Soil in Hydro table & 31 different products... Have I gone nuts???

Okay so im questioning everything im doing at this point. I cant really find any info on growing in soil as a medium for hydro... Yet this is exactly what im doing. Ebb & Flow using a concoction of FF Ocean Forest, Happy Frog & about 20% of that volume more pearlite. So like 40/40/20, added in some Mykos too... New addition is Domolite lime but ill get to that in a minute.

The Hydro guy at the local store said i should go with this soil mix and gave me this stupid AN "Master growers" (Suck every penny out of your pocket) Chart. I was about 23 days into veg & noticed what seemed to be a Mag deficiency! This was extremely upsetting to be because inn Veg im running the following Sensi Grow A & B Bio Ag Ful Power Bio Ag TM-7 (New addition at time i noticed the deficiency) B-52 Silica Blast Sensizyme You would think those have the freaking BASIC nutrients covered like MAG, apparently not. So I go into the store and bitch, and the guy says "Well arent you running Cal-Mag?" Cal-Mag was not on his expensive ass feeding chart he sold me on! So I get Cal-mag and TM-7, then i'm on my disgruntled way.

Am i massively wasting my time and money? In Bloom ill be using all the following and it just seems crazy super overkill...
Sensi Bloom A&B
Bio Ag Ful Power
Bio Ag TM-7
B-52
Silica Blast
Sensizyme
Cal Mag
Bud Ignitor
Kushie Kush
Bud Candy
Overdrive
Final Phase

Dosent that seem like too many damn things?!?! The Bud Ignitor & Overdrive are $100 a liter alone... So here is my question, why in the HELL dosent AN have MAG in their base nutes? Now im adding Domolite Lime when mixing the dirt to hopefully avoid this again and be able to cut the Cal Mag, 1 less thing to buy and mix in. Also does it even make sense to use my soil mix in hydro? I flood once a day... soil stays moist... all seems to be doing bomb otherwise but im just questioning everything this guy told me at this point. Here are some pics for your enjoyment Advice/Comments Appreciated! These are SAGE 2 days in flower room, only vegged 25 days, FIM topped at a week, 24" when put into bloom. Ill try & list everything in the pic of my nutes from right to the left left you cant see LOL
White Vinegar (only used to clean things)
AN PH Up
AN PH Down
AN Bud Ignitor
AN Overdrive
AN Revive
AN Final Phase
AN Sensi Grow A
AN Sensi Grow B
AN Sensi Bloom A
AN Sensi Bloom B
AN B-52
AN Sensizyme
Silica Blast
Ful-Power
AN Bud Candy
AN Kushie Kush
Bushdoctor Sledge Hammer
Cal-Mag
GH Rapid Start
Hormex
TM-7
Domolite Lime
Azos
Cal Carb
Mykos
Ocean Forest
Happy Frog
Light Warrior
Pearlite
Hydroton

Sounds like you are going a tad overboard...

Im not even sure if we are supposed to take your post seriously, as it looks like a joke thread IMHO.

Seriously, this is what the "Professional grow guy" (also owner of the hydro shop) suggested I use. The suspected Mag deficiency pissed me off since im using the most retarded amount of crap ever. If anything it should be overkill, not lacking things.

Also i feel like "What the fuck am I doing here..." As the soil & hydro combo combo im using seems like im the only person running it and i feel kinda dumb, and taken advantage of. When I try to look up anything its always diff for soil & hydro which is what made me think hmmmmmm....... So I look into it, appearently im the only person doing this?

Should I switch to Coco Coir, tell the guy to stuff half these boosters and crap up his ass and get another hydro store? Hell the actual recipe he have me also had in it: Bushmaster, Gravity, Snow Storm Ultran & Crystal burst ALL in addition to the rest of the shit! I figured it was already wwaaaayyyyyyy to many things and didnt get those after finding about all the PGR's in them which are carcinogenics...

Also I've been PHing the water to about 5.8, for HYDRO, but im in soil.... 1 other person suggested i use Soil PH which is in the 6's. See this is the type of conflict im running into.


Any help/comments/advice appreciated guys! Thanks and stay high!!!!

Im feeling a tad lost... Am I growing soil or hydro? LOL Maybe im doing something new, lets call it Soidro or Hydroil

Maybe i should say screw all this get Canna coco and some Coir and call it a day.

Here is the chart i was given and told it was "Dialed in". Note I am using the TM-7 & Ful Power instead of H1 & F2; also Silica Blast instead of Rhino Skin since they are cheaper & a better product. Also there is no Cal-Mag on here... I scratched out all the Humbolt County Cancer Additives

So if you were to "Cut the fat out" what else should I ditch?

Bumb bumb... No one wants to bash AN, that in itself is a miracle LOL

Sounds like he def sold you on all the expensive goods. Nothing wrong with AN, but I think it is way over played. As far as the "soildro" project. Not too sure about that. I have never heard of someone doing this with soil. Flooding once a day I would think would over water your plants, but I could be wrong. I suggest the cocco route. Then you could still use your flood table.

francy420 said:

Sounds like he def sold you on all the expensive goods. Nothing wrong with AN, but I think it is way over played. As far as the "soildro" project. Not too sure about that. I have never heard of someone doing this with soil. Flooding once a day I would think would over water your plants, but I could be wrong. I suggest the cocco route. Then you could still use your flood table.

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You would think they would be overwatered but right now the 9 plants in the bloom room drank about 3-4 gal in a 2 day span. I had the thought myself of going to every other day floods and running the nutes 2 weeks since it will still only 7 floods... Then it would only cost half as much. There is no aborting now, these baby's are going to have to finish like this. For the next round I think i am going to go the Canna Coco & Coco Coir route and maybe throw in the advanced additives for the helluva it since i already have it all.

Whats crazy is this is the dudes first recommendation for running "dro". I used coco like 10 years ago & it was fine, but i figured there have been a lot of advances i haven't kept up with at all. The grow dude is from Cali and claims to have been growin a long time there. So it would seem logical to go with his recommendation i thought. Im going to post up on here with the finished product, we'll see if I pull the 2 packs I told him i want from my 1K light. If so i may not change a thing it would be well worth the price.....as long as it works LOL

So should I PH for Soil or Dro you think? Ive been running 5.8(for hydro), now i'm thinking of letting it go with no adjustment at all since it's around 6.2 - 6.3 after all is mixed up naturally.

measure ur run off usually if u flood soil with regular water the ph is higher thAN regular water so lets say you give 5.5ph nutes to soil run off should be around 6.8 if you have extra soil check it out with regular water and figure your ph and then try to get your run off between 6. and 6.5 theres somewhere on this site tables that show optimum charts for nutrient uptake in soil and in hydro soil is in the low 6's and hydro is in the mid to high 5's

macrael said:

measure ur run off usually if u flood soil with regular water the ph is higher thAN regular water so lets say you give 5.5ph nutes to soil run off should be around 6.8 if you have extra soil check it out with regular water and figure your ph and then try to get your run off between 6. and 6.5 theres somewhere on this site tables that show optimum charts for nutrient uptake in soil and in hydro soil is in the low 6's and hydro is in the mid to high 5's

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Sweet thanks, thats what I was trying to figure out is the soil hydro PH. It's probably noteworthy that my RO is at 7.5ish and 10ppm to begin with. After mixing nutes it usually ends up around 6.2ish. I thought I had a Mg problem, but now it looks like it's just locked out due to PH. The chart you speak of says i should be at 5.8 for Hydro or 6.5 to 6.8 for soil and that Mg locks out below 6.5. So i was thinking i need to be up in the soil range rather than the hydro range.

Thoughts? Ill measure the runoff PH by picking one up after flooding and getting a sample straight from one of them draining into a cup & report back.

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No offense but I don't get this setup at all...if you wanna grow with soil why not just a simple drip system, a simple fertilizer like aquaflakes or even simpler jacks classic. A little dolomite...a little epsom salts..ph around 6.5 and call it a wrap. All that other stuff you bought is a waste of time and money in my opinion. I think you're way over doing it. Start with the basics...build up from there.

should just whip up some supersoil.

AzCannaMan said:

Sweet thanks, thats what I was trying to figure out is the soil hydro PH. It's probably noteworthy that my RO is at 7.5ish and 10ppm to begin with. After mixing nutes it usually ends up around 6.2ish. I thought I had a Mg problem, but now it looks like it's just locked out due to PH. The chart you speak of says i should be at 5.8 for Hydro or 6.5 to 6.8 for soil and that Mg locks out below 6.5. So i was thinking i need to be up in the soil range rather than the hydro range.

Thoughts? Ill measure the runoff PH by picking one up after flooding and getting a sample straight from one of them draining into a cup & report back.

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Sounds like the Hydrostore owner got his job done well, and had you spend lots of money in his shop. I guarantee you could get the same or better results with a lot less money spent

RawBudzski said:

should just whip up some supersoil.

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That's what I was thinking.

I like how you bought into the whole AN bullshit, but think Humboldt causes cancer. Awesome.

Why do you think you have a mag def anyhow? Those two leaf pics you posted show a genetic albinism trait, that's all.

tightpockt said:

No offense but I don't get this setup at all...if you wanna grow with soil why not just a simple drip system, a simple fertilizer like aquaflakes or even simpler jacks classic. A little dolomite...a little epsom salts..ph around 6.5 and call it a wrap. All that other stuff you bought is a waste of time and money in my opinion. I think you're way over doing it. Start with the basics...build up from there.

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Drip is way more complicated than ebb & flow rather than simple. Also as you can see the hydro guy as someone else put it "sold me everything in his store" LMAO! Never heard of aquaflakes or Jacks classic... Im shooting for 6.5ph now that ive realized in not really doing "hydro"

I was thinking the same about waste of time & money cuz im in SOIL. Stupid hydro guy.. Anyway i just started another round of clones (Hashberry) and unfortunately figured out i shouldn't have put them in dirt about 2 days too late. Now im just gonna run the Sensi Grow & Bloom with a bloom booster or 2...since i already have them... Saving the rest of the AN junk for when i actually go to HYDRO lol

RawBudzski said:

should just whip up some supersoil.

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Supersoil??? Please elaborate

Im already mixing in Mykos, Domolite & Pearlite

The hydro store guy must love to see you coming I think you might be going a bit overboard, but what ever you are doing your ladies look nice, although a bit stretched. Maybe its the angle of the photo but if they seem to be stretching try flipping to 14 / 10 for a week before going to 12/12.

IN33DW33D said:

What it seems to me is you're basically running a flood system in your soil setup. Actually is not a horrible idea if it helps on hand watering every plant. You're using a whole shit load of shit man.. If all that shit isn't fuckin up your grow, then see what happens. Next round I would get rid of just about everything but your basic nutes and whatever fertilizer stuff you have going on. Start adding a little big of calmag during flowering if you have troubles, that's what alot of soil growers have told me. But others have said they use calmag their whole grow. LOLEverybody's different man, but you're definately using alot of shit... Damn.. My hydro grow sold me everything in his store too.. Got about 10 full bottles of shit I don't use, all expensive lmao.You're in fox farm SOIL so you should be ph'ing in SOIL. What's hydro about your system? A flood system makes it hydro? I thought that just makes it easier for watering? Unless I'm just thinking of something different

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I agree too many things.. The timer def makes watering all of them evenly at regular intervals much easier! LOL

Grow seems bomb so far other than those crazy ass light spots on some of the leaves. I showed a pic to the dumb ass hydro guy who sold me all this and all he could say was "Gee ive never seen anything like that" then he sold me cal-mag LOL but that was at my request as i thought is was a Mg def.

Like i said in last post cutting back to the just AN Base nutes and going to use the bloom boosters since I already have em. Bud ignitor for first 2 weeks, then Kuskie Kush couple weeks, then Overdrive last 2 weeks before last week & "Final Phase" so it seems like more than it really is cuz you use most of the stuff at diff times.

I'm aiming for 2.2 P's off my thousand watt on this grow of 9 plants hahahhahahahhahahaha

The hydro aspect I suppose (which i have yet to mention is the bottom 2" or so of the pots are full of hydroton. When i transplanted into bigger bloom pots these were nice and packed holding all the media with little fine bright white root hairs. So when it floods those roots are right in the nutes and the soil gets bottom fed lol...

DEF NOT a true hydro set up ive realized. Going to switch to Coco for sure on the next round and a wayyyy simpler Canna Coco nute schedule