Need better numbers with Maxibloom, Help!

Hello Icmag, I have been a member of this site for 5 years and I figured its time to come out of the shadows and contribute my knowledge as much as possible.I am using 100% botanicare coco coir, and hand watering with 10% run off once a night by hand. I have been using the maxibloom for a few years. In veg I use 7g/gal MB, 5 ml/gal botanicare pure blend tea, 10 ml ful power (humic), and 3ml cal mag plus. Ph 5.8 temps 67-77, humidity 55.
In flower i am using 7 g/gal mb, 5 ml pure blend tea, 10 ml ful power, and 3 ml cal mag. The last 2 weeks of feeding I give them 1.2 grams of kool bloom powder. ph 5.8-6.0 and humidity 45-50%. I am also running a closed room in flower with the co2 ppm at 1400. I love the quality of the herb and it is consistently covered in trichomes, tastes great and smells great even with zero cure. However, i am not getting the numbers I would like. Are there any maxi bloom users out there that can give me some suggestions on how to raise my weight? Thanks and any input is appreciated.

I ran a side by side with MB and FloraNova when I had to switch nutes some years ago. The FloraNove beat it hands down in every dept. Now, having gotten that out the way and that is just my experience
Would you be opposed to changing your additives?
This will work-
Maxi Bloom-either bloom or grow depending on stage. 1.2 to 1.4 max in both
1ml Floralicious/gallon expensive but a quart treats 946 gallons
No calmag or no more than 2 ml in veg and up where the plant needs it in bloom
I also use a product called Pot O Gold at 1 oz/2 gallons. I see a difference with I use it verses when I don't. Again personal preference
Powdered Kool bloom at beginning of week 5 stopping a week before flush. Use at .2 ec total in the mix example- if bloom nute mix is usually 1.4 Ec drop it to 1.2 add the Kool bloom to raise it to 1.4 ec total. KB will burn your plants if much stronger
I add carbo load at 100ml/40 gallons at week 7 of bloom. That's also a personal preference
Always mix additives first then top with the MB grow or bloom to raise the ec. Then add the Kool Bloom after the MB addition
This is used with ro water so no guessing what's in the source water

Hey resin thanks for the response. I am not opposed to changing my additives and I would be willing to do a side by side comparison since I have enough trays to compare. I have run the full advanced line and canna line. I even switched my last round to canna a and b with the same additives and the maxibloom turns out drastically better. Have you been able to hit .9g/watt with this method because that is my desired goal. Thanks again

What are you using for lighting, how many per light, and what strains?

Catfish John said:

Hey resin thanks for the response. I am not opposed to changing my additives and I would be willing to do a side by side comparison since I have enough trays to compare. I have run the full advanced line and canna line. I even switched my last round to canna a and b with the same additives and the maxibloom turns out drastically better. Have you been able to hit .9g/watt with this method because that is my desired goal. Thanks again

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Last 5-6 runs I've been around 1.01-1.02 gpw
That's 9 plants on a 4x4 under a 1k. 2 gallon smart pots with a 50/50 coco coir/ chip mix on a flood and drain
Realize tho that that is strain dependent
Primarily Chem D and Albert Walker
Oh I keep the co2 around 1200 ppm too

Wow Resin thats great! Thanks for sharing all your tips. How many nights do you flood and how long are you vegging? Do you stake or trellis? I am currently staking.

I am using 1000w phantom 2 digitals, with new hortilux bulbs.
4 plants per 3 x3 tray
I have been using 5 gallon pots to finish but I am thinking about switching to smart pots, do you suggest 3 or 5 gallons?
I run mostly Flo and Hells Angel OG, but i have the GG4, cookie wreck, deathstar and a couple more.
Thank yall

Kelp brother... like the man above stated floralicious and take out the humic your using. Or keep it and add something containing kelp. Something about kelp that plants love. Gives a more thicker stronger structure which translate to weight. U can feel the diff when you break up weed fed kelp in hydro and or grown to perfection organically...

Thought mb and flora was basically the same. Gonna have to try the flora

Thanks sourpuss, I am using the pure blend tea

Guaranteed Analysis:

Total Nitrogen (N) 0.5%
0.1% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
0.3% Nitrate Nitrogen
0.1% Other Water Soluble Nitrogen
Available Phosphate (P2O5) 0.5%
Soluble Potash (K2O) 1.0%

Derived from: Seabird Guano, Earthworm Castings, Fish Meal, Kelp (Ascophyllum Nodosum).

ALSO CONTAINS NON-PLANT FOOD INGREDIENT: 0.01% Humic acid derived from Leonardite ore.

But that may not be enough? since it is clearly the last ingredient

could try:
A. Increase plant numbers
B. Veg longer with same number of plants
C. Try multifeed per light cycle with smaller pots(2-3gal)

Plant numbers dictate yield as does veg time, but I found, aside from dialing my environment and getting up to 50 watts/sqft, bumping my feeds to 3+ per light cycle increased my yields most dramatically. I went from an average of .75 gpw to 1+ gpw when I went from hand watering once a day to multifeeds daily. Monocropping each light helps make it easier as well. Good luck!

Catfish John said:

Wow Resin thats great! Thanks for sharing all your tips. How many nights do you flood and how long are you vegging? Do you stake or trellis? I am currently staking.

I am using 1000w phantom 2 digitals, with new hortilux bulbs.
4 plants per 3 x3 tray
I have been using 5 gallon pots to finish but I am thinking about switching to smart pots, do you suggest 3 or 5 gallons?
I run mostly Flo and Hells Angel OG, but i have the GG4, cookie wreck, deathstar and a couple more.
Thank yall

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I run only 2 gallon smart pots. Tried 3 gallon pots once with no noticeable difference
I flood twice a day in veg. 3 times in bloom because the plants are bigger and eat more. Example, right now I have 1 table sucking down 4.5 gallons a day at the beginning of week 3 of bloom and the other one da king around 3-3.5 gallons per day. And that's with serious defoliation. I love it!!!
I use a double trellis. Check out my pic gallery and you can see what I'm talking about
With the trellis you can weave the mains branches where you need then and the second net helps with additional support
More plants even bigger plants will without a doubt produce bigger yields as stated above. Every time.
From what I understand the HA OG is or has the potential to give good numbers

sourpuss said:

Thought mb and flora was basically the same. Gonna have to try the flora

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I had heard the same thing and that's why I did the side by side with the 2.
Same room. Same type and number or plants. Same additives. Same temps. Same ec and ph. 1K light over each table. Same everything
The Flodanova not only out produced by over a qp the smell, taste, resin production, appearance and effect was better than the Maxi table
I don't know what the difference between the two is but it was worth going with the Floranova in my personal opinion. And we all know how opinions are lol

I had been feeding 7g MB and 1g Epsom salts in straight coco for a long time when I remember to add the salts. At one point I grew some sativas that didn't like a lot of nutes and then wondered why I was seeing mag deficiency in my indicas. Doh.

My tap water reads between 100-150ppm. Last year I read here that many KISS people add Kool Bloom in flower and so I tried it.

At the same time I also made some other changes such as a 4th week of veg and more lighting so I am not willing to trumpet the greatness of Kool Bloom THAT much but without a doubt it fixed the yellowing lower leaves in early flower and my Sour Strawberries are much more vigorous both in height and girth. Where I would get 3/4 to 1oz per 1gallon plant now they grow 3ft instead of 2 and I get 1.25 to 1.75 per 1 gallon.

Some of that will also be from the better lighting but once I added the second light I built shelves and went from 9 plants to stuffing 18 in there and the whole cabinet was overgrowing all summer so I do believe the KB has helped.

Hopefully I can learn about something even better than KB from this thread!

It occurred to me to mention that I hand-water once a day which is different than most of the responses.

What kind of numbers are you getting?

Otis- Thanks, I think I am going to try a longer veg time and set up a drain to waste setup. watering multiple times per night seems to be a huge factor, as does the smaller pots which justifies the multi-feeding. I do have them mono-cropped for the most part this harvest.

Resin- It seems like the trellis is another very important step in getting an even canopy which helps improve numbers. I tried to setup a trellis on the last run with the canna and it turned out weak. I setup a single layer and the last 2 weeks all the buds were laying on each other and getting zero airflow. So I really like the double trellis, do you clean out the area below the top trellis or only the bottom layer. Also it seems like since you are putting 9 plants under one trellis that there isn't alot of space to spread them out? How long are you vegging? The HAOG is proper and dense and I am going to get it dialed in!

Hey scrog- I'm getting aboout .59 to .66 gpw definitely nothing to write home about. They dont seem to fill out as much as they should. I think the KB helps make them pretty dense though.

Thanks everyone for your input and knowledge this community is invaluable

Theirs no magic in nutrients. In my years of growing and throughout the time i modded this very forum i have learned that. If you're plants are otherwise perfectly healthy and flourishing then nothing you add or change is gonna go BOOM and give you bigger yields. (In fact, the only thing that ever did that was when i sealed and ran co2, but that's another forum )
It's not as though you're using straight Maxibloom. With all the extra's you're adding i doubt that it's the nutrients holding you back.
Of course i ran a side/side with other nutrients, and the difference was negligible. In fact, Miracle Grow (Tomato plant formula)
gave more slighty more yield than Maxi, GH, FloraNova and Advanced...
When i modded this forum i felt obligated to try different nutrients and of the ones i made work for MJ, none out did the other by much as far as yield. Some were easier to use, some needed cal/mag, etc, but that's it.
The only reason i stopped using Maxibloom is because i now use 250 gal rez's and it's a pain to mix that much.
Behold a Miracle grown cola...

Catfish John said:

Hey scrog- I'm getting aboout .59 to .66 gpw definitely nothing to write home about. They dont seem to fill out as much as they should. I think the KB helps make them pretty dense though.

Thanks everyone for your input and knowledge this community is invaluable

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Yeah I get about .7 - .84 gpw range from all of my maxi grows. I only use maxi, cal-mag, and protekt. Of course I would love more. You really need the right strain too as others have mentioned.

Catfish John said:

Resin- It seems like the trellis is another very important step in getting an even canopy which helps improve numbers. I tried to setup a trellis on the last run with the canna and it turned out weak. I setup a single layer and the last 2 weeks all the buds were laying on each other and getting zero airflow. So I really like the double trellis, do you clean out the area below the top trellis or only the bottom layer. Also it seems like since you are putting 9 plants under one trellis that there isn't alot of space to spread them out? How long are you vegging? The HAOG is proper and dense and I am going to get it dialed in!

Click to expand...

Veg time is strain dependent. Sometimes a month to a month and a half. Some are faster and some veg soooooo slooowwww.
Everything below the first screen is removed with the exception of healthy fan leaves. Anything below the second screen that looks weak or that will not develop fully when it reaches it is removed.
Easy to spread them out. Keep only the strongest branches and let them develop. Weaker branches won't develop fully and suck bud yield from the ones that will produce.
I remove any leaf that blocks light to a bud site. Lots of people say don't do this, don't do that, farmers don't remove leaves from apple trees, etc. Farmers aren't growing pot indoors either. I provide light and food and leave enough leaf for things to happen. And it works for me. As Cartman says, "I do what I want."
Sometimes as the buds stretch during growth and put on weight they will still flop over so I support them with the plant yoyo's.
BTW, both of my screens are hung from the ceiling by hooks and chains. Makes it easy to raise or lower them.

Hey Catfish,
Lots of good advice here. I'll toss in my 2 cents.

Nutrients themselves only do so much. Elements facilitate photosynthesis and regulate energy in the plant, but weight itself is dried plant material which is over 80% carbon. If they can be kept respiring at a high rate then that will translate to a better return on the harvest. Plant respiration is kind of tricky, it's a balance between available moisture in the media, the Vapor Pressure Deficit, and leaf temperature. If there is anything that could be looked at with the environment I think that addressing these areas to ensure you're in the "green zone" is a good idea.

Water/feed frequently (2-3x per day)
Leaf temp needs to be under 30c
Environment should be 80f to 84f Humidity at 65-70%


After environment, when it comes to what I'm adding to the reservoir I always start with the roots. The way I think about it is that I am growing roots. I maintain a media for them, keep the solution at the right pH, and generally everything I'm adding to the plant is going through the roots first. It can be easy to see the top of the plant as the result, but results all start under the surface where we cannot see. Hydroponic methods do a fantastic job at producing a huge plant on a small root system because of the efficiency of the nutrient delivery. So, even a slight increase in root health can result in a major increase in harvest weight when it comes to hydro.

General Hydroponics RapidStart has been treating me right for a long time. I absolutely love this product, it works great, and produces some of the best root systems I've had in coco. Another product I use for root support is General Organics BioWeed. In coco, it's a little too salty to use daily, I'll add it once a week or so through day 20 of flowering. These two in combination are a straight powerhouse.

Cal-Mag and Pure Blend Tea are great stuff, totally support their use in your system. I cut out the Cal-Mag Plus around days 35 to 40 in bloom, and usually supplement with a little extra Mg+Su (1/8th tsp Epsom). It has been my experience that the Calcium in the base nutrients is enough to carry them through to the end. FulPower is the best option around for Fulvic, but I think you're running more than necessary in combination with the tea. You could cut this in half without hurting anything.

If you could add something non-booster to your system I'd go with a silica product. I use Silica kind of like a pH up. Just 2-3ml per gallon does the trick and will definitely strengthen plant tissues and improve photosynthesis by fortifying the chloroplasts (the housing for your power plants). This should translate into a slight gain at harvest. I just recommend not running Silica after the stretch is complete. The plant can mobilize silica inside the tissues and I find having too much silica gives a kind of "off" smell and flavor to the smoke. I call it a "white" flavor similar to how milk and plain yogurt taste. Cut it out early enough though and everything is enhanced.

When it comes to Bloom Boosters I've only ever used 2 that I felt went above and beyond their elemental components. Advanced Nutrients Big Bud dry works great for me. I run it at about 1/2 strength beginning at flower onset and ending at the beginning of what I call the "swelling" stage (around day 35). Botanicare Hydroplex is what I'm using rather than the KoolBloom Dry for end of bloom PK boosting for 7-10 days after the Big Bud Dry is finished. I've tried a lot of stuff, I get a lot of samples, and they are all a wash IMO except these two (at least when it comes to price VS performance).

More PAR is going to do your plants a world of good too. These new ceramic systems are throwing down a mad amount of photons your plants can use and the guys I am working with that are using them as a veg light, then as a supplement for bloom, are reporting record harvests. The fixture is a little pricey up front, but it can pay for itself in a single grow with a 10-15% increase in your yields.

Sun System LEC315

And that is it from my POV to improve what your Maxi can do. Check the environment to make sure it's dialed for the right transpiration, support your root zone, add some silica, boost your flowers with more than elements, and add some more PAR. If those don't give you fuller jars then I'm a fool and deserve at least 5 good lashings.

Snow crash's advice is always on point and I want to second the hydroplex. I use it a little different than he does though. When I use it add to my base(maxibloom, gh6/9, h&g..) I start after week 3 or four and use it until week 7 when I add MOAB for 7-10 before the finishing flush. I can't definitively say that it increased yield bc I never did a side by side, but when I added it to my base+silica only formula I started getting more than 1gpw and the flavor and trich production was noticeably greater as well as bud density. I do have to say that I believe yield increased as my experience increased and my rooms environment became more dialed in as far as temp, vpd, air exchange and light intensity. But this flower formula has given me to notch results.