Nutrients BIOTABS HELP, CUSTOMER FEEDBACK & GENERAL DISCUSSION THREAD

[MedCzech]

Hello fellow biotabers,

I just finished my starter kit, overall I have to say I am satisfied by biotabs performance and even though Im new in the hobby and like to experiment, for obvious reasons I'm relactant to switch to bottle nutrients regime, buying ready supersoil is not an option around here so I want to continue using biotabs in the future.

Even though I am satisfied with biotabs, I did encounter problems. Both Calcium and Magnesium deficiencies, which I solved by adding epsom salts in the water and top dressed with more dolomite lime. The deficiencies appeared aggressively very early during week 1-2, at the time I had not even put the tab in the ground yet or watered with bactrex+orgatrex (I planted staight into final pot so I planned on doing it on week 3 so they dont nute burn).I am amazed how not everyone is having calmag issues, perhaps it's because most of you are using coco while I am using peat, and Im using quantum board leds not hps.

Which brings me to my last point and question. I ph'ed my plain sphangum peat moss (by adding distilled water in a small sample) and it showed PH 4.55 which was expected. I PH'ed my pots which are a mixture of 60% peat 40% perlite startrex and mycotrex according to biotabs manual and some added dolomite lime. The result was an average of PH 6.5-7.5 which is slightly acidic as the ladies like it. My question is; did the pot PH rise because of the added dolomite lime? If so, for the next run should I be checking the medium PH before filling the pots and keep adding dolomite lime to the mix until I'm at the ideal PH level?

Also, I checked the runoff as well because Im a nerd, and to my surprice it's mostly similar or higher PH. I expected it lower since the pot sample was taken from the first inch of soil where the extra added lime was. I expected the runoff PH to drop since it was mixed with less alcaline soil further down the pot.

...and my last question...what is this 'just add water' strategy??? It even replaced the basic manual for a while in the website. I imagine lots of people were pissed (myself included) after buying the starter kit, looking for the directions online only to see they have to add silicium flash which is not part of the kit. If its some marketing strategy to promote the silicium flash product then that was not the most honest way to do it. Some people are only using bactrex + tabs with great results. To anyone contemplating whether to buy silicium flash I would say sure go ahead but my stems are thickkk just by using the starter kit products. I would however suggest foliar sprays with boom boom spray-you can see the results within a few hours the ladies are loving it.

I am just sharing the modest experience I acquired until now, I apologize if the structure of the post is not cohesive and at times sounded like a rant.I just want to nail down that perfect biotab recipe so I can keep using them and improve my grows in the years to come

My advice to you is simple,...drop the peat and switch to soil. The complications of using peat and its ph values don't allow for proper buffering time in the medium which just leads to all kinds of issues.
Check out my Grow in my sig. you will see how I cleared up all the issues everyone had been having with the system.

Find a light soil mix, the best is Bio Bizz light, then add on from there. Check out my Grow and you will see! And don't worry about detail...I go through every detail you can imagine.

Have fun! Biotab system with a little tweaking is awesome!

 

[NewMephfan]

Hello everyone. I’m new to this site and growing in general. I’m running a 3x3 tent +HLG 260. I’m using the biotabs starter kit and majorly fucked up my 3 autos (they have since recovered in varying degrees) in the 2nd week by adding them as single leaf seedling in jiffy pellets, into a 3 gallon pot with 50%perlite and promix organic vegetable and herb soil, amended with nearly everything that the starter kit calls for.
All plants are in week 10 since sprout becides my one Alien V triangle. It’s doing better than my second best 4am but not quite as rigorous in growth as my forgotten cookies has been lol

I’m currently dealing with two four assed monkey plants in a race against yellowing sugar leaves on the top portion of most of the higher up colas. No sign of any bud rot whatsoever. Think it was a combination of light stress/cal mag def, overwatering/followed by underwatering lol.
My forgotten cookies plant is around a foot and a half high with the most frosty and swollen buds I have grown so far. All of the strains in my tent get watered when they feel light and dry and have the same conditions. I guess the forgotten cookies can handle my abuse and horticulture ignorance! 10/10* this plant will give me at least an ounce breaking my record for the few plants I’ve ever grown. So far I’ve only grown autos lol.

Look forward to popping some of my granddaddy purple photo beans I got personally thrown at from Ken Estes at a Ghostface killah concert in Montreal. Cool dude.
Sorry for being so verbose I just figured I’d leave my first long post in a relevant thread.
Any insight or tips would be greatly appreciated. ‍

(Most fucked up plants are the two 4AMs)

 

[NewMephfan]

Here is the forgotten cookies up close two weeks ago

 

[NewMephfan]

Here is the side top of my most yellow looking 4AM a week ago

 

[MedCzech]

View attachment 1036101 Hello everyone. I’m new to this site and growing in general. I’m running a 3x3 tent +HLG 260. I’m using the biotabs starter kit and majorly fucked up my 3 autos (they have since recovered in varying degrees) in the 2nd week by adding them as single leaf seedling in jiffy pellets, into a 3 gallon pot with 50%perlite and promix organic vegetable and herb soil, amended with nearly everything that the starter kit calls for.
All plants are in week 10 since sprout becides my one Alien V triangle. It’s doing better than my second best 4am but not quite as rigorous in growth as my forgotten cookies has been lol

I’m currently dealing with two four assed monkey plants in a race against yellowing sugar leaves on the top portion of most of the higher up colas. No sign of any bud rot whatsoever. Think it was a combination of light stress/cal mag def, overwatering/followed by underwatering lol.
My forgotten cookies plant is around a foot and a half high with the most frosty and swollen buds I have grown so far. All of the strains in my tent get watered when they feel light and dry and have the same conditions. I guess the forgotten cookies can handle my abuse and horticulture ignorance! 10/10* this plant will give me at least an ounce breaking my record for the few plants I’ve ever grown. So far I’ve only grown autos lol.

Look forward to popping some of my granddaddy purple photo beans I got personally thrown at from Ken Estes at a Ghostface killah concert in Montreal. Cool dude.
Sorry for being so verbose I just figured I’d leave my first long post in a relevant thread.
Any insight or tips would be greatly appreciated. ‍

(Most fucked up plants are the two 4AMs)

You should not let organic grows dry out...it kills all the good stuff in the soil. That would be the first, general thing, but huge, if you really are letting them dry out. Don't do it bro!

Next, you need to amend soil with more food for the plant. I could take the time here, but if you just look at my Grow in my sig, you will see what I did to avoid the problems most BioTabs guys were having. I really prepared as much as I could to prevent any issues and just stayed ahead of it. I am no expert at all, but the grow I am in is going perfect and I have had no signs of anything at all. Check it out! Plenty of detail there.

 

[NewMephfan]

Alien v triangle a month or so behind.

I’m thinking nute burn/humidity/light stress again?

 

[NewMephfan]

“You should not let organic grows dry out...it kills all the good stuff in the soil. That would be the first, general thing, but huge, if you really are letting them dry out. Don't do it bro!”

I’ve haven been letting it get bone dry, just waiting for the fabric pot to feel a bit lighter/dry about a knuckle in. I’ll make sure to be more vigilant about that.

 

[MedCzech]

Biobizz light mix is sphangum peat moss+perlite. I suppose I could aim at the same ph 6.2 as biobizz.. unfortunately, its not available in my area.

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Really any light mix soil would work better than straight peat. Not a big fan of buying soil with too much already in it. Bio Bizz was just easy to get here, but I have used pretty cheap gardening basic universal soil And then added my stuff before as well.
I added more perlite, and a few other things as well from the beginning that they never recommended, but I just added. That's why I think I am doing well and others have struggled a little here and there.
For example, I added black bat guano in the base of the pot to give them more rule later in the grow. Extra mychorrizea and a few other little additions as well. Stay ahead of the problem and keep feeding the soil and think you want to keep the soil alive and feed it, not the plants. Like you are trying to grow a fungus. You need to get the moisture and temps just right. Organics don't like cold mediums either, they like warm mediums. When I grew with nutes in coco, I could grow at 25C in the tent and medium temps around 18C. Now I have my tent closer to 28C and medium around 21C, maybe a bit more at times up top. The difference is clear. Organics like it a little warmer and muggier. Think rain forest dank!

 

[Chronic_passion]

@Biotabs F69 and @Hippy_BiotabsF70 I have a couple of questions for you:

• I'm in the SW UK. EC ranges from 0.1 to 0.3 straight from the tap. I'll be running LED's which are known to be CalMag thieves. Would I still need to add CalMag to my res or is there another way to combat this?
• What's the likelihood you're doing a 420 sale this year?

 

[Tiny Bubbles]

I’m sure this has been touched upon, and likely in this exact thread, but the folks at biotabs are missing out on tapping a huge market by not having their products available in the US. If those starter kits were sold at any of the hydro shops in the legal states I guarantee you they’d be flying off the shelves. So, I guess my question is are there any plans to move into the United States with the products or are we stuck with the €50 shipping and hoping our package makes it here through customs