Will Flushing Every 7-10 Days Harm Your Plants In Any Way?

[SKB]

My plan is flush plants individually with an attachment that will allow me to pump the runoff to a drain until I reach a respectable ppm. I am willing to trade the hassle for the ability to configure plants as I see fit each round. Is there any downside to this thought process? I have heard conflicting ideas, I am hoping I have found a solution here. Any info would be great. I figured I would stop flushing after day 40 and wait till the final flush and just feed straight ph'd water. LETS HEAR IT :)

 

[tobh]

Depends what you mean by flush. I don't normally water till run off most of the time and will flush roughly every two weeks with a 1/4 strength nute solution to 15%-20% run off. Haven't had salt issues yet and seems to work fine. I don't recirculate in any manner, simply dtw. Final flush I just run straight tap through, 3 times the volume of the container then let them dry out.

One Love,
tobh

 

[SKB]

Depends what you mean by flush. I don't normally water till run off most of the time and will flush roughly every two weeks with a 1/4 strength nute solution to 15%-20% run off. Haven't had salt issues yet and seems to work fine. I don't recirculate in any manner, simply dtw. Final flush I just run straight tap through, 3 times the volume of the container then let them dry out.

One Love,
tobh

I plan to water with little to no run off until then use ph'd water to bring the runoff down to say 600? When I flushed last time after my entire veg the runoff was around 1800 and I brought it down to around 300 before transplanting. I used straight tap water which is very high quality and at about 7.0 ph, I don't believe the ppms even register. If I can get away with it using the hose is the way to go for this process. Is there enough residual nutrient in the coco to rinse with straight water or is the 1/4 strength regimen necessary. Any problems with using the 7.0 water?

 

[tobh]

I would keep the pH at the same level, 5.5 - 6.2, and a 1/4 strength solution. Coco does not retain any nutrients so flushing with straight tap water will fuck up your pH and nutrient balance. Your final flush, the last week of flower, can be done with straight tap as at that point you're trying to lock out availability of nutrients and starve the plant. It's definitely a good idea to do a flush between veg and flower as you have noticed, you want to bring those ppm's back to a decent level.

Depending on scale 1800 ppm isn't that terrible though it is on the high end of acceptable EC. I believe Seamaiden has a thread about this subject in particular. Check her signature. Considering week 5 of flower is typically you're heaviest feeding week you definitely want to be entering flowering with a lower ppm in the medium.

The thing about measuring run off is it's notoriously inaccurate and I don't do it myself along with many other farmers here. If you're looking for an accurate measure of medium EC and pH, you need to do a slurry test with RO water. Can be a frightening proposition considering the root density in coco, but it is the only way to accurately get an idea of what's going on in your medium.

One Love,
tobh

 

[SKB]

I would keep the pH at the same level, 5.5 - 6.2, and a 1/4 strength solution. Coco does not retain any nutrients so flushing with straight tap water will fuck up your pH and nutrient balance. Your final flush, the last week of flower, can be done with straight tap as at that point you're trying to lock out availability of nutrients and starve the plant. It's definitely a good idea to do a flush between veg and flower as you have noticed, you want to bring those ppm's back to a decent level.

Depending on scale 1800 ppm isn't that terrible though it is on the high end of acceptable EC. I believe Seamaiden has a thread about this subject in particular. Check her signature. Considering week 5 of flower is typically you're heaviest feeding week you definitely want to be entering flowering with a lower ppm in the medium.

The thing about measuring run off is it's notoriously inaccurate and I don't do it myself along with many other farmers here. If you're looking for an accurate measure of medium EC and pH, you need to do a slurry test with RO water. Can be a frightening proposition considering the root density in coco, but it is the only way to accurately get an idea of what's going on in your medium.

One Love,
tobh

Nice Datsun logo!! I have a 73 510 love it!! Anyway what about flushing with plain water then watering with nutrients afterword? Anything to save time and money. I forgot about the slurry test being the accurate route. I will try your method of flushing every two weeks and see how it goes. I am running Botanicare Kind in 15 gallon poly pots, with Bcuzz coco. Do you rinse your coco or pre charge? What's your nutes and coco?

 

[tobh]

Awesome! I daily an 82 280zx. Love my datsun's, this is my second and third of the Z family. First car was an 85 300zx. Anyways.

I rinse my coco very thoroughly, initially with straight tap then the final rinse with RO. I'll typically do this over a period of two or three days, soak my bricks in a bucket of tap, strain, run straight tap through, put back in bucket, submerge and repeat. I also buy super cheap bricks from the pet store, 7 bucks for three bricks that make approx. a 5 gallon bucket worth of medium. After the final rinse with RO, my ppm reads around 60, give or take. This is completely acceptable imo and I precharge at this point. Back in the bucket with 1/4 strength nute solution pH'ed to 5.5 to soak for a few hours to a day. Take note that this is my method and I doubt most are as anal about it as I am. Cheap bricks = more initial work, but I have not had salt issues yet.

I use canna coco a/b, general organics bioroot and general hydro calmag+. At least this last run I did. Previous to that I've used the whole canna coco line and had excellent results. After I run out of the current nutrients I'm going to Jack's though. Rather have complete and utter control over what's available to the plants and be able to really bring out the best in the genetics. Kind of like tuning our old datsun's, I'm after that last little bit that can really make a plant shine above.

Not to mention, these liquid based nutrients are complete rip off's. They're essentially taking something like Jack's, pre mixing it, diluting it, slapping a pretty label on it, saying it's "cannabis" specific and slinging it for outrageous prices. Kind of over that personally. I recommend if you have not, researching nutrient profiles and looking into hydrobuddy. It's a desktop application that will allow you to manipulate nutrient ratios and gain a thorough understanding of how our beloved eats. In coco, this can be the edge that will take you from a mediocre hobbyist grower to an elite producing top shelf fire every time.

One Love,
tobh

 

[SKB]

Awesome! I daily an 82 280zx. Love my datsun's, this is my second and third of the Z family. First car was an 85 300zx. Anyways.

I rinse my coco very thoroughly, initially with straight tap then the final rinse with RO. I'll typically do this over a period of two or three days, soak my bricks in a bucket of tap, strain, run straight tap through, put back in bucket, submerge and repeat. I also buy super cheap bricks from the pet store, 7 bucks for three bricks that make approx. a 5 gallon bucket worth of medium. After the final rinse with RO, my ppm reads around 60, give or take. This is completely acceptable imo and I precharge at this point. Back in the bucket with 1/4 strength nute solution pH'ed to 5.5 to soak for a few hours to a day. Take note that this is my method and I doubt most are as anal about it as I am. Cheap bricks = more initial work, but I have not had salt issues yet.

I use canna coco a/b, general organics bioroot and general hydro calmag+. At least this last run I did. Previous to that I've used the whole canna coco line and had excellent results. After I run out of the current nutrients I'm going to Jack's though. Rather have complete and utter control over what's available to the plants and be able to really bring out the best in the genetics. Kind of like tuning our old datsun's, I'm after that last little bit that can really make a plant shine above.

Not to mention, these liquid based nutrients are complete rip off's. They're essentially taking something like Jack's, pre mixing it, diluting it, slapping a pretty label on it, saying it's "cannabis" specific and slinging it for outrageous prices. Kind of over that personally. I recommend if you have not, researching nutrient profiles and looking into hydrobuddy. It's a desktop application that will allow you to manipulate nutrient ratios and gain a thorough understanding of how our beloved eats. In coco, this can be the edge that will take you from a mediocre hobbyist grower to an elite producing top shelf fire every time.

One Love,
tobh

Cool, I would like to get a Z someday, my buddy had one back in the day and I also had a 71 510 in high school that I wish I could have back. Sold it for 500 bucks because the ass end was pushed in a bit. Totally fixable compared to what the majority of them look like these days. I will look into the hydrobuddy application I am definitely over all the bs nutes. I have always been intrigued by Jacks and could definitely see it being utilized someday soon. I have been researching a bunch and am trying to take it to the next level. I have lot's of experience but have never put in the time to really understand whats taking place. I am interested, I just have a unique learning style. Some information just seems so foreign until it's viewed in a certain light then all of a sudden it will sink in. Thanks for the input :)

 

[happy b]

Just make sure to let the medium dry out between flushes or it will cause problems in the root zone.

 

[xavier7995]

Nice Datsun logo!! I have a 73 510 love it!! Anyway what about flushing with plain water then watering with nutrients afterword?

I do something similar but I do PH the water first. I am not really sure if PH'ing is necessary though. PH needs to be right for the plants to absorb stuff, here we are just pushing water to wash away excess salts and wouldn't need the plant to utilize that for anything. Once my pot is pretty wet with plain water I give them a slightly weak feeding and dump into a container to measure runoff volume of roughly what I put in. The nutrient solution should push the plain water out, replacing it with nutrified water that is at the correct PH. It has worked pretty well for me.

 

[Joe Fresh]

I plan to water with little to no run off until then use ph'd water to bring the runoff down to say 600? When I flushed last time after my entire veg the runoff was around 1800 and I brought it down to around 300 before transplanting. I used straight tap water which is very high quality and at about 7.0 ph, I don't believe the ppms even register. If I can get away with it using the hose is the way to go for this process. Is there enough residual nutrient in the coco to rinse with straight water or is the 1/4 strength regimen necessary. Any problems with using the 7.0 water?

runoff @ 600 will hurt your plants, there is a sweet spot, try and keep runoff between 900-1400ppms, 1600-1800 MAX....anything lower than 900ppm runoff indicated lack of nutrients for the plants...this is just a guidline, diff strains diff game...

flushing wont hurt your plants, as long as there is enough food for them in the soil/coco(keep runoff above 900ppm), and as long as your not flushing too much water too fast, this will disrupt the feeder roots and flood them and break their existing structure, so make sure your watering slowly when flushing to not harm the roots