AlterNation
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- 18
I mix my own from mineral concentrates. AKA raw salts. There's a learning curve and I am an amateur, but it saves a lot of money in the long run because you're not paying for all that liquid or the brand name. There is not one single nutrient formula available in any hydro store that contains anything you can't just mix up yourself if you have the right ingredients. Up front investment, but it works out to pennies on the dollar to keep it simple.
I also started adding fulvic acid and I don't have to water as often now. I feed for 30 seconds 4x per day during veg and my flowers get 30 seconds every 4 hours. That's how it is right now, just because. No real reason. My next challenge is to get on the foliar feeds, but like I said, you have to know your strain, and to know your strain you have to grow it a bunch of times.
In theory, coco is reusable. This is my first run with it and I'm likely to end up just buying fresh so I don't have to deal with it, but that is one of the main reasons/benefits to growing in coco. It is reusable. You just rinse it out really well after the run with hot water (maybe some kind of chelating agent?) and then once it dries up a bit, rinse it again using nutrients to precharge it. At least, that's how I was taught. I cut my coco with growstones (some people use hydroton, or pumice, or lava rocks) and I plan to reuse them, also, although rumor has it that they leach Si, which can fuck up PH in the soil. But that's why I have my handy dandy soil ph meter! So we'll see. It just makes the coco a lot airier, which means you have to water more often, but it also means more oxygen to help the plants eat as much as they want and grow as fast as they can.
EDIT: My system is fuckin' whack, and needs quite a few tweaks, so if I say numbers or whatever, don't take that as like, "you should do this."
I also started adding fulvic acid and I don't have to water as often now. I feed for 30 seconds 4x per day during veg and my flowers get 30 seconds every 4 hours. That's how it is right now, just because. No real reason. My next challenge is to get on the foliar feeds, but like I said, you have to know your strain, and to know your strain you have to grow it a bunch of times.
In theory, coco is reusable. This is my first run with it and I'm likely to end up just buying fresh so I don't have to deal with it, but that is one of the main reasons/benefits to growing in coco. It is reusable. You just rinse it out really well after the run with hot water (maybe some kind of chelating agent?) and then once it dries up a bit, rinse it again using nutrients to precharge it. At least, that's how I was taught. I cut my coco with growstones (some people use hydroton, or pumice, or lava rocks) and I plan to reuse them, also, although rumor has it that they leach Si, which can fuck up PH in the soil. But that's why I have my handy dandy soil ph meter! So we'll see. It just makes the coco a lot airier, which means you have to water more often, but it also means more oxygen to help the plants eat as much as they want and grow as fast as they can.
EDIT: My system is fuckin' whack, and needs quite a few tweaks, so if I say numbers or whatever, don't take that as like, "you should do this."
