perlite is good stuph. white roots grown into perlite looks kick-aSs; the illuminated white color has me mesmerized, i'd be blazing and just staring at it for hours. water when top is dry and bottom feels light.
as far as i know
bud candy is a molasses tea with lots of trace minerals, plus added vitamins, amino acids and a bit of potassium sulphate (reads like the description of floranectar, they are in the same class i guess). anyways, two uses for things i can think of: 1. use to feed and culture colonies of micro-organisms (but why would you want to? just use couple tablespoons of sugar or dextrose) 2. use 2 weeks before the finish, right when u observe the 'swells'. but then again, you could use blackstrap molasses for soil and suc a nut (sucanat) for hydro and it'd be a bit cheaper.
to those who mentioned bout a 'side by side comparison': i don't think your control group was set in a way to eliminate all possible exposures to trace minerals, l-amino acids, vitamins and whatever else
bud candy contains. hence my hypothesis is you would not observe any measurable differences between the two groups. but what i'm really saying is, if you are growing garlic in the backyard with nothing but rain water, give it some
bud candy and you gonna see results. however in the real world when you already have other premium nutes and supplements, it's not gonna be the critical factor in their growth.