yea im deff geting a waxy look and feel to my girls. before i did not. It might be dependent on what nuts your using I dunno? maybe you just don't have it dialed in to the strain yet. To me I have yet to see a Design flaw in the system its self, the error seems to come from the user the majority of the time.

A little update on this here... I did my last flush and refill with somewhere a little over 1/4 tap water and 3/4 r/o along with 5ml of calmag and 1/2 gram - 1 gram of epsom salt per gallon and like .5 - 1ml less then feed chart recommendations (base nutes)... still not 100% there but it was pretty damn close... maybe that 50/50 tap/ro water was the answer its really really close to what I am looking for. Try it and let me know if im just seeing shit or not.

i was at 350 PPM at 1st sign of budding, they seem to get more waxy looking with the lower PPMs. when i raised them to 500 they lost that look all together. but When they where at 350 they seemed to have stopped eating the salts it stayed at 350 for 3 days. I raised it to 500 and in 1 day they dropped it to 460. So I cant tell if Im doing it right or wrong yet. im just to green.

maybe I should keep droping the water line I dunno.

QuarterbackMo said:

A little update on this here... I did my last flush and refill with somewhere a little over 1/4 tap water and 3/4 r/o along with 5ml of calmag and 1/2 gram - 1 gram of epsom salt per gallon and like .5 - 1ml less then feed chart recommendations (base nutes)... still not 100% there but it was pretty damn close... maybe that 50/50 tap/ro water was the answer its really really close to what I am looking for. Try it and let me know if im just seeing shit or not.

Click to expand...

If you are using a mix of tap water and R.O. water and you achieve the elusive "shine" then at least we know that this is purely a nutritional issue. What we don't know is how to fix it unless you have your tap water analyzed. There is nothing magical about tap water, (as you know) it just typically has higher levels of Ca and Mg, but adding those to your nutrient profile isn't difficult. Zombie Slave got me thinking we he wrote that he noticed and increase in leaf shine at a lower ppm. I wonder if the issue all along has been a problem with 100% plant hydration? A slightly lower ppm would allow the plants to hydrate better. Let's see some pics Mo so we can determine if you are seeing shit or not. ;)

phup said:

If you are using a mix of tap water and R.O. water and you achieve the elusive "shine" then at least we know that this is purely a nutritional issue. What we don't know is how to fix it unless you have your tap water analyzed. There is nothing magical about tap water, (as you know) it just typically has higher levels of Ca and Mg, but adding those to your nutrient profile isn't difficult. Zombie Slave got me thinking we he wrote that he noticed and increase in leaf shine at a lower ppm. I wonder if the issue all along has been a problem with 100% plant hydration? A slightly lower ppm would allow the plants to hydrate better. Let's see some pics Mo so we can determine if you are seeing shit or not. ;)

Click to expand...

I honestly was seeing dull until i jacked my ppm up! I have been thinking they were just underfed. The tapwater I think is helping to hold the minerals in the solution for a longer period of time due to its natural buffering properties. Im thinking the problem now is in fact the extremely high do in the uc knocking out the iron (my personal belief of what brings the shine) the tap works good though tap experiments are definitely in my future ill post some pics and let you all know how this on going experiment goes.

MO is right, the "shine" is elusive for most because its so hard to tow the line between maximum water transpiration and maximum nutrient uptake. As your able to go harder and harder (like we often discuss) you will see the shine onset much earlier. Im game for working with some iron levels though, keep us updated.

Don't think I'm going to be posting any pics but we got quite a bit of shine in early-mid veg atm.

pics of the shine requested, pics of the shine has been granted lol here you go

this is as close as I have got it its like this about 90% through the whole garden atm they are in late week 4 week 5 starts tomorrow.







Thats all folks :)

QuarterbackMo said:

pics of the shine requested, pics of the shine has been granted lol here you go

this is as close as I have got it its like this about 90% through the whole garden atm they are in late week 4 week 5 starts tomorrow.View attachment 203586

View attachment 203584
View attachment 203588
View attachment 203589
View attachment 203587
View attachment 203585

Thats all folks :)

Click to expand...

That's the shine we are looking for! I've got that in one of my gardens as well at week 5, but have yet to be able to replicate it during veg. The system that has the best shine is at a location where we use pure tap water, although the ppms are still extremely low, approx. 40ppm. Mo' what does your tap h20 come out as?

phup said:

That's the shine we are looking for! I've got that in one of my gardens as well at week 5, but have yet to be able to replicate it during veg. The system that has the best shine is at a location where we use pure tap water, although the ppms are still extremely low, approx. 40ppm. Mo' what does your tap h20 come out as?

Click to expand...

200 or so

the more PPMs in the water the less the water can absorb the chemical your introducing.
Mine here is at like 320. i have a system that brings it to zero. If i Hp down a 5 gal barrel of tap water it takes 3 ml of AN ph down. If I need to PH down my RO water it takes 2 drops.

this is only because of the PPM content of the water.

Late to the game here and I didn't read every word in the thread, so this may have been covered... relating to the OP's thoughts that it might be mag drive, pvc, chiller coils, etc......I have used a mag drive pump, pvc plumbing, AquaEuro USA inline chiller, and fizz aerator very successfully, and many times, in the system below (sorry to link to another forum...mods be nice ;)). I run exclusively Botanicare Pro Series, LK, CalMag, Sweet, and AquaShield. No problems whatsoever. I even ran it twice w/o AquaShield (during the period when they discontined HydroGuard and there was none available) and had the same level of success. I am in the process of an upgrade of the system below (one below will be for my mothers now) which will be almost exactly the same, but will use twenty four 14 gallon roughnecks and a bigger (6000 GPH) pump. The UC problems I continually read about have me scratching my head.

Edit: Guess you can't drop links from other forums....

If it is iron that makes them shine, then House & Garden Aqua Flakes should work well just be aware that there is zero calcium in there 2 part Aqua Flakes.

They claim to use extra iron or a special kind to avoid it being affected by magnetic pumps.

I have noticed plants have that heavy green kinda "glow" to them when using Aqua Flakes.

Maybe Aqua Flakes and a iron additive or something?

AdvancedBioHydroponics said:

If it is iron that makes them shine, then House & Garden Aqua Flakes should work well just be aware that there is zero calcium in there 2 part Aqua Flakes.

They claim to use extra iron or a special kind to avoid it being affected by magnetic pumps.

I have noticed plants have that heavy green kinda "glow" to them when using Aqua Flakes.

Maybe Aqua Flakes and a iron additive or something?

Click to expand...

Yeah hg definitely has a high iron content. Rob also said they have lots of calcium as well in aqua flakes... I honestly am leaning towards the mineral suspension plus maybe a little boost from the tap mix. I think the uc is literally blowing the minerals out of the solution from the massive amounts of dissolved oxygen and rapid movement of water. That and that fine line between too much and not enough nutrients. I think its easier to do that with the tap mix atm. In rdwc the ph stays locked in at whatever you set it at in the uc its all over the place. Im bout to try the tap mix from the jump on this next round starting in a couple days. Ill do the small room with straight r/o with 5ml of calmag from jump street and go toe to toe each room is identical almost (both designed and put together by me) ill be posting results on both with pics shortly and we will see what happens. Be back in a few days my friends :)

Hmmm....that worries me that Rob thinks there is calcium in Aqua Flakes. If he really thinks that then maybe Rob might not be a good source of information. I have been told on more than one occasion that Rob was a shoe salesman and knows nothing about H&G or growing. With comments like that I can understand why peeps would think that.

It has long been known that H&G philosophy is that water already has enough calcium in it which is usually true and all except if your using 0PPM filtered RO water. The fact that Rob who works for the company and is in charge of USA "Sales" and does not even know that Aqua Flakes has no calcium in it is pretty scary.

Not all people experience this ph fluctuation that you speak of in the UC system.

The wild ph fluctuation can be eliminated by eliminating the ammonia based materials in your nutrient formula and controlling bacteria populations.

Also, the UC is not "blowing the minerals out of the water", lol......it just does not work that way unless your talking about evaporation.

Im not going to post other peoples data, but the H&G test results i got from phup show that cal is in higher concentrations then N in the A bottle....

DO you have any reason other then hear-say to think it is devoid of calcium?

Yes, Allen Weis from House & Garden was the original person to inform me that there is no calcium in the Aqua Flakes formula.

Is it possible the calcium came from some other source than the A bottle possibly?

PS- I would NEVER post something on hear-say, just a fyi, but if I did, I would for sure mention that it was "hear-say". Are we in court now?? LOL!!

AdvancedBioHydroponics said:

Hmmm....that worries me that Rob thinks there is calcium in Aqua Flakes. If he really thinks that then maybe Rob might not be a good source of information. I have been told on more than one occasion that Rob was a shoe salesman and knows nothing about H&G or growing. With comments like that I can understand why peeps would think that.

It has long been known that H&G philosophy is that water already has enough calcium in it which is usually true and all except if your using 0PPM filtered RO water. The fact that Rob who works for the company and is in charge of USA "Sales" and does not even know that Aqua Flakes has no calcium in it is pretty scary.

Not all people experience this ph fluctuation that you speak of in the UC system.

The wild ph fluctuation can be eliminated by eliminating the ammonia based materials in your nutrient formula and controlling bacteria populations.

Also, the UC is not "blowing the minerals out of the water", lol......it just does not work that way unless your talking about evaporation.

Click to expand...

Ok maybe blowing was the wrong word lol... Maybe more like d/o knocks that shit right out the framework is the best way to put it lol.

LOL! I Like it QM! "I like it alot!" (done in my best "Dumb & Dumber voice" lol!) I love that movie!!

It is also nice to see a sense of humor which sometimes does not get relayed in text messages. They say body language makes up like 90% percent or something??

I say if your not having fun, then your not doing something right!!

But anyhow, one thing for sure is that there is more water chemistry at play here than first meets the eye.

Just wanted to say also that even though there is no percentage of calcium on the bottle label of Aqua Flakes which I thought unusual to say the least (I know they omit certain inputs on the label and GA due to various state laws, but normally calcium and the percentage is always listed), I did noticed that it said in the "Derived From" section on the label "Calcium Nitrate". So I think I was mis-informed and I apologize for the mistake. I would now like to know how much calcium is in the formula and from what source.

PS_ That was some of the most fantastic recovery work on what would have for most been a catastrophic disaster! You just shrugged that shit right off like a gnat!! AWESOME!

I do think that this lack of luster and shine all boils down to two basic things, the purity of the materials which translate to "usable food for plants" and water chemistry.

We know the inputs are there because we add them to the water in our nutrient formulas. BUT, for some reason (water chemistry) they are not getting translated into available nutrition for the plants.

One way to test this is to use ONLY pure materials in your formula that require no "translations" if you will to be "plant available".

After you establish a pure formula, then you begin to methodically adjust the ratio and concentration levels according to plant health until your desired goal or target is reached.

It was very hard to find a formula that contained only pure inputs but we managed to find 2........maybe. Well one for sure (Shiva).

Shiva 2 part from Crop Nutrients was the cheapest and better route to take IMO and if you look at the ratios it is more concentrated than any other brand which means you use so much less. Optimal PPM levels are like 300 to 400PPM on a .5 (x500) conversion scale. They use only pharmacy grade materials.

At first glance this stuff seems way expensive but once you see how little you need to use of it due to its purity and how it eliminates the need for a lot of expensive additives, you begin to see that is not only the purest and most stable but the most cost effective as well. You really do have to try this stuff to understand the purity levels used in the formula. It contains "Natural" ph stabilizers.

Veg+Bloom by Hydroponic-Research was the 2nd but it is more costly as you have to get a custom formula made (ammonia free) and there is a minimum to purchase which is 10lbs of a one part powder formula you use from start to finish. For larger systems dealing with a powder can be a problem or cause extra work and space.

To be honest getting that luster and shine back with this powder was a bit tricky to do and required lots more testing and trials to "dial in" the formula. I also question some of the inputs that are not listed and kept "secret".

The way the formula is designed to work is that at up to about 600PPM it acts as a veg formula and then at 800PPM it acts as a bloom formula with PK boosters. The problem is that different type plants require different nutrient levels and 600PPM for one plant did not translate to a proper veg formula, this could also happen with the higher PPM levels as well and then your back to dull looking plants that just look like they are "missing" something. And this is because they ARE!

You can get there using this one part powder though, just be prepared to spend some time on details in tweaking the formula.

One great thing is that this company will take a water sample of your water and custom make a formula for you. Very nice service!

We found by using only pure inputs at the right ratio's was the only way to get that luster and shine back and keep it back from start to finish.

It is very hard to follow your post with you making up words/meanings.

By pure inputs are you talking about actual available elemental ions?

BTW this post reads like a sham wow commercial for shiva.