Good Nutes For A Hydro Newb

[Disco Duck]

After three grows, I am barely not a newbie anymore. I remember when I first started, the most difficult thing was figuring out what I should actually be putting in the water. After 3 (2.5, really) grows I have finally worked out a combination that I know works well, leaves clean water (dirty water sucks), and healthy roots.

Many nute schedules will work great, many better than this one, but if you are just starting your first grow... this will work well and eliminate many headaches I had to figure out through trial and error. Every grow I considered switching from GH, and now about to be done again and out of most bottles I really considered and studied for weeks about what nutes to use next time around. I decided to just stick with what it has taken 3 grows to work out because it is working so well for me.

My "Easy Newb Forumla" is mostly just a combination of GH and Botanicare products. It's simple, produces very clean water, and works very well with healthy roots. I'm sure it's not the best possible forumla, but it is definately a great place to start. A much better place than I started trying to just use the GH lineup as listed.

So my "Easy Newb Forumla" is to go by the GH "expert" schedule, but replacing and adding the following.

GH 3-Part Base Nutes
GH Diamond Nectar
GH Floralicious Grow
GH Floralicious Bloom
GH FloraBlend
GH Liquid KoolBloom
GH Dry KoolBloom
GH FloraKleen

Botanicare Sweet Raw Flavorless (replaces GH FloraNectar, artifical flavor sucks)
Botanicare CalMag Plus (replaces very dirty GH CalMag, Bot is nice and clean)

DM Zone Gold (sterile res, the simple way to healthy roots)

This is the forumla I have arrived at that I know works well. I am considering the following changes...

H&G DripClean replaces GH FloraKleen when I run out. DripClean can run in the res at all times, and used for flush.

MOAB/HammerHead replace Dry/Liqiud KoolBloom. I won't do this next grow, but might try it the one after that.

I'm sure this isn't the best nutes you could run, it isn't meant too be, it's just a great place for a first timer to start that will save them a lot of headaches I had to go through in RDWC. Hopefully it helps someone, or some experienced grower helps me with advice:-)

Like... Should I add Botanicare SilicaBlast too this?

 

[StrikeitRich]

I really like Pro-Tekt Potas Sil. concentrate its cheap and works great. Just add it first over anything else.

Peace,
S i R

 

[Disco Duck]

Now that I think of it...

I was wanting to help any newbs out there when I wrote the first post, but I really have been looking into nutes a lot lately. My 3rd grow is about to finish, and I will be out of everything except FloraKleen and Dry Koolbloom. So I really would love advice from more experience growers on what to use next time around since I need to re-buy everything anyway. Here are my thoughts on the lineup I am using...

GH 3-Part: No decision to make here. This is the basis of all my experience so far. I like the control of this, and it has done great so no reason to change.

GH Diamond Nectar: Used in veg only. I've read several threads with growers who have this as the only GH product in their lineup. Not sure what it does, but not really concerned with changing this. From what I've read it seems like it's good at whatever it does.

GH Floralicious Bloom & Grow: I'm interested in knowing what these do, their equivilant products from other lineups, and if I should consider using one of the alternatives instead.

GH FloraBlend: Just like Bloom & Grow, I'm interested in knowing exactly what this does and if I'd be better off using a similar product from another company. FloraBlend seems important to the GH schedule, it's used for the whole cylce in larger doses than other addatives. That makes me particularly interested in a better version of this product if it exists.

Botanicare Raw Sweetener: I didn't like the artificial flavor of GH FloraNectar so I tried this stuff this time. Still haven't harvested. Is there a "raw" (non-flavored) sweetener that is considered particularly good?

And should I be using a silica product, and if so are there any particularly good ones or ones to avoid?

Also, I don't like "dirty" products. One of my new philosopies is that I only want to use things that are "clean". My water is a nice, brownish-orangish Kool-Aid color:cool0041:

That's all the questions I know enough to ask at this point about my nute lineup, any help would be greatly appreciated.