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Cheap Nutrient Line for Commercial and Home Grows?

ledtime

Member
Growmore Flowering Cal-Mag is good. It also has kelp which will help structure at transition.

I forgot all about your wiki page. :frown:

The answer to my question was there. One or the other. Not both. I did just pony up for the Metalosate. With your guidance here I just reduced my nutrient cost per grow from $378 down to $36. The 25lb bags of Jack's will last me about 9 full cycles. The other additives will last longer. But calculating my savings based upon just the longevity of the amount of Jack's the savings is ASTRONOMICAL.

This thread has absolutely been the most beneficial to me in all of my years on this forum.

Thank you Bill.
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
I forgot all about your wiki page. :frown:

The answer to my question was there. One or the other. Not both. I did just pony up for the Metalosate. With your guidance here I just reduced my nutrient cost per grow from $378 down to $36. The 25lb bags of Jack's will last me about 9 full cycles. The other additives will last longer. But calculating my savings based upon just the longevity of the amount of Jack's the savings is ASTRONOMICAL.

This thread has absolutely been the most beneficial to me in all of my years on this forum.

Thank you Bill.

Wow, that's what I love to hear. I wish more people got out of the hydro store mentality!

As far as Growmore Flowering cal-mag, it's a calcium and kelp boost used at transition. The calcium revs up the plant metabolism and the kelp helps plant structure going into flower. The Ca bump is highly suggested for plant health at that point. The kelp isn't mandatory, but the branching and stacking is nice.
 

maryjaneismyfre

Well-known member
Veteran
Calmag is just a nitrogen boost..like giving a human sugar, it might temporarily alleviate the symptoms of nutritional deficiency, or mask them..But it won't lead to good long term growth or healthy growth. Calmag is just a mix of magnesium nitrate and calcium nitrate and is more nitrate than anything else..you just need to use calmag because the base formula that you are running is off in the first place, throwing more nitrogen at the problem does not cure the problem.. ;) I have a nutrient solution/product on the market, sold on shelves and every grower that uses my formula never goes back..I can't give you all the secrets but..Calmag is not the answer, the problem lies deeper than that..On my formula, which is not reverse engineered from another or based on any prior formula, it is completely novel, one can run same ratios of concentrates from mom, veg through flower if one chooses for simplicity and or only slight 20% either way adjustments are needed if one wants the full flowering benefits or full veg benefits on an advanced program, but one never needs bloom boosters or calmag and the results are stellar, far exceeding mosts' expectations running cuts they have always run in systems with no other change than switching nutes. My nutes can be run low EC, everything is in there in correct ppms, and self buffer to correct PH range, homegrowers dont even need to look at a ec/ph pen half the time and I have many large commercial facilities using my solution, infact most in my country and neighboring country are by now and none that have tried have turned back..I'm a layman, but I'm not a layman..

If your formula has the correct ppms of everything and not using high N to hide a fundamentally flawed formula and you just want to give the plants a little boost and get them kicking, then a foliar feed with an amino acid complex like fish hydrosolate with maybe some added triacontanol and maybe some auxins from kelp, will get things ticking right along..unless some other underlying issue like a fungal or root pathogen etc undiagnosed, in 3 days time the plant will be unrecognizable...and any temporary deficiency cause by uptake issue or root issue or whatever will be worked around. Yes, also an N dose but also rather the amino acids the plant would just use the Nitrate and other minerals to create..by the time the plant is right your correct formula will take over and its momentum of growth be at full steam again..if formula is flawed it will fall flat on its face again, barring there are no other fundamental issues like pathogen or starting water quality or ph or environment issue etc..
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
Calmag is just a nitrogen boost..

No, it's not. Cal mag supplements that contain calcium and magnesium nitrate add nitrogen. There is Growmore Flowering Cal-mag with no additional nitrogen. Calcium acetate and magnesium sulfate can be used.

Properly designed fertilizer lines should have sufficient calcium and magnesium, but plant needs may exceed that during transition into flower.
 

maryjaneismyfre

Well-known member
Veteran
Ah nice..calcium acetate should work nice, potassium acetate works superbly as a foliar but crashes out concentrate solutions..;)

Sorry lemme rephrase that...most calmags are just a nitrogen boost...with added calcium and magnesium..but that IME is not the real fix..adding plain calcium will improve things yes.
 
Man oh man, since I started really following your advice Bill my quality and yields are very up, it's like a dispensary on my office shelf.

I gave up on Megacrop V3 since my stuff started tasting off when I switched to it, went back to jacks 321 and I feel like I am killing it.

I feel like I'm running into the burning at 100% Bill keeps mentioning now. Going to try ~75% strength of the base and epsom, with full strength calnit with some half strength hammerhead and sweet candy. Once I run out of the sweet candy I'm going to try the soluble molasses from customhydronutrients.

Fun times when every tweak seems to bring a positive change.

I did have one question: Bill, I see you mention using 1-2ml of Mr Fulvic, I've only ever use 1ml/gal, what benefit could I see If I upped the fulvic dose? It's taking so long to go through it I may as well use double strength if I'm going to benefit from it.
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
1-2ml Mr. Fulvic is too much. It's 1 ml/gallon intermittent drench or standalone biostimulant foliar. 0.5ml constant feed or foliar in conjunction with other IPM inputs. If you still get crispy leaf tips, it's not going to hurt the flowers, but roll back your base nute 10%.

Sounds like it's saving you some money, eh?
 

ledtime

Member
1-2ml Mr. Fulvic is too much. It's 1 ml/gallon intermittent drench or standalone biostimulant foliar. 0.5ml constant feed or foliar in conjunction with other IPM inputs. If you still get crispy leaf tips, it's not going to hurt the flowers, but roll back your base nute 10%.

Sounds like it's saving you some money, eh?

So glad that I saw this. I had this down for 1mL/Gallon for my dtw setup. Will last a lot longer at half that strength! :)
 
1-2ml Mr. Fulvic is too much. It's 1 ml/gallon intermittent drench or standalone biostimulant foliar. 0.5ml constant feed or foliar in conjunction with other IPM inputs. If you still get crispy leaf tips, it's not going to hurt the flowers, but roll back your base nute 10%.

Sounds like it's saving you some money, eh?

ok wow, I'm glad I said something, I was heading in the wrong direction with Mr Fulvic. I really love Mr Fulvic, that jug is going to be around forever!

So you feel like 75% is a bit light, try 90% first, will do.

I was running pure coco hempys with chunky perlite on the bottoms, but I'm switching over to blumats now that I'm confident my inputs are truly soluble. My EC in the reservoir is 2.0 with just Jack's and Mr fulvic, I feel like that's a bit high now that I'm feeding multiple times a day vs every other day with the hempy's, anyone have an EC recommendation with Jack's 321 and blumats? 1.5-1.6?

Saving tons of money Bill, need to start giving it away soon. Not now, but soon. maybe. :wave:
 

asher1er

Active member
Veteran
ok wow, I'm glad I said something, I was heading in the wrong direction with Mr Fulvic. I really love Mr Fulvic, that jug is going to be around forever!

So you feel like 75% is a bit light, try 90% first, will do.

I was running pure coco hempys with chunky perlite on the bottoms, but I'm switching over to blumats now that I'm confident my inputs are truly soluble. My EC in the reservoir is 2.0 with just Jack's and Mr fulvic, I feel like that's a bit high now that I'm feeding multiple times a day vs every other day with the hempy's, anyone have an EC recommendation with Jack's 321 and blumats? 1.5-1.6?

Saving tons of money Bill, need to start giving it away soon. Not now, but soon. maybe. :wave:

How long do you keep a res with fulvic in it before having to change it out?
 
How long do you keep a res with fulvic in it before having to change it out?

Shoot, I JUST started using the blumats so I was planning on going a month with the clear rez I have...maybe three weeks? I don't know yet really...any suggestions from the peanut gallery?
 

ledtime

Member
Shoot, I JUST started using the blumats so I was planning on going a month with the clear rez I have...maybe three weeks? I don't know yet really...any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

I had asked Bill about this and his reponse was:

"In hydroponics, hypochlorous acid (Athena Cleans, UC Roots) is used to keep the reservoir sterile. It doesn't play well with organic inputs, just salts.

It could be a bunch of things making a film, sugars, chitosan/silica/fulvic not playing well together . . . Fulvic acid allows the uptake of nutrients across wider pH ranges because it acts like an electrolyte in the cell."

Now I don't use or know what clear rez is made of, but it may have an interaction with the Mr. Fulvic and create biofilm which would need to be cleaned up often. Maybe Bill will chime in further on this. I planned on using Mr. Fulvic, but I do not run any kind of resivoir cleaner/root cleaner stuff. I clean and sterilize my reservoir once a week when I make the batch of nutrients for the week.
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
How long do you keep a res with fulvic in it before having to change it out?

It's totally soluble. It should easily last a week or more between change outs.

The only contradiction is strong oxidizers like hypochlorous acid (UC Roots, Athena Cleanse) and hydrogen peroxide, which can create biofilm.
 
It's totally soluble. It should easily last a week or more between change outs.

The only contradiction is strong oxidizers like hypochlorous acid (UC Roots, Athena Cleanse) and hydrogen peroxide, which can create biofilm.

Yeah that hypochlorous acid in the clearrez made my brand spanking new res all cloudy and slimy and disappointing. Quickly too. Not an auspicious start to my return to reservoir life. Blumats are keeping the plants alive, but not as heavy as I'd like with the two arrows they recommend, adjustments are needed.
 

BillFarthing

Active member
Veteran
Don't use hypochlorous acid or peroxide and Mr. Fulvic together. Just use Mr. Fulvic as a foliar at 0.5-1ml/gallon if oxidizers have to be part of your lineup. That pretty much goes for anything with organic matter in it.
 
Don't use hypochlorous acid or peroxide and Mr. Fulvic together. Just use Mr. Fulvic as a foliar at 0.5-1ml/gallon if oxidizers have to be part of your lineup. That pretty much goes for anything with organic matter in it.

Yeah that was a silly mistake, not looking for interactions before using, live and learn.

What kind of inline filtration does everyone use? Or is there a reason I shouldn't? I like the look of those ones with the clear/visible wall vs those Y types that are solid black.
 

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