OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Big pain with stand alone 5 gal pails is they really only hold maybe 16L/4gal of water and need constant care and topping up once plants get big. The short Rubbermaid tubs hold 35L/8.5gal an inch below the bottom of the net pots and I always topped up with RO water once every 3 days then checked ppm and added small amounts of nutes to bring it back up to my target ppm. The taller tubs hold 50L/12.5gal. As I used AN 3- part nutes with pH Perfect tech I never had to even think about pH and could go the whole grow without ever changing nutes. I tried that in a side-by-side grow and got just as good results as the one I changed 3 times. Once at the flip to flower, again after the stretch then again a couple weeks before the chop. There was virtually no difference in growth or yields and it saves so much time and money. Less work and more spare cash = happy OMU.No. They are seperate from each other.
There is no real reason to change nutes from start to the time you want to flip to flower. You just check ppm and add more of all nutes in small amounts to maintain a target ppm or raise it as the plants get larger and are using more.
The last 3 years or so I've been farting around trying to grow organic using nutes like 3 different types of manure and Gaia Green dry nutes with ProMix HP as my base. Much less than spectacular results so will be just using the AN nutes in ProMix. That I know works well for me and is really easy. The wife can use all that other stuff out in the veggy garden.