just sharing me coco method which I think is the easiest and simplest. All Calcium and magnesium problem tackled this way. - I use straight maxibloom (Lucas) on pure coco, no pre treatment of coco necessary, just flush it well on tap.... - on every watering/feeding add a small pinch of epsom salt... Just a tiny weeny little pinch for each gallon is more than enough. No need to worry about calcium problem on early stage of growth, they get ENOUGH calcium from my tap water and my tap was only 70-90ppm. - After the plant is big enough and you need to put enough nute that's resulting in the need of PH UP, I use pure straight calcium hydroxide mixed with water in a small plastic bottle. Just pour the Calcium hydroxide powder to the bottle (About 10% volume), add a little water (20% of volume), shake and use. You can store this solution for a very long time and you need to shake the bottle every time you need to use it...Just be careful, a drop of this thing will raise some PH. Use common sense. That's it. No need for anything else and I am growing some of the healthiest plant on coco I've ever seen, not a single leaf shows a sign of deficiency, all 3 plants from different strain from different seeds source, so I know for a fact this method works (in my limited experience with only 2 finished grow anyway.. ). One was a shitty bagseed which start life as a deformed plant growing odd shape and number blade on each leaf, now it has transformed to lush plant and caught up with the others... My previous grow was on kiss also, but I messed around with gypsum, dolomite, reeftank calcium supplement, etc and I remember I saw lots of problematic leaves with ca/mg syndrome on that grow and the end result was bountiful but potency wise was so so... Stay green
just a couple of things I see , 1 is with only 2 finished grows there is no way you can say it works for sure. and you experimented so much on ur previous grow thats not really a good example to compare ur new method. and 2 ur using tap and for all we know its 70 ppm of cal probally not but also not a good comparison. so in short you might have found a great alternative to calmag, but you should try it out with ro or distilled and see what results you get then. I think 1 problem with people growing coco is they over do the calmag. once the caluim bank is full its full and any extra cal is going to hurt instead of help.
Hi coonjasa, MaxiBloom has 5% Calcium & I ran into problems on my first KISS grow using CalMag for too long a period of time. Cheers, bruce
Yes probably I haven't got enough grow under my hand to fully justify my method... You are right on that. My background is reeftank, and as far as I know there is nothing more pure than calcium hydroxide solution and the German called it Kalkwasser...It has a very high ph range and it's stable if not exposed to open air, so logically it should be safe for PH up purpose. It chemically bind Phospate if PH goes beyond 6, but on 6 and under the phospate will still be freely available. My starting tapwater PH is 7.4 with 70-90 ppm, I don't think that ppm has much calcium because I do not see any obvious calcium deposit on my faucet or shower box. I only need 5-6 drops of my DIY ca solution to bring up PH from 4.5 to 5.5 in 1.5 gal container, I never actually measure it, but I don't think it is too much calcium for my starting tap water... Maybe my method works with someone that have similar initial tap water condition as me or use RO/Distilled. I don't have 200-300ppm tap water to start with nor RO system anymore so I cannot experiment on that. I quit and dismantled my RO system after realizing I have 70ppm tapwater, practically close to distilled water (35ppm from store), even my reeftank is doing fine with my tap water... BTW: You should try starring on good reeftank while being baked... It's sureal...LOL!! I experimented with other ca addition such as dolomite, gypsum, reeftank liquid calcium on my last grow and it was a failure in term of calcium. I did not mention it in this forum because I was stumped and kinda gave up, fact is I actually faced with constant minor sign of deficiency on early flower and major deficiency problem late on flowering on my previous grow.... I had 4 plants on my last grow, 3 I played around /experimented with and 1 I left alone on pure KISS, all 4 showed the same problem late on flowering being worse on one of the plant with deficiency problem showing even on big buds....Buds began dying off before I can see 20% amber and I had to harvest bit early on that plant. Looking at my current grow (Now mid flowering), I can safely say that these 3 ladies are WAY looking better than my previous. I have yet to see a single leaf showing deficiency problem, all plants are shorter and bushier with really thick white hairs (even the same white widow seeds from previous grow, same source), my last grow definitely had much thinner white hair. I have to admit that my previous grow experience contributed alot to the lush grow I am seeing right now, but in regards of the calcium problem, I definitely tackled it this time with calcium hydroxide, and IMO, calcium hydroxide + epsom is WAY cheaper than calmag and readily available on every corner of the world. Thanks a bunch for the heads up for potential of over calcium, I will definitely watch it closer late on flowering. Do you have pointers to watch for over calcium problem?
well I suspect that different strains may react different to cal tox, but for me it starts with the edges of the leaf the very tips on the sides turn yellow, and smaller sugar leafs are sometimes droopy, and then p gets locked out and yellow spots appear on leafs then turn brown the leaf then curls up and dies.
one of the girl is not showing uniform green color on leaves... It's the bagseed one....But it's still flowering as good as the other 'quality' seeds. I will definitely watch for cal tox. Thanks for the heads up..
is she too close too the light. and i forgot if u mentioned how ur dealing with ur mag. that could be a mag def. also that could be a sign you have too much cal already,another thing calmag has a lot of n and iron , so look out for def's or differences in those categories.
You are dead on right on that.... It's starting to show more distinct mag def sign.... I stopped Ca hydroxide completely. Ph UP using potassium hydroxide now...
bad memory. how good is ur water? ro, tap ? I have completly stopped ph'ing my ro comes out at 6.4 and after nutes additives its anywhere from 5.8 to 3.9 in late flower. and I have done slurry tests and medium ph is always buffered in the coco. the prob I see with everyone ph'ing there sh!t Is 1 there adding salts 2 the salts being used "in your case first was ca hydrox and 2cnd potassium hydrox" are nutrients in themselves, now the ferts we use are either whole programs or three part have everything in them the plants need. now when we ph up or down we're adding more ppms of whatever ph salt u use throwing off the ratio that has been established by the nute company. then the extra nutes lockout other nutes and u think you have a def or burn and then the bad choices start.lol "more nutes, or flush" now until they make some kinda meter that singles out individual nutes we r stuck guessing , unless ur a major in math and have all the time in the world for mixing nutes. just my 2 cents, next grow try 1 plant not ph'ing.
It's tap water, ph 7.2 - 7.4 with 70-90 TDS (HANNA)..... After 900PPM of maxibloom, PH always comes out at 4.2-4.5, 1200PPM = 3.6-3.9. I have tried not ph ing for the last three days on the bagseed which shows mg problem...at least It doesn't get worse. After a week if this one plant got better after, I'll quit ph'ing for the rest of the ladies.... I read your enire pst about not ph'ing, at I am very very very interested if I can get away with that too....
ur water seems good. try doing a slurry test after feeding a ph of 3.9, i bet it will still be in the sweet spot if not a little high.
The gypsum is a good source of calcium if used correctly it can replace the lime. It works well with other sources of trace calcium like kelp and alfalfa meal... there's more but you'd have to look into it...