What's the best way to flush? Soil

Awkcyde

Awkcyde

Member
Sorry if this information is elsewhere.. I've done a search and have found a few things but nothing specific or an overall best practice.

I'm using Fox Farms Ocean Forest Soil, I've got some type of PH imbalance or lockup going on and the first time I flushed about 2-3 weeks ago didn't appear to help anything.

My question is What exactly is the best way to flush soil?

1. I've seen some say PH the water to 6.5-6.8 and I've seen some discussion that using something to PH ie PH DOWN or UP will actually cause more harm during the flush as it puts more salts that can cause nutrient lockup. So to PH or not ?

2. Is it ok to use tap water ? My tap water PH ranges from 8.0-8.2, and has a PPM from 200-300...or should I purchase RO / Distilled water and use that ?

3. What's the process ? Last time I tried I found information stating to run 200% the amount of water through the medium I.e - 3 Gallons of Soil would equal 6 gallons of water ran through it.
- How much water ?
- Does it matter how you pour the water? - Overflowing the medium 1 gallon at a time and waiting? or pouring in small amounts at a time and letting it drain slowly over time ?

4. Should I add any nutrients during or after the flush?

5. Is there anything else I should add other than nutrients to assist with PH buffering?


Thanks if there's an overall best answer to these questions I'll edit this post and put it under each question for future searches so this information can be easily found.
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
Have you fed it?

If not your pH problem is probably due to poor watering habits.

The question isn't how to flush. Its why. Randomly dumping water through it is not good. It actually ruins the soils ability to buffer pH.

As organic materials decay they create ions that buffer pH.

When you flush you are removing the very things that buffer soil pH.
 
Jimmy Sparkle

Jimmy Sparkle

Well-Known Member
You want to give a lot more info than that and flushing soil is becoming a frowned upon practice. People do it but the debate is huge and widely unfounded and completely unnecessary.
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
The only time to flush (leach) is for salt buildup. That happens from poor watering habits.

To avoid salt buildup, water until at least 20% runoff.
 
Awkcyde

Awkcyde

Member


the plant looks like this on about 70% of the leaves it started out small and has spread. Tried flushing but once but not sure if I did a good enough job.. The PPM runoff after I was done flushing was around 200PPM.

Tried adding nutrients - Using the Fox Farms Trio using the veg schedule but only brought a gallon when I fed to around 800PPM - Waited about a week and new growth was showing the same symptoms.

Tried adding some dolomite lime sprinkled on top of the soil and using 6.5 Ph'd tap water for about a week and just still got worse and worse - The plant is about dead at the moment... The reason I'm asking about flushing now is my good plant is now showing the same signs starting at the middle canopy.

Starting the same exact way but the good plant the brown spots are starting from the tips this time. If it progresses like the last plant it will get brown spots / purple stem - Start spreading to the center of the leaf - Leaf will start to curl in like a canoe and turn yellow and die.

 
Awkcyde

Awkcyde

Member
Here's a full picture of the plant now:


A lot of the leaves died and fell off

Here's how it looked about a week and a half ago -

 
qwizoking

qwizoking

Well-Known Member
best way to flush?
what a can of worms

there are two main groups, the bacon grease and the energy drink crowd.
however i have noticed energy drinks high in b12 ginseng etc to be beneficial.ginseng has phytoestrogens in it that produce bigger bud yields

In cells, taurine keeps potassium and magnesium inside the cell, while keeping excessive sodium out like in a hot soil or overfed environment.

etc... this is all scientifically proven btw

but bacon grease of course has benefits as well hence the debate
 
Jimmy Sparkle

Jimmy Sparkle

Well-Known Member
FFOF is lacking in Cal mag and so is the ffof trio. If you are lacking something then there is no fix for it unless you add what you need. This would explain why the problem continues without improvement. Flushing is only compounding the problem you already have.
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
Jimmy Sparkle said:
FFOF is lacking in Cal mag and so is the ffof trio. If you are lacking something then there is no fix for it unless you add what you need. This would explain why the problem continues without improvement. Flushing is only compounding the problem you already have.
Click to expand...
Flushing is compounding it.

Its over watered on top of pH problem.

Awkcyde said:


the plant looks like this on about 70% of the leaves it started out small and has spread. Tried flushing but once but not sure if I did a good enough job.. The PPM runoff after I was done flushing was around 200PPM.

Tried adding nutrients - Using the Fox Farms Trio using the veg schedule but only brought a gallon when I fed to around 800PPM - Waited about a week and new growth was showing the same symptoms.

Tried adding some dolomite lime sprinkled on top of the soil and using 6.5 Ph'd tap water for about a week and just still got worse and worse - The plant is about dead at the moment... The reason I'm asking about flushing now is my good plant is now showing the same signs starting at the middle canopy.

Starting the same exact way but the good plant the brown spots are starting from the tips this time. If it progresses like the last plant it will get brown spots / purple stem - Start spreading to the center of the leaf - Leaf will start to curl in like a canoe and turn yellow and die.

Click to expand...
Dude. Mix a little lime in the top few inches of soil.

Let it dry out. Let it dry out. Let it dry out.

Then when it needs water again water with cal/mag. Epsom at the least.

You are going to kill them by messing with them.

Throw that dam oh meter away. You don't need it for soil.

Throw the bottles away to.

Either go hydro or coco for bottles or grow with a super soil.

You are throwing too much at it.

On your next run add some pellet lime and fox farms dry nutrients or buy some amendments to run it water only.
 
D

DoobieDoobs

Well-Known Member
Hey man, hmmm, how long have you been using FF bottled fertilizers?
When you grow in FFOF soil, there is enough food in the soil to survive more or less a month of plant grow, then if you want to continue using bottled nutrients instead of growing organically, you can start giving them bottled fertilizer food with very little strength, like 1/4 what the bottle says, and continue adding on week after week from there.
So what did you do?
 
whitebb2727

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
Awkcyde said:
Here's a full picture of the plant now:


A lot of the leaves died and fell off

Here's how it looked about a week and a half ago -

Click to expand...
Chronic under watering. That's peat base. If it gets real dry it becomes hydrophobic and doesn't want to take water.

Also get it in a bigger pot.
 
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