RO Water Additions

[Dankerson]

Hello Everyone!

Long time lurker, first time poster. This site has been a tremendous help to me. Can find the answers to nearly all my questions here already so thank you everyone for that!

I recently switched over to RO water so I have a bit more controll of what my plants are getting since my local water is a mystery and causing havok. I was wondering how much GH calimagic everyone else is adding? I am currently adding about 3ml/gal on top of some dry yucca and hydroguard in my res (same plus nutrients in my other nutrient res) but i am still seeing a few small signs of a lockout so I wanted to make sure that wasn't the culprit.

I know it's not pH I keep it at 6.4-6.6 in my res. PPM stays around 580 in my nutrient res and about 380-450 in my water res. I use bluelab tools and calibrate regularly now after issues in the past, I also have a kelway soil pH meter to test the soil if I suspect any issues. My climate is dialed in and controlled as well. I am using an HLG650r with the UVA30 add on for later flower so I wonder if my calimagic levels need to differ since I am using LEDs.

For some context, I grow in soil and have an semi-auto watering setup with hydrohalos and water to 10-20% runoff. I have two separate reservoirs so I can alternate water only and nutrients. The pots are raised and don't sit in any water. I use OF/30% added perlite in 3 gal fabric pots. I also use the Grow Big and Tiger Bloom nutes. I have been having a lot of success apart from a few new grower mistakes and a few small things to dial in such as this.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

[DCLXVI]

I can't help much with the nutrient line as I'm not familiar with it. However, if you are using the trio I don't see anywhere on their soil schedule where they do not use Big Bloom. Their entire schedule from start to finish includes BigBloom with the GrowBig and TigerBloom.

If their nutrients are balanced and produced correctly I suspect they have enough Ca and Mg without the addition of calimagic. I'd suggest dropping the CalMag initially and add back in the BigBloom. They do list a calmag supplement but if you aren't having an identifiable issue I would add very litte, they suggest 1tsp which you could probably use 1/4tsp. I think ml is easier, 1tsp = 5ml so just around 1ml per gallon.

I just clicked on their soil schedule here:

Feeding Schedules - FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

Choose the feeding schedule that’s right for your growing needs. English (Imperial) Espanol (Metric) English & Espanol (Imperial and Metric) Tiếng Việt (METRIC) Hmoob (Metric)

foxfarm.com

OF soil has plenty of nutrients in it from the start so you shouldn't need to add much anyways.


Your watering schedule: Sounds great to have two different reservoirs ready to go. Very cool setup. However, your watering volume sounds a bit overkill. Soil typically doesn't need to be watered to runoff and especially not 10-20%. That is for coco coir. I would dial back the watering volume and be sure you are getting a "dry" period between waterings. I don't mean bone dry soil, just heft the container if you can, if it feels light, water it! Finger test is pretty good too. Stick a finger in and see if it feels like a nice chocolate cake. If it's dry feeling, water, if it's moist and wet, don't!

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck.

 

[Dankerson]

I can't help much with the nutrient line as I'm not familiar with it. However, if you are using the trio I don't see anywhere on their soil schedule where they do not use Big Bloom. Their entire schedule from start to finish includes BigBloom with the GrowBig and TigerBloom.

If their nutrients are balanced and produced correctly I suspect they have enough Ca and Mg without the addition of calimagic. I'd suggest dropping the CalMag initially and add back in the BigBloom. They do list a calmag supplement but if you aren't having an identifiable issue I would add very litte, they suggest 1tsp which you could probably use 1/4tsp. I think ml is easier, 1tsp = 5ml so just around 1ml per gallon.

I just clicked on their soil schedule here:

Feeding Schedules - FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

Choose the feeding schedule that’s right for your growing needs. English (Imperial) Espanol (Metric) English & Espanol (Imperial and Metric) Tiếng Việt (METRIC) Hmoob (Metric)

foxfarm.com

OF soil has plenty of nutrients in it from the start so you shouldn't need to add much anyways.


Your watering schedule: Sounds great to have two different reservoirs ready to go. Very cool setup. However, your watering volume sounds a bit overkill. Soil typically doesn't need to be watered to runoff and especially not 10-20%. That is for coco coir. I would dial back the watering volume and be sure you are getting a "dry" period between waterings. I don't mean bone dry soil, just heft the container if you can, if it feels light, water it! Finger test is pretty good too. Stick a finger in and see if it feels like a nice chocolate cake. If it's dry feeling, water, if it's moist and wet, don't!

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck.

Thanks that's definitely a lot of help, I didn't really think much about adding the big Bloom back in. I do have it but I thought it was more of food for the microbes so I didn't think it was a necessity. I'll definitely give that a try and back off in the calimagic and see how that goes.

And yeah the watering setup I wanted something kind of hybrid so I can grow with coco down the line. I like the res since I can just make it once a week while only checking once a day. I ran into a lot of issues with over and underwatering early on but I think I have finally got the hang of it. I follow MOGs guidelines on that and gauge it by lifting the pots. Finally stopped getting unhappy plants this go.

As far as the 10-20% run off I thought that was a good route to go since I am using salt ferts so the runoff was needed to prevent lockout from buildup. Is that not needed? I would definitely save some time and money since I don't need as much but I definitely don't want to run into lockout issues from buildup.

Overall I'd definitely agree it's overkill but it lessens my time mixing nutes and watering and that was the goal. I usually only use one of the reservoirs till I hit flowering since OF doesn't need nutes till about 3-4 weeks in.

Thanks for the insight though! Always appreciate another set of eyes.

 

[Death The Cultivator]

I use RO in Coco with no CaliMagic and GH's MaxiSeries with LED, CalMag isn't your problem.

You should post some pics as I doubt it is related to the water, especially if the issue persisted before you made the change. It could be innocuous so pics will help