Does Cal/Mag = tap water and epsom salt?

[fatman7574]

IMO he does have a really efficient set up, but some of his methods do seem a little lazy. Do you think there is a better alternative to SOG in small grow rooms?



I'm using sure to grow because it looked similar to the fytocell stuff. It is also way too expensive though. What medium do you suggest?

It is hard to beat short plant SOG simply because it best utilizes the available light. If you have lights that are air or water cooled you can place them two to three inches above the plant canopy. I use 250 watt lights that are water cooled over a 2' by 3' area. That is just over 41 watts per foot and I receive as more PAR (usable light) at the top of the 12" plants and at the bottom of the plant at the top of the net pots as I would recieve using 600 watts of light with 24" tall plants when they larger watt lights are placed an insane height of 1 foot above the plant canopy. Large wattage lights are really just a cheap or poor mans way of saving on the initial capital investment on equipment. Unless growing a tall plants there just is no benefi to large wattagelights. You an't get goodlight distribution wthout palcing the light high above the plants and that is throwing away the better out put efficiency of the larger light plus throwing away the higher intensity. Neither air or water cooled 600 or 1000 watt lights can be placed any where near as close to the plant canopy as the lower wt attt lights such as the 250 wat or even the 400 watt.

I would even use simple Perlite before I use a petroleum based foam product for a media. My doctorates degree is in environmental engineering so I am a bit more environmentally ware than the average citizen though. Marbles work great. Bio balls with a one inch layer oh marbles or well rounded 1/4" to 5/8" aqauriumgravel works well. Rubber mulch works well. Bio-balls is about the best choice butyou need to water more often as the pore spaces are larger. There is never a problen with poor root oxygen avilability or water logging with bio balls.

Rock wool in the bottom of a pot is about the worst thing I have ever heard of for lining the bottom of a pot. It is the equivalent to using a sponge in the bottom of a pot. The major problem frequent to rock wool is water logging. Using rock wool at the bottom of the pots assures a water logged media zone in the bottom of the pot. Not smart. A simple screen would be a much safer option. Even compressed rock woll in the bottom of the boot still has large enough pore spaces to allow root penetration. This means after enough roots accumulattein the rock wool they will strip the DO from the Rock wool. This means root rot will be an issue.

 

[Coreyhulick]

Are there any cheap methods to get my plants bigger faster or to insure lots of bud when harvist comes around

 

[fatman7574]

Good lighting 250 to 400 watt lighting that is cooled with air tubes or water chilling for light heights just a few inches above plant tops, high growing temps, CO2 supplementation, low humidity, air conditioning for any only when needed cooling so as to grow in a sealed grow area so as to use plant light heat rather than dumping it. If you stay at or below 95 with CO2 and dehumidification plants grow super fast without wide internodal spacing. For really narrow internodal spacing (very fast maturing shortened plants) use medium or high pressure or air atomizing nutrient delivery. It bonzai's the plants by providing very close internodal spacing. You need deep growing chambers or tall tubes, like 20" inches or more preferably. with any type of aero system as the roots should be suspended in air not stacked up in a layer in a trough, tube or shallow chamber.

Nutrient temps at the same as room temps as long as you can maintain good DO within your systems in all areas (ie aero medium or high pressure or air atomized). IE the water DO must always be at or above 2.O ppm every where it is in contact with roots. Grow short plant SOG not larger plants. Stay away from NTF, small tube aero and most DWC systems you see in the forums unless growing SOG from non vegged clones.

 

[ChronicObsession]

EDIT: damn this thread is old, but i need substitute for calmag...NOW!!! hey bong, I used some tap that was very hard and it fucked up my plant. After a day or two of bubbling with an airstone, the tap water always turns cloudy, that's called turbidity, from the high PPMs of unbalanced crap in the water line. Hydro doesn't work well or at all with turbid, cloudy water. My plants roots started to rot out, but only by 40% not all, and growth slowed down, and lots of pale green leaves with burnt brown tips appeared. i am going to change to RO water and try this epsom salts idea Thx guys

500ppm is extremely hard tap water. I'm not sure if you can use it. Ive read that it shouldn't be higher than 140ppm, but my tap here runs at about 215ppm and I've had no problems. I would either buy bottled water or a reversed osmosis system ($100+) or if someone says you can use your tap, have a bucket of water with an airpump and airstone going.

 

[303]

EDIT: damn this thread is old, but i need substitute for calmag...NOW!!! hey bong, I used some tap that was very hard and it fucked up my plant. After a day or two of bubbling with an airstone, the tap water always turns cloudy, that's called turbidity, from the high PPMs of unbalanced crap in the water line. Hydro doesn't work well or at all with turbid, cloudy water. My plants roots started to rot out, but only by 40% not all, and growth slowed down, and lots of pale green leaves with burnt brown tips appeared. i am going to change to RO water and try this epsom salts idea Thx guys

Correct me if I'm wrong but using tap water with high ppms, don't you not want cal mag because its already high in cal mag. My ppms here is 330, fucking terrible. I think adding more is no good. These days RO systems are only $100-$150, I think I am going to invest in it. It makes sense if you run hydro. In that case you would add cal/mag, right?

 

[pazuzu420]

I keep reading that you can save yourself some time and money buy using GH formula for hardwater. No need for R.O. and then the additives you have to add back in. I haven't tried it but it seems to be the common theme when reading similar threads.

I have extremely hard water that usually reads around 1900 ppm or over when comming from the well. My R.O. water sits at 150 ppm. So it makes me laugh when ppl say they have extremely hard water at 300ppm

 

[drekoushranada]

My tap water comes out at 70ppm! I thought I calibrated my TDS meter wrong but after doing more researching and testing the reading was right. I guess I will need CalMag.

 

[panhead]

It is hard to beat short plant SOG simply because it best utilizes the available light. If you have lights that are air or water cooled you can place them two to three inches above the plant canopy. I use 250 watt lights that are water cooled over a 2' by 3' area. That is just over 41 watts per foot and I receive as more PAR (usable light) at the top of the 12" plants and at the bottom of the plant at the top of the net pots as I would recieve using 600 watts of light with 24" tall plants when they larger watt lights are placed an insane height of 1 foot above the plant canopy. Large wattage lights are really just a cheap or poor mans way of saving on the initial capital investment on equipment. Unless growing a tall plants there just is no benefi to large wattagelights. You an't get goodlight distribution wthout palcing the light high above the plants and that is throwing away the better out put efficiency of the larger light plus throwing away the higher intensity. Neither air or water cooled 600 or 1000 watt lights can be placed any where near as close to the plant canopy as the lower wt attt lights such as the 250 wat or even

Im not here to argue as its obvious ya know your stuff but i cant get past your comments on lighting strength,Albfuct was my mentor when i jumped from soil to sog flood tables but i dont follow all his methods,for instance the whole flytocel deal.

Just a breif description of my grow style so you know where my head is at.

Ok.on to lighting,i have ran all wattages of light starting at 250 and i cant figure out why you feel that you cant cool higher wattage lights enough to make up for light fade.

I never could get the 1,000 watters cool enough but i have been able to get multiple 600's that are daisy chain air cool vented cool enough,infact if im a bit lazy in transition phase and forget to adjust the lights my plants have grown into the glass with zero burn,my lights are cool to the touch at all times,however i am using multiple high cfm fans in a push pull configuration but being that i have succesfully corrected any heat issues my ownself i dont understand how a grower with your knowledge can speak so broadly about heat issues concerning light fade.

Please elaborate.