Need Help With Goof Proofing My Nutrients?

[mikeybtoken]

Hi All, I'm New to the forum and this is My First Grow in Decades.
So here is my deal I finnished building my grow room this past summer, basically a 5'x20'x7' room. I bought three 1000W XXXL8" Sun Mag Hoods with Galaxy switchable Ballast and a Vortex 8" 747cfm fan. I have two lights up, one with Horitilux MH bulb and another with Hortilux HPS bulb. For now I am only running the one MH 24/0 on my 20 White Widow seeds from Amsterdam which just poped up a few days ago.
I have been trying to find easy to use nutrients, one for my veg and then another for my flowering. Even with all of the research and books that I have read, I really have no clue to what the heck I am really doing, yet. So far I have been winging it, I have been a bit cautious about asking too many questions until I found this site.
So, I have been looking at Advanced Nutrient Packages along with some other products like Formula Flo and Formula Flora. 20 bucks vrs 600-800 bucks. I have heard that Advanced Nutrients are the best but there are something like 15-20 products that I would have to buy and then learn how to use w/o harming or killing my babies. Seems kind of complicated for a first timer like myself, not to mention expesive. I figure that I have about three weeks before I need to start feeding. Any ideas of how I can goof proof my nutrients plan would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
This site Rocks!!!

 

[chris1974]

High and welcome Mikeybtoken !
Are you growing in soil or hydro ?

 

[eastla_kushsmoka]

i would recommend botanicare pure blend pro but there are lots of diff nutes and everyone use a diff one so your going to get alot of answers

 

[Growdude]

Floranova, one part nute just add water.

 

[MindzEye]

Floranova, one part nute just add water.

Thats what I use... It works well, I like to add flouralicious plus and kool bloom. General hydroponics is one of the best values out there.. Dont use a 15 part nutrient system until you have mastered growing...

 

[dirtyolsouth]

Hi,

Welcome to MP Mikey B... Wow... you got some banging gear. From the looks of this post you have a great attitude and there are many great growers here that are more than willing to help you get the dankest harvest possible your first go around... You got the gear just do lots of reading in the Grow Resources section/books/internet and we'll try to help fill the gaps in your knowledge and over time with a little effort those gaps will get smaller and smaller.

There are SO many different brands of nutes. The vast majority of them all work great. The key to getting the dankest bud is buying good genetics and you have a great proven strain with your WW seeds. It sounds like you're wanting to keep things somewhat simple the first go around and that's a great idea. I used AN nutes for several years and they do work great but the whole process every time with the litany of products did get old. The GH line is well tested and you can choose between their 3 part formula or the newer FloraNova line. Another very popular brand that has great results is Foxfarm nutes. Are you going to grow in soil? Much of the nute feeding depends on whether you're growing in a rich organic soil vs a soiless mix or a hydroponic growing medium that has little or no nute value. I recently switched to a very hot and rich organic soil mix a couple months ago that gives the plant all it needs and I only add water. It's whatever your personal preference is.

If you're going to use soil you've probably read about Foxfarm Ocean Forest soil. It's typically only available at indoor gardening/hydro stores and it's on the pricey side... $15-25/1.5 cubic feet bag depending on how far from the west coast you are... imho it's the best ready to go organic soil mix available. You can use it straight out of the bag with only occasional light nute feedings and you'll get very dank results. Or if you want to improve on it a bit I prefer a mix of 2 bags (3 cubic ft) of FFOF with 1 cubic ft bag of Foxfarm Light Warrior for a 3:1 ratio which will lighten up the Ocean Forest a bit and give added mychorrizae to your root zone to build a much more dense and healthy root zone. Big roots = BIG buds! If you go with a less amended soil mix you'll need to feed your plants more from the bottle. Either way is totally cool it's all up to you and your preferences... Many people prefer the taste of organically grown buds and that's my personal choice but you can grow extremely dank bud with a little more horsepower with synthetic nutes and hydroponics... And if you do go with soil make sure you don't go with any soil mix that has time release ferts in it like some Miracle Gro or Scotts pre-fertilized soils... Marijuana doesn't like time release ferts and they give you no control over how much or how often they choose to release into your root zone when you water.

So... if you go with FFOF or a 3:1 ratio of FFOF and LW for a soil mix the Foxfarm nutes are a great choice. The FFOF soil is so rich that you won't need to feed your plants in veg mode if you use this soil. They will grow extemely well in this soil as is. One note of caution... FFOF is too hot to start some strains of seedlings in. imho the ultimate soil seedling mix is a 50/50 mix of FFOF and LW. If you start them in this mix they'll be good for the first month or so of growing and then you can transplant your plants into larger containers with straight FFOF or the 3:1 mix with LW that I suggested.

Foxfarm nutes... Since assuming you're covered during veg with FFOF all you need is bloom nutes. If you wanted to use only ONE component of the FF nutes you should go with their Tiger Bloom base nute. If you wanted to go with a more complete plan get the TB along with their Big Bloom which is a catalyst with lots of micronutrients and a bit of PK boost. If you want to go with their entire bloom line up you'll need to pick up 3 additional additives that they refer to as 'solubles.' These three products are 'Open Sesame,' 'Beastie Bloomz,' and 'Cha Ching.' Any one of these 3 products is only used only during a specific time period during flowering so they should last a while. Foxfarm has a Soil Feed Nute Chart I attached as a PDF... It tells you when to feed which products and how much. If you want to keep a 'veg' nute around with more nitrogen FF Grow Big is a good choice. The FF nutes are a combination of organic and 'naturally-based' nutes and they work well with the organic soil.

With most brands of nutes imho their suggested use rates are way too high. Whatever method you end up growing and whatever nutes you go with I suggest that you start with 1/3 to 1/2 strength nutes and watch for any slight signs of leaf burn on newly emerging leaves. If you don't see any burn by the next nute feeding you can then slowly increase their nute strength. What works well in FFOF and many soil mixes is a regiment of water, water, feed, water, water, feed, etc... If you follow that routine and watch your plants for nute burn your plants will thrive. The best rule of thumb when it comes to watering is to always let the top inch or two of your soil surface dry out thoroughly between watering. Marijuana likes to be saturated fully when you do water but allowed to dry out well between waterings.

ONE more thing... water. RO is the best choice and you can purchase RO units for your faucet that are somewhat affordable. Tap water works fine in many areas but if you go organic you'll want to remove the chlorine from the water before using it to feed or water your plants. If you local water company uses standard chlorine letting the water sit in an open bucket or tub for 24 hrs will evaporate most of the chlorine and it will be compatible. Using an aquarium airstone in the bucket will speed this up. If your water co. uses chlorimide (another form of chlorine) to disinfect the water supply you'll need to get some aquarium dechlorination drops... and it only takes about 10 drops (.5 ml) for a 5 gal bucket so a little goes a long way. After putting in the drops stir it up and then the chlorine will adhere to the the molecules in the product and bubbling the water for just a few hours will dissipate any remaining chlorine and the water will be organically compatible.

Anyhoo... wow I'm baked... I just typed a novel!

Peace!

View attachment Foxfarm.pdf

 

[mikeybtoken]

Thankyou all so much for of the great info, and a special thanks to DirtyOS for your aritcal. I am so sorry that I just found it. I just figured out how to find stuff around here much easier. (I never said that I was the sharpest tool in the shed especially when it comes to computer stuff)
I can not thank you all enough this is every solid info and you are all great at making sense of it all.

You guys and girls make this place ROCK!!!!

Sorry that it took me so long to find my way back to this thread.

Peace MBT