Opinions on New Feeding Schedule

[FooDoo]

Just a little background info, ive been using UC for 3 years now but just now realizing never to its full potential.

Always applied the Lucas Formula and never thought twice about it. The girls would show MG def every run and a lot of times get nute burn, but the end product would always be out of this world so i just kept on trucking. I had visitors from Cali, Colorado, and Michigan try my meds and they would tell me it blows everything out of the water that they could get back home from their local dispensaries.

Recently i got a second system that i wanted to run with co2 in a sealed room and decided to step my game up and get my formula just right. I started searching around and found Progressive Options old 70 day tahoe og thread. The formula they posted was:

GH 3-Part, modified lucas formula (0-8-9)ml
Botanicare Calmag 10ml
Hygrozyme 5ml
Drip Clean 0.5ml
Liquid Kool bloom 1.5ml
Powder Kool bloom (Use as directed)

Recirculating DWC.

From this i gathered id need calmag and to bring down my micro and bloom numbers to make room for it. Still felt like that forumla was over nuting so i kept searching. I then found the "Head goes coco thread" with his 6/9 formula.

I really wanted to run that but it didnt incorporate calmag which i was positive my RO needed. I read thru every single post and luckily learned more than i could ever imagine.

Thats when i jumped to the Canna Stats Calculator and started plugging away my own numbers.

First i did 5ml calmag, 5ml micro, 10ml bloom. the numbers were far better than lucas but felt they were at the top ranges of ideal npk. I found this site which was heaven sent, and noticed EVERYONE saying leaner is better in UC and less is more. So i went back to the drawing board. I also kept reading everything i could. On canna stats, they gave ranges for their values, one thing no one ever noticed or mention is at the bottom, they had written this "Regarding Mel Frank's recommendations: during flowering for sinsemilla make your formula nearer the low end of these ranges. For seed crops, make the solution nearer the high end". So instead of aiming for 100-100-200-60, i realized i should be aiming for 40-70-100-30.

Unfortunately, by the time i had come to my final numbers, i was in week 5 of flower and the slime had set in out of nowhere overnight. The first 5 weeks ppms would drop like crazy while PH slowly and steadily rised, then out of the blue, ppms wouldnt budge and ph would drop from 6.1 to 4.3 over night.

This new formula ill be starting my next run, id love to hear some opinions from all you knowledgeable UCers


Thank You

PS: All ppm numbers are on the .7 conversation rate. I noticed a lot of people have started using .5 as of recent however 3 years ago everyone used .7, i might just change it all to EC

 

[dutch69lover]

You ever think of using current culture solutions and their recommendations?? Being you use a uc system they will gladly give you support!

 

[Texas Kid]

I would run Cultured Solutions without question...my second choice would be to run House and Gardens aqua flakes...third choice would be Botanicare Pure Blend Pro but foliar feed the liquid Karma ....I wouldn't run GH 3 part for anything

 

[FooDoo]

I've ran GH for 3 years and have never been disappointed what so ever. Not once did the nutrients, price, or final med quality make me question the use of their micro and bloom.

I did look into the cs nute line a few days ago. I wanted to see what their npk profile was on the recommended feeding schedule they provide on the bottle however non of the bottles had weight on them. After doing a search there was a thread on here where someone emailed them to try and get those numbers but cs refused. That didn't sit well with me.

So since a quart is 946ml, I used that and simply just left grams 946 as well to get a ball park estimate.

Plugging it into canna stats the numbers were similar to my new npk but actually higher. Also, there was far too much nitrogen in the mix . even at 96 ppm my girls show limp pointed down tips and nitrogen toxicity claw on leaves. So I'd have to further tweak their line.

But even after not being satisfied with their npk, I still took a deeper look into their nutes. My micro for a gallon is $32 and bloom is $30. That's $62 for base that would get me thru an 11 week run with prob half a gallon left of micro for the next.

Cs made my jaw drop. First of all I'd have to buy veg a + b and then for flowering I'd need bloom a + b. So that's double for base alone. But then the price for a gallon of a and b is $100 before even getting the veg.

What warrants paying twice as much for nutes at this point in time with npk values that I'd have to rework anyway.

Not to mention both a and b have nitrogen so I wouldn't be able to cut it of the feed at week 4 to 6.

I did however bite the bullet and get cs roots.

 

[FooDoo]

*Correction, their base plus cal mag would have made the nitrogen too high.

As a guesstimate on the gram weight, i got their Week 6 npk ratio at 86 - 99 - 169 - 27 - 26 - 65

by week 6 i want to almost competely cut nitrogen out, with their line i cant. P is maxed out at the top of the 70-100 range and K is 40 ppm higher than mine.

and thats only one week, i would have to do a different nutrient profile for every, single, week, of bloom. to see where they have their targets at. And id also not even have exact numbers seeing they dont want to give their weight away. So before all that, id have to put a container on a scale, zero it out, and pour a quart into it to see how many grams it weighs

*** also, these numbers are under stated due to not having proper weight in grams, so all those values are almost guaranteed to be higher.

I also just did their week 2 profile @ 6ml/6ml and got 72 - 33 - 121 - 12 - 16 - 55 which will also be slightly understated. However, they are so out of whack that i cant even justify using it. P is half the value it should be. K is alright. MG basically doesnt even exist. the proper Mg to Ca ratio is usually around 1:1.5 or 1:2. The calcium would lock out mg since its 5 times the value. Even if adding Cal mag the mg would still not be near half the value of Ca because calmag has a much higher Ca % then it does mg. and the calmag would add even more nitrogen in the mix.

I wonder, anyone using the CS nute line even try running the numbers before making the switch?

 

[Texas Kid]

Wow is all I can really say..you sure over complicate the process..Your first sentence said you were not satisfied and then you say you have never been disappointed what so ever...guess I can't track that

 

[FooDoo]

Wow is all I can really say..you sure over complicate the process..Your first sentence said you were not satisfied and then you say you have never been disappointed what so ever...guess I can't track that

asking questions, finding answers, and knowing what is going into the water, in my opinion, isnt over complicating things. My apologies for educating myself on the hobby and developing the skill set and not just following blindly.

I wasnt satisfied with using lucas without knowing why and what was in it. It had nothing to do with the nutrient line, but the ratios in which they were advised to be used.

By all means, you may continue to "run Cultured Solutions without question", however, that isnt my style with *anything* i do in life. I love to question and i love to learn new things. How and why something works always intrigued me instead of, "it just does".

this thread isnt about CS vs X. This isnt to try and knock CS nute line. I am not here to change minds or opinions on any subject. I made this thread to gauge the opinion of the educated and experienced on ONLY ideal npk values.

 

[UCMETOO]

Hey, Foo you should be kinder to TEXAS KID, He is a very stand up guy, and he has learned more from trial, error and ultimately success than most ever will.

He is a long way from 'blindly following anything' actually when you see where the light is comming from, often he has been holding it the whole time. He does not need me to fluff his world either,....i just tend to stand up for the stand ups!

 

[FooDoo]

Hey, Foo you should be kinder to TEXAS KID, He is a very stand up guy, and he has learned more from trial, error and ultimately success than most ever will.

He is a long way from 'blindly following anything' actually when you see where the light is comming from, often he has been holding it the whole time. He does not need me to fluff his world either,....i just tend to stand up for the stand ups!

I was referencing myself with the following blindly comment. As in, im not the type to just buy a bottle, look at the label, and do whatever it says without knowing why.

Im in week 6 with my run right now, as soon as i take the girls down and clean the system, i have my Deadhead og cuts going in from a mom i found 2 years ago and gave to my buddy to hold onto. I'll be starting a brand new journal with tons of pics.

I also have 13 reg kosher kush beans that ill be popping and dropping into coco on the side in a seperate tent to start my search for my next keeper mom.

 

[FooDoo]

Here's a cell phone pic of a Tahoe og from seed that only turned out to be a mediocre pheno .

This was my learning run. So it was Lucas during veg and first two weeks 12/12. Then 5ml calmag / 5ml micro / 10 ml bloom with 3ml koolbloom week 3-4 which burnt the tips a little. Then I dumped the nutes and started over with my new 4/4/9.

The entire time I've had low humidity lights on and high humidity lights off. Also had slime.

Thanks to a very helpful member pming me, I was advised that when running coco removing nitrogen early is helpful but in UC , N def sets in way to quickly and i should run it until flush. So I'll be making those changes to week 6 & 7.

 

[UCMETOO]

Your so right, it is all about you.

 

[FooDoo]

Your so right, it is all about you.

Thanks for chiming in.

In case anyone else out there is looking to tailor their fav nutrient line to best fit their girls, here's the thread that helped spark the motivation in me to learn how to do so.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=55683

Lots of great back and forth discussion went on in that thread.

Here's the calculator used to get the individual values of what's in your bottles

http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm

 

[UCMETOO]

sorry just realized who this is,.....

 

[urban1026835]

i didnt notice you mention the 1g per gallon epsom that is recommended in the head goes coco thread? Why did you use calmag instead of the 6/9 1g epsom?

Just curious is all as i like to run lucas/head in coco most of the time but by no means have i crunched all those nutrient numbers..more i just use the 6/9-1 and for some strains knock it down to 4/6-1.

have you tried that with bad results and this is why the cal-mag?

 

[FooDoo]

i didnt notice you mention the 1g per gallon epsom that is recommended in the head goes coco thread? Why did you use calmag instead of the 6/9 1g epsom?

Just curious is all as i like to run lucas/head in coco most of the time but by no means have i crunched all those nutrient numbers..more i just use the 6/9-1 and for some strains knock it down to 4/6-1.

have you tried that with bad results and this is why the cal-mag?

Awesome question!

I had read thru that thread at least 3 or 4 times to try and catch anything I may have missed and somewhere towards the center h3ad had mentioned trying multiple variations on his original 6/9 formula. He actually cut out the Epsom salt altogether at one point and said he didn't even need it.

Others , however, continued to comment that they were seeing mg def without Epsom and sometimes even with Epsom.

The x factor in the equation always boiled down to water. High ppm water, low ppm city water, dirty well water and of course our beloved ro water.

Seemed that most people using coco were able to do so effectively with tap. Some would mix 50/50 tap with ro but the majority were on straight tap + 6/9.

Seems when we use ro, we simply can't just skate by without calmag. GH even mentions it directly on their label of calimagic (which I didn't use because the calcium value was much too high even tho I liked their lower N).

And now even the guys at under current mention it in their general recommendations section. "When using reverse osmosis water add Cal/Mag @ 1-3 ml/gal to ensure an appropriate ratio of Ca to Mg is achieved before adding in Cultured Solutions™."

So sumed up, I didn't choose Epsom because I prefer liquid nutrients, it has too much sulfur, it has no calcium, and by using the calculator I was able to hit ideal targets with it incorporated. Basically taking 6/9 and making it 4/9 gave the room for calmag to fit into that spot where 2 of the micro was subtracted

 

[urban1026835]

thank you, and since i use my tap that is around 130ppm that would be why i don't see too much of a problem..and explains why you do what you do.

 

[FooDoo]

No thanks

 

[FooDoo]

This poor tahoe girl was highly abused on this run while I figured out the new closed environment and feeding schedule.

I ended up making more changes to the schedule. Added micro back into week 6-7. Only doing a 1 week flush in 9 and feeding till 8. Lowered liquid koolbloom to 1.5ml per gallon. Lowered dry koolbloom to 1/3 recommended strength which is around .42 grams per gallon.

Will be starting a new grow log with DH shortly

 

[FooDoo]

So I'm running the new 4-4-9 formula finally.

So far so good.

Day 14 Veg Deadhead OG . got the clones in very rough shape from a buddy.

They were flipped that night and here she is after day 1 12/12

.4 EC so far. I'll be gradually increasing over the weeks until I reach full strength

 

[FooDoo]

Deadhead og day 67 that ran this formula from start to finish.

4-4-9 as a base, liquid kool bloom starts week 4 and goes week 5,6 and 7. On week 8 I start dry koolbloom and go till week 9. Then week 10 is tap water flush.

Guess over thinking things and using 90s nute technology was a huge waste of time , eh?? Lol