To Tea or not to Tea?

  • Thread starter Alice D
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Alice D

Alice D

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Hello everyone I am about to set back up my current culture DBXL13 with 16 sites. I am wondering what others are using in their systems,as far as keeping root health & warning off pathogens. Are you making teas every few days & using them in the system itself or are you just crown feeding? Maybe you've found 100% sterile was easier. I'd like to hear it all. I'm currently brewing heisenbergs tea but have been unsure if I want to inoculate the whole system just a few days before I bring my girls in from their bubble tray or start crown feeding and keep it at that. Running sterile down under the net pots. How have these bio balls ive heard some talking about work out? I currently run my bubble tray sterile with some I.b.a (root hormone)& CS roots & a little CS A&B.
Also what products have you had good success with while brewing tea or not had such good luck with? Does anyone add Rhizotonic or roots excelorator in their teas to get some added use out of these expensive products?Thank you for your input I've pretty much been sitting back observing the farm for the past few years so thank you to everyone for helping when I had tough times.
 
HydroRocks

HydroRocks

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TONS of threads here answering those questions in detail. If you have been "observing" here for years then you should already know that the information is here as there are countless threads and a entire forum section on making tea's and how to apply them in the UC system.

The search button is your friend....::)
 
Alice D

Alice D

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I know how to make plenty of teas. I've been growing a solid 15 years a lot of posts are older & was curious what people have been up to lately but ya thanks for that tip on the search button
 
midwestdensies

midwestdensies

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Check capulators beneficials. Shows lots of tea info. Nice pic btw. Alice D millionaire.
 
squiggly

squiggly

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To tea, for sure--capulator definitely is a treasure trove of information here as he does hydro and sells the bennies.

Not to hate on the search button on the site, it's great--but if you go to google and do a search as follows:

site:thcfarmer.com YOUR SEARCH HERE

you will come up with amazing results that this engine just isn't capable of producing.
 
redwhiteblue

redwhiteblue

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To tea, for sure--capulator definitely is a treasure trove of information here as he does hydro and sells the bennies.

Not to hate on the search button on the site, it's great--but if you go to google and do a search as follows:

site:thcfarmer.com YOUR SEARCH HERE

you will come up with amazing results that this engine just isn't capable of producing.

Exactly the search method I use for this...guess there are a few more computer literate guys on the farm hahah!
 
Alice D

Alice D

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Thanks for that tip on using google that helped me find a lot more info. Your right capulator is the man when it comes to benificials & tons of other stuff I haven't had a chance to read up on yet. Thanks again guys.
 
M

mistergreen206

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I like to go clean but keep a tea on deck just in case it starts to go bad
 
Alice D

Alice D

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So do you use zone or CS roots or h2o2 when staying sterile or you just run low water temps and use your nutrient profile? Also do you have your modules super oxygenated or just run one stone each module with the pumps CC sends out when ordering?
 
woodsmaneh

woodsmaneh

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If your using tea than you likely are using bennies in your system. Zone and H2O2 will kill them so not compatible. Over the past 2 years hanging out here and other places I have only heard that people who use bennies have tons of trouble with the UC. I run a sterile environment in all my UC's, if any root issues develop I can hit them hard with H2O2.

I used the air pumps they sent me but after about 6 months I upgraded the pumps. The smallest pump I run now is 230 watt and I only run one 6" stone in my UC xl13 but run two 6" stones in my bigger systems (30 gal barrels)

Just so you know to much oxygen is bad for roots but you need expensive equipment to saturate the water. If you have the water rolling/boiling it will damage the roots by tossing them about, so just driving your stones so they have bubbles coming out the full length is what you want.
 
Alice D

Alice D

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As of now I'm not running any bennies but I'm just about to put girls in the system. Their currently in their bubble tray. I have always been a little sketched on using bennies but after reading a lot on here it's seems a lot of people using them without troubles. After having some root health issues this last time I started to read up on possibly going that route. I've also been tossing around just crown feeding the net pots with very little amount of bennies & using CS roots down below. Will this not be alright? will the bennies try & move down the root system & die from the CS roots or would they hang out in the net pot & posse up their? But ya I hear ya about not wanting to much air to disturb the roots. I like to run co2 so to get the air to the modules is about 10' so I added 1 more Air Force pro 80 to my 16 site system. It came with one plus the AFP 40 on the epicenter so I doubled their air but it has to run so far before getting to the modules I'm a little worried that's still not enough. Been looking at blowers & trying to figure out what size would be good but I guess I don't understand how much air I loose when running 3/4" hose 9-10' then to the manifold then the 1/4" hose to each stone/module. I have a box of medium round air stones so I was going to try & run two per module. I'm not sure how many liters per/m per site I'm currently getting. Or what would be not enough or to much. I guess as long as im getting a ripple on the surface i should be alright. Maybe I'm over thinking this & should just run it & if I start to have issues bring in the bennies. Thanks for the input guys.
 
All4freedumb

All4freedumb

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I ran tea this run for my first time.. I have to say, I have some very happy girls... Maybe next run I'll do a side by side... Tea blew non tea out the water when it came to veg. I stopped using week 6 of flower, I'm in that week now in one of the rooms.
 
woodsmaneh

woodsmaneh

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Make sure you keep your air pumps out of the room if you can. Heat and also if using CO2 it's not good for the pump or the system as the higher CO2 will be pumped into your water. I'm glad to hear more people are having success with more organic style grow's using tea's ect.
 
redwhiteblue

redwhiteblue

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We don't use any sterilizing agents during the cycles as I don't want my workers handling hazardous chemicals.

We run salt based nutes and tried aquashield this time...and if we ever see any slime, we hit it hard with EWC tea and it goes away. Somebody must have perfected the sterile vs tea thing by now, but they ain't tellin...

Hire a chemist...
 
Alice D

Alice D

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63
I ran tea this run for my first time.. I have to say, I have some very happy girls... Maybe next run I'll do a side by side... Tea blew non tea out the water when it came to veg. I stopped using week 6 of flower, I'm in that week now in one of the rooms.
Thanks for your insight. Quick couple questions if you dont mind. So after adding the initial tea (1 cup per 5-10 gallons) do you add the same every 3 days? How often do you change out your water in the system? Do you use a top off reservoir or just a R.O. to add back & if you do use a top off reservoir are you adding tea to it? Or should I only be adding tea to the epicenter? Thank you for your help
 
All4freedumb

All4freedumb

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I do a change out weekly. I only add tea at the beginning of each week. I do use top off that strictly holds RO water. When my PPM's drop in my system, by about 200ppms or so, I do an add back with only R 0 water and A and B, bringing my system back to my desired ppm.. I do lower my pH in my ro top off to help keep my Ph rise in check. Ohh and I do add my tea directly to epi after my weekly stew is in and circulating.. Hope this helps some..
 
K

kuz

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I had better luck with the dead res when running rdwc, but then I didnt have caps bennies back then. And maybe EWC tea is the key to making the live res function, I never tried it. Thats part of the reason I switched to ebb and flow, I think its going to be safer to go with the microbes and not get rot. Id like to use the teas to cut back on potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate. Not sure where to start though,
 
A

Amberevil

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3
To tea, for sure--capulator definitely is a treasure trove of information here as he does hydro and sells the bennies.

Not to hate on the search button on the site, it's great--but if you go to google and do a search as follows:

site:thcfarmer.com YOUR SEARCH HERE

you will come up with amazing results that this engine just isn't capable of producing.
I had no idea. Thank you so much.
 
B

bobby34

Guest
Alice, I'm actually having a problem at the moment as i normally run Photosynthesis plus in my systems and had a fair amount of success, But the Bio film was always an issue. I also used it on my rock wool as well during propagation as part of the feed mix. Ive recently gone down the road of UC Roots and it seems to me that even using bennies during propagation causes a problem.??
Im trying propagation now with no bennies and only UC roots in the system and ill let you know the out come.
 
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