35ppm water (Cal/Mag)

xtsho said:

If your soil is good you shouldn't have to add any cal-mag. Cal-mag is one of the most overused additives out there. It's typically not needed when growing in soil and it can be omitted in coco and hydro if using calcium nitrate as your nitrogen source.
Your plant looks fine. Feed it a good base nutrient and if you have good soil you won't need any cal-mag. Less is usually better. Don't buy into all the additive hype that is making the nutrient companies billions. I'm sure they appreciate people spending their money on watered down chemical salts but I personally have no desire to hand my money over unnecessarily.
If you really think you need cal-mag then get a bag of epsom salts and start saving your egg shells. Grind the eggs shells into a powder and soak them overnight in warm water. You now have your own sources of calcium and magnesium for at most a couple of dollars and enough to last a long time.
The worst looking plants I see on this forum are from people using a bunch of additives.

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I'm not fully aware of this soils composition. Need to dial the plants in to my medium. You're right though. Less is more

xtsho said:

If your soil is good you shouldn't have to add any cal-mag. Cal-mag is one of the most overused additives out there. It's typically not needed when growing in soil and it can be omitted in coco and hydro if using calcium nitrate as your nitrogen source.
Your plant looks fine. Feed it a good base nutrient and if you have good soil you won't need any cal-mag. Less is usually better. Don't buy into all the additive hype that is making the nutrient companies billions. I'm sure they appreciate people spending their money on watered down chemical salts but I personally have no desire to hand my money over unnecessarily.
If you really think you need cal-mag then get a bag of epsom salts and start saving your egg shells. Grind the eggs shells into a powder and soak them overnight in warm water. You now have your own sources of calcium and magnesium for at most a couple of dollars and enough to last a long time.
The worst looking plants I see on this forum are from people using a bunch of additives.

Click to expand...

This is often true. Like I said I have only used a Grow bottle for years and only after the soil depletes of nutrients in flower.

But every grower should understand water alkalinity. And how the water, nutes and soil mix effect each other.

There are so many variables that a yes or no answer may not suit every situation.

If you read my posts you see I only ended up adding 2 ml. Cal mag. And you are correct I can use organic liquid calcium or powder or what you suggested above.

But I added some agricultural lime to my soil which is half calcitic lime and while it helped with the calcium deficiency it raised my average ph to 7 and after a few weeks other problems started because my soil was now over limed.

So careful suggesting altering a good soil mix. Which was your point anyway but what you suggested can go both ways in my experience.

I am going to go with ed rosenthal, Jorje Cervantes and many other books 150 ppm water is right for our purpose.

When I added enough cal mag to be at .4. Which was only 3ml instead of 2 for my well water it caused nutrient stress.

Less is more. (It was worth repeating)

@MichiganMedGrower

Thanks mate!! If I could upload a picture I would but I'm getting errors atm..

Flushed her yesterday with pure water. Then added some Powerzyme and Molasses.

My molasses contains high calcium/iron etc. Since my cal/mag contains nitrogen I had to avoid it.

She is really perking up now!!

I love seeing her happy!!

Nutty sKunK said:

@MichiganMedGrower

Thanks mate!! If I could upload a picture I would but I'm getting errors atm..

Flushed her yesterday with pure water. Then added some Powerzyme and Molasses.

My molasses contains high calcium/iron etc. Since my cal/mag contains nitrogen I had to avoid it.

She is really perking up now!!

I love seeing her happy!!

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Glad to hear it!

I don't use any additives or molasses though. I don't know the availability of nutrients it. But if it works. It works.

See I thought the molasses was super handy for me.

Having nitrogen toxicity I had to avoid adding more. So the calcium in molasses substituted that.

Here she is 12 hours later

Still a bit of curl near the top. But I'll keep an eye on that. Early days yet.

Thanks again bud

I agree with you. The nitrogen in the cal mag and the iron and other elements can throw things out of balance for sure.

Too much and you lock out the very calcium you are trying to get in.

I am thinking I need to switch back to the Botanicare kind trio. The base bottle contains only calcium nitrate and the rest is in the Grow or bloom bottles.

You can customize the amount of calcium specifically like greenhouses do with seperate tanks.

Absolutely. It's a balancing act. I have a really sick laughing Buddha.

I think the PH is way too high for her or too much food which is causing it to block other elements.

I'm never doing 50/50 worm castings soil and again lol

I'll try and get a picture

Nutty sKunK said:

Absolutely. It's a balancing act. I have a really sick laughing Buddha.

I think the PH is way too high for her or too much food which is causing it to block other elements.

I'm never doing 50/50 worm castings soil and again lol

I'll try and get a picture

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I read 15% is more like it. And topdress some later.

For entertainment and humbling purposes. Here are 2 plants. The first has the now quite advanced but stopped calcium deficiency. Iron and nitrogen were affected.

The second I had figured out my water had gone softer and took action in time. Just a little less base nutes and the 2 ml cal mag.

But like you stated. Some plants are showing stress now from continued cal mag use as I don't need to supplement the mag or iron in my garden.

So I will have to use a product with adjustable calcium seperate.

Amazing how fast things can go south if we aren't proactive. Even more amazing how resilient the plant can be.

I read the calcium spots will not heal. The damage on saved plant is all gone.

Growing but never going to be a winner now.


Oh yeah!


They are CH9 Aroma x Blue Lemon Thai plants by the way. Super vigorous genetics. Tripled in size by week 3. They contain original sensei seeds Ed Rosenthal Super Bud and Motarebel East Coast Sour Diesel, PG-13 and of course Lemon Thai. And the CH9 genetics too. Which stand right up to the famous names.

New to me and gifted from the generous breeder at CH9 seeds. It's the best of his older and newer genetics crossed.

Just about all of the soil mix recipes out there call for a blend of peat, compost, and an aerator like perlite as a base. Usually they are in a 3:4:4 ratio. Then they go in all different directions on additives.

I went the route of the 3:4:4 blend with the klackamous koot blend of additives from build-a-soil. It is working very well. I've pretty much stopped with chemical nutes. I still add microbes and teas, and an occasional amendment, and topdress with worm castings, but for the most part this soil will carry the plants through flower. You may need more if you use small pots though.

But dump the 1:1 soil/compost mix for indoors. At least add an equal part of perlite or some other aerator.

@MichiganMedGrower Thats a stark difference! It seems getting it before it progresses is the key.

Now I know early on which is great. For when they flower they'll need more calcium right?

I found a table for my local water area. Contains Iron and manganese in small amounts.

Man I love watching these plants grow

@greg nr

Right, thanks for the heads up.

I did mix that 1:1 with 50% perlite. To be honest the plants werent far off from being super happy.

I dare say they could withstand a 30% worm casting mix. But that's just this strain though..

I started a worm farm. Between the tea and castings, the plants seem to love it so far. Plus I get brownie points from the wife for recycling waste.

greg nr said:

I started a worm farm. Between the tea and castings, the plants seem to love it so far. Plus I get brownie points from the wife for recycling waste.

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Tea? Could you elaborate?

If you put worm castings into a mesh bag, then toss it in a bucket with an airstone and maybe some molassess, in 24 hours you will have a microbial tea of all that is good in the entrails of worms.

There are lots of teas you can brew; composte, worm castings, sprouts. There are several threads on them somewhere, probably in the organic forum.