Nutrients Anyone run FloraFlex yet?

[slowandeasy]

Party of 1 Continues. I have 3/4 seedlings up. Let's get ready to roll! Once all are up and lightly hand watered for a few days I will hook up everything and start a new thread to show everyone what is going on. They are in my seed starting tent til then. Peace, slow

 

[slowandeasy]

Well well well I only see a couple people checking it out, so I will start a new thread in Mephisto section in a couple of days. I have 4 seedlings. 2 are ahead. I will. Handwater for about a week. Then I will turn on the Timer and pump. Aiming for little to no run off for the first 5-7 days. Then I will increase flood time. Hopefully the nutes work well. The Silica I bought is strong. I added 1.5ml and it upped the pH perfectly... actually I will only use 1ml per gal next time. I would rather start my pH at 5.9-6.0 and let it drift up slowly in the Rez. Just 1ml will move it up if needed. So far the 2 gal jugs I have made remained stable in the jug once tested again 24 hrs later. However, pumps and Automated systems should be monitored daily for fluctuations.

 

[DB86]

Well well well I only see a couple people checking it out, so I will start a new thread in Mephisto section in a couple of days. I have 4 seedlings. 2 are ahead. I will. Handwater for about a week. Then I will turn on the Timer and pump. Aiming for little to no run off for the first 5-7 days. Then I will increase flood time. Hopefully the nutes work well. The Silica I bought is strong. I added 1.5ml and it upped the pH perfectly... actually I will only use 1ml per gal next time. I would rather start my pH at 5.9-6.0 and let it drift up slowly in the Rez. Just 1ml will move it up if needed. So far the 2 gal jugs I have made remained stable in the jug once tested again 24 hrs later. However, pumps and Automated systems should be monitored daily for fluctuations.

I'm interested in setting up a timed pump for my grow. Hand watering at the moment and i don't want to do what I did last time (hand watered 12 plants start to finish in a soiless grow). Any suggestions on where to start. I only have 4 seedlings at the moment, but plan on adding more into rotation.

 

[slowandeasy]

I'm interested in setting up a timed pump for my grow. Hand watering at the moment and i don't want to do what I did last time (hand watered 12 plants start to finish in a soiless grow). Any suggestions on where to start. I only have 4 seedlings at the moment, but plan on adding more into rotation.

Yeah, drip stakes are the cheapest method. But you can do Halo rings or Flora Flex products for top feeding automated systems. What nutes? If you have different plants at different schedules that can be a challenge. I am trying these Flora Flex kits and for the money it is worth the price for what I got. I am using their nutes and making a formula on my own. What plants do you plan on doing in Automated systems? I use Coco and small pots. I made a modified version to accommodate larger strains. Give me some information on your plans. Nutes, Strains, medium, lights, ect. Peace, slow

 

[slowandeasy]

So far so good. I made that 3rd jug last night and it is perfect as the rest were. I will go lightly water them in a minute. I can see the 2 ahead are getting bigger and will dry out faster. I guess my plan will be to handwater 5-6 more days and then hook up to pump. I am excited to see what happens. New nutes without a formula, I am going by EC. I see them growing, and the color looks fine. So I will keep the same formula for now. I have the Veg nutes going now. They have B1 and B2 for Bloom powder and I will be waiting til I see some preflowering before opening those bags. My formula might change in Bloom but will start with a 1 :1 ratio of B1:B2. If I want to adjust the PK levels I will just add more B2. And/or decrease B1. I am going to start a couple different seeds and handwater with these nutes to test them out more. So far so good. I have my 4 Sour Crinkles going and feeding them daily. 5 more days and I will hook up the pump. Let's hope it works well. I have a feeling they will do great. Peace slow

 

[slowandeasy]

Ok, been a few days. I had some concerns on the nutes the first week. This week the plants are responding well to the formula. I will try 1 more jug at 3g V1 and V2 each. The Calcium says it is really high in the one powder, so I will decrease the intital Cal-Mag to the RO water to .2 EC instead of .3. I will use this formula for this Jug and determine what to do.. I will hook up to the pump at the current strength if the plants keep growing well. Don't want to hook up until.I know the Nute formula is good and they don't need to be watered that often yet anyways. I will snap a few pics later maybe someone will respond? BTW, I have one in a modified version that I made up myself and put an Airdome in the bottom. It was the last one up out of the few and we will see if the Oxygen And extra space does anything different for her..

 

[DB86]

Finally back from our camping trip. Poor girls almost shriveled up without daily hand watering!

Here's where I'm at currently.
White Widow auto's
80/20 Coco Perlite medium
Solo cups - moving to 5gal bags this week.
Greenleaf Nutes - MC 2.0 & candy now, and PK later
HLG 600 lights (4x qb288's @ 155watts)
Running about 20% atm so I dont fry the little ones. The QBs are INTENSE at max wattage.

My last run i was mixing 10+ gallons of nutes by hand every day for about 2 months straight. I started with cana coco nutes, but having 10 different bottles to mix was terrible. Still had to add CalMag too! That was not pleasant. I came out to about 2 gram per watt, which was really nice. Until i had to hand trim it all at once. Never want to do that again either.

Anyewho, i need a simple, cheap automated system i can put together to pump up to gallon per day for up to 12 plants. Still have to figure out runnoff, but i can quite easily rig up a passive drain.

 

[slowandeasy]

Ok anyone... I believe that I have the Veg receipe under control very well. I have been using 1ml Silica, 2g Cal-Mag pro, 3g per gal of V1 and V2. This is about .9-1.0 EC. I use my stick and compare strength each time. They are doing well and the 1 with the Airdome is taking off in the past couple of days. The one is way ahead, but all have been growing much faster as of the past few days. I will go take some pics of them so you guys can see. I am not sure the exact day. They are Sour Crinkles. I would imagine about 2 more weeks and they will start to flower decently. I will switch to Bloom nutes at the sign of decent preflowering. Sour Crinkle has a few Phenos, so the one ahead, could just be bigger.

All are nice looking, and I am hoping to hook them up to the pump soon. They need another 4-5 days I suspect before I hook up. The Airdome girl has more medium and some Hydroton as well. These nutes are VERY clean. Almost clear. Don't drink it on accident, seriously. My runoff looks like water. This is not common with most nutes. I really hope I can dial in a good Bloom forula quickly. They are inaccurate about their strength, so 3g is more than they suggest....but way weaker. It is only .9-1.0 EC with .3 being Calmag. Once you run the numbers these plants will do well. Learned a LONG time ago to not trust labels strength. Always check my EC when making new nutes. With Powders you have to check the EC after each powder is added. This tells us the true feeding strength. I will keep an eye for any signs of N tox, as the mix is N heavy....but can't trust labels. Will add pics soon, peace slowandeasy

 

[slowandeasy]

Well I hooked up the Pump and ran it today with Flora Flex nutes. 3 gal jug. 6g Calmag, 9g V1 and 10g V2 total. The caps work great. The manifold works perfectly. I may put flow valves on the smaller plants if I need to reduce their flood volume more than the rest. Right now tge Sour Crack is way behind in Age and size. It will flood faster and not need as much. But my formula is good so far. The one is starting to flower. The Airdome girl is getting huge. The little one is doing well, but neither of those are flowering. I will keep this strength until they are all flowering good, I will then up the V2 a little to increase the PK. I am not sure on the exact days, but they are nice and healthy. I will add a couple of pics tomorrow when I play the pump in. They are not ready for the timer yet, so I will plug it i. And watch to gauge thetime.

 

[slowandeasy]

Wow these plants are doing really good! The one Sour Crinkle is getting massive. It is the one with the Airdome and 2gal Growbag. It is not flowering yet. However the 2nd largest is budding good now, I can see a difference daily. The Third is starting to flower it is smallest. I also have Sour Crack that is along to.e behind in the tent and hooked up to the Flora Flex lines and nutes. But the Airdome Sour Crinkle is getting so big that I may have to move the Sour Crack out in the future. The Sour Crinkle with Airdome could take up a lot of space if I trained it fully. I am about 90% Sure that I will have to move things in the near future because that plant is massive already.