium is on point and not too acidic? Thanks guys for your help
You're basically doing hydro. Some people like more perlite then others. It has great properties for the root medium. Perlite sucks up water and stores to for when the plant needs it. It's so lite that you can't compact the medium when you have a lot of perlite. That allows more air to get the roots so they can breath to grow rapidly. I use a promix that already has perlite and then I add about 10-15% more. I estimate about 20% is what I use total but it could be near 30%. Coco has many of the properties of perlite so If I blended coco I would use less perlite. If you leave the coco out the higher perlite percentage makes sense. I have no experience with flower power nutrients but many people grow in amended peat/perlite. It's sort of the old school method of promix. All that promix really is is amended peat sold already mixed with prime ingredients. Some have started to blend coco in it too which Iike. Coco will slightly increase your need for cal/mag. If you just feed at 6.2 you won't have to worry about it being too acidic. Since you're feeding with hydro nutrients you want to be in hydro ph level to promote the best uptake of nutrients. Soil works from a higher ph level because there's different things going on chemically in how the plant is feeding. In soil the plant is fed by microbes so the feed water's ph is at the optimal levels for them to process the organically chemically bonded nutrients for the plant. In hydro the optimal ph level is the one that promotes the direct uptake of already chemically pure nutrients that have no need to be processed to a more pure form by soil microbes.
You can reuse promix but you should replace the dolomite lime by mixing in a little more or top dressing it. That is the ph buffer and it works in conjunction with the peat. I've always read that when you use peat you need to lime it or it won't grow right. I can't remember exactly chemically why. You can use barely based pond clarifier to dissolve the old roots out of it and make them into nutrients for the plants. Add some of that pond clarifier and some botanicare hydroguard. Those are root cleaning bacteria. They dissolve dead organic material and the barely based pond clarifier contains an enzyme that supercharges the process. Learned this from ironhead in the coco section.
Thankyou tbone for the detailed reply. You have been very helpful. So I will go ahead with 50%peat moss, 25%coco, 20%Perlite and dolomite lime. The ph will be from 5.8-6.2 but in my case I will water with ph 6.2 like you recommended. As you said I won't worry about the ph for the soilless mix. How much dolomite lime should I mix to keep ph on par? I read somewhere that I tsp dolomite with around 1gallon of mix is good. Is that the right amount needed?
Thankyou tbone for the detailed reply. You have been very helpful. So I will go ahead with 50%peat moss, 25%coco, 20%Perlite and dolomite lime. The ph will be from 5.8-6.2 but in my case I will water with ph 6.2 like you recommended. As you said I won't worry about the ph for the soilless mix. How much dolomite lime should I mix to keep ph on par? I read somewhere that I tsp dolomite with around 1gallon of mix is good. Is that the right amount needed?
My first grow will be in 10, 5 gallon grow pots. So the lime mixed in it will be 5x10=5ogallons. So about 70 table spoons?
It depends on how you feed. Dolomite lime is a ph buffer and a cal/mag. If your typical feed schedule is lacking in cal/mag you could add some dolomite lime to your feed schedule regularly. That would help make sure it's there all the time. Otherwise the level will decline after about 30 days in the mix.
I will also be feeding cal/mag during the grow. I've been recommended to start in around 4th week of veg. If I'm using cal/mag then I don't need to add additional dolomite during feeding time? Just add about 70-75 tablespoons at the beginning in 50gallon of mix? Maybe check the ph of the run down water from pots to see if ph is on level. If it's low then add some dolomite in the feeding schedule?