Drip Irrigation in 6" Hugo Blocks feed strength??

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adam2706

Active Member
Hi everyone. This is my first time trying this grow method, previously, I had been growing RDWC.

Right now I have 4 plants hooked to the system. 2 of them are progressing faster than the others. What is a typical feed strength for these blocks during the early-mid strength of veg? The blocks themself recommend a 1.5EC (750ppm) and I am hoping someone can confirm. With DWC, I was running about 500-600ppm all through veg. I was hoping to get some insight from people who grow this way before I torch my plants lol

I have been seeing some discoloration on the leaves, but I think that is due to light stress, which has recently been corrected.

Any tips you may have would be great. I'm still feeling this new method out.
 

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rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
adam2706 said:
That was my thinking too. I dropped back from 750ppm to 600ppm and I think they are improving. It just seems weird that they printed on the cube that you should start at 1.5 EC.
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i don't grow like that so i can't offer too much info. there are a few journals here that use the blocks.
 
J. Rocket

J. Rocket

Well-Known Member
what nutes are you using? do you have a mfg's feed chart?
been growing in hugos/6x6x6 for a few years.
GH Flora nutes I run lower middle of their feed chart.
 
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adam2706

Active Member
J. Rocket said:
what nutes are you using? do you have a mfg's feed chart?
been growing in hugos/6x6x6 for a few years.
GH Flora nutes I run lower middle of their feed chart.
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Right now I'm running canna aqua veg A/B, cannazyme, rhizotonic, cal mag, and hydroguard. All of the canna products are running at 50% strength. I plan on switching to the Athena line once I run out of canna
 
J. Rocket

J. Rocket

Well-Known Member
canna aqua is for recirculating systems if I remember correctly. are you recirculating or drain to waste?
Get simple with your nutes and you'll have better results in stonewool.
its a blank slate to grow in.
 
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adam2706

Active Member
J. Rocket said:
canna aqua is for recirculating systems if I remember correctly. are you recirculating or drain to waste?
Get simple with your nutes and you'll have better results in stonewool.
its a blank slate to grow in.
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Sounds good. No I am not recirculating. Do you think just the veg A/B and cal mag is enough? I'm just trying to run through my current nutes so I don't waste them.
 
J. Rocket

J. Rocket

Well-Known Member
to be honest I'd not use them if theyre not for dtw stonewool.
your asking for trouble to save a few bucks IMO.
I have a bottle of calmag collecting dust on a shelf, and some other junk I got talked into at the hydro store...lol
 
J. Rocket

J. Rocket

Well-Known Member
top down irrigation in blocks, especially 6x and 8x.
you'd have to fill the flood tray several inches deep to get the same soak and rinse.
thats wayyyy too much water mass to deal with.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
I'm using slabs with 10 cycles of DTW, and keeping the EC between 1.0 and 1.2. I'm only use FLoraflex's two part Bloom along with Pool Shock.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
I was feeding them around 1.8 during the last grow and they felt the burn. They were also getting cold roots, which was slowing down the uptake and compounding the problem.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
adam2706 said:
Sweet. That's helpful. How much volume are you watering per cycle?
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I have two rings watering three plants per slab, and each ring is running 400ml per cycle until the plants start to slow down. When I have both tents going they use about 30 gallons a day. When I used less volume or few cycles they seemed to develop root issues. My current plants are looking really healthy, so I'm not changing up anything.

After this I'm going to start using loose rockwool instead of slabs so that it dries faster and is more airy. I'm also going to start using mist emitters instead of rings. I'm currently doing a test run with a row of mist emitters right now. These changes will hopefully let me feed them more often at a lower volume overall.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
J. Rocket said:
havent tried using rockwool slabs.
whats the slab size? your running 3 plants each slab? how many slabs per run?
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I've used different sizes with different setups, but I'm currently using 36x6x3 because they fit my dutch leach trays. I cut about 8" off of them this time. Altogether I currently have 9 trays: 5 in one tent and 4 in the other. I've found the slabs either stay too wet or dry out too quickly, which is why I'm going with the small rockwool fill cubes after this.
 
J. Rocket

J. Rocket

Well-Known Member
awesome, thanks. the small cubes will need those mist emitters.
have you used the 6" (or 8") blocks?
most I've needed to water in 6x6x6 was 3x daily and those were some big n thirsty red congolese autos.
last run were photos at 2x daily.
 
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