Beneficial Bacteria in Hydroponics

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newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
Curious to what bennies you guys use in hydro? If you use any at all.

Ive used Great White for years but lately the leftover powder sediment it leaves at the bottom of the reservoir has been bothering me so I gotta scrape it with a stick every time and it got annoying so Im using Orca now.

Not sure if bennies actually helps in my flood and drain setup but after I slowly cut down on my nutrients cost...Ill then test if beneficials is actually beneficial in my hydro setup.

Ive went the sterile route before but I feel like its much more maintenance. I try to keep things as simple as possible personally.
 
L

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
I tried three different bennies with zero luck - southern Ag, GW and one other I cant remember. I also tried bleach, H2O2, and even copper pool disinfectant. None of them worked for me - until I switched to Jacks 321.

Prior to Jacks I used Fox Farm in the early days, then Mega Crop, then Advanced Nute's PH Perfect, then Mega Crop again, and I think GH in there somewhere, then back to Mega Crop, then back to PH Perfect.

After switching to Jacks, I no longer had bad smells, slime, cloudy precipitates, an d best of all - NO more wild PH swings.

Several people over the years had tied to tell me that anything with organic ingredients was a bad idea in hydro. Now I believe them 100%.

Now I use a tiny fraction of the chlorine I used to use when I do a rez change, then dont even bother re-newing it until the rez is empty. IM pretty sure I dont even need that little bit.

Change over to a nute that has no organic anything, and make sure all additives are also non-organic in any way. Might work for you too.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
newbplantgrower420 said:
Curious to what bennies you guys use in hydro? If you use any at all.

Ive used Great White for years but lately the leftover powder sediment it leaves at the bottom of the reservoir has been bothering me so I gotta scrape it with a stick every time and it got annoying so Im using Orca now.

Not sure if bennies actually helps in my flood and drain setup but after I slowly cut down on my nutrients cost...Ill then test if beneficials is actually beneficial in my hydro setup.

Ive went the sterile route before but I feel like its much more maintenance. I try to keep things as simple as possible personally.
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How is sterile more maintenance? I ha e an Aero setup with a res that holds 12gallons of water and nutes. That's it. It doesnt have any issues. Nor does my RDwC but that's chilled on a count of the pump heating up the water.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Larry3215 said:
I tried three different bennies with zero luck - southern Ag, GW and one other I cant remember. I also tried bleach, H2O2, and even copper pool disinfectant. None of them worked for me - until I switched to Jacks 321.

Prior to Jacks I used Fox Farm in the early days, then Mega Crop, then Advanced Nute's PH Perfect, then Mega Crop again, and I think GH in there somewhere, then back to Mega Crop, then back to PH Perfect.

After switching to Jacks, I no longer had bad smells, slime, cloudy precipitates, an d best of all - NO more wild PH swings.

Several people over the years had tied to tell me that anything with organic ingredients was a bad idea in hydro. Now I believe them 100%.

Now I use a tiny fraction of the chlorine I used to use when I do a rez change, then dont even bother re-newing it until the rez is empty. IM pretty sure I dont even need that little bit.

Change over to a nute that has no organic anything, and make sure all additives are also non-organic in any way. Might work for you too.
Click to expand...
I agree. GH Flora Trio + CaliMagic is all salt based and will cause you no issues.
 
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newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
Airwalker16 said:
How is sterile more maintenance? I ha e an Aero setup with a res that holds 12gallons of water and nutes. That's it. It doesnt have any issues. Nor does my RDwC but that's chilled on a count of the pump heating up the water.
Click to expand...
I was adding h2o2 every 3 days instead of dumping some bennies every week or two. My water temps are also kind of high at ~75 but Im not really down with buying a couple hundred dollar waterchiller tbh.

I was putting dumping ice inside the res to tone down the temps too.
 
N

newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
Larry3215 said:
I tried three different bennies with zero luck - southern Ag, GW and one other I cant remember. I also tried bleach, H2O2, and even copper pool disinfectant. None of them worked for me - until I switched to Jacks 321.

Prior to Jacks I used Fox Farm in the early days, then Mega Crop, then Advanced Nute's PH Perfect, then Mega Crop again, and I think GH in there somewhere, then back to Mega Crop, then back to PH Perfect.

After switching to Jacks, I no longer had bad smells, slime, cloudy precipitates, an d best of all - NO more wild PH swings.

Several people over the years had tied to tell me that anything with organic ingredients was a bad idea in hydro. Now I believe them 100%.

Now I use a tiny fraction of the chlorine I used to use when I do a rez change, then dont even bother re-newing it until the rez is empty. IM pretty sure I dont even need that little bit.

Change over to a nute that has no organic anything, and make sure all additives are also non-organic in any way. Might work for you too.
Click to expand...
Whyd you stop megacrop? Im currently using it and very impressed with the size of the trees and the simplicity. I just gotta get the doses right because their recommended is pretty off with the tsp per gallon compared to their EC.

Im pretty sure my tap water has quite a bit of chlorine and chloramine in it. I just filter it out with those garden hose attachments just so it doesnt kill the bennies.

If a small amount is needed I could not use the garden hose to filter it out and call it a day. no bennies no dumping anything. just let the tap water do its job
 
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newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
Also any of you hydro guys have experience with Xtreme Gardenings Mykos WP for hydro?

Done some research on it and its pretty cheap and and good bang for your buck with its high spore count.

But I want to hear first hand experience compared to other microbes
 
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newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
Larry3215 said:
Slime, sludge, cloudy rez, bad smells, but mostly the wild PH swings. Stopped Mega Crop, started Jacks - with no other changes - and all that crap stopped instantly.
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hows your jacks results compared to megacrop? ive never seen my trees this big and thick. i dont know what the weight will be but it def passes my eye test so far.

ill be willing to deal with the slime and sludge and dust getting in my face everytime i open MC if the weight is good. The simplicity is just so convenient that i hope it works out. One and done.

No ph swings for me thus far....maybe GW and Orca have something to do with that. Isnt that supposedly what beneficials do....reduce ph swings? I dunno
 
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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
newbplantgrower420 said:
hows your jacks results compared to megacrop?
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Thats a little hard to judge because I switched over from HPA to AAA growing at the same time I stopped Mega Crop. The last two grows with Jacks have been Autos, and the HPA grow was a photo sativa with a very long veg and flower cycle.

My auto yields have been excellent though - well above the average auto yields. No way to tell for sure if thats due to the Jacks, or the AAA system, or my green thumb :)

Im pretty sure being able to keep the PH stable, and bad bacteria out of the system helped a fair amount.

That HPA grow with Mega Crop had a good yield too, but it took forever. Trees are easy if you just veg a little longer :)

Still, the auto grows netted me a higher grams/day yield than that much longer sativa grow - even with the much smaller plants.
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Been running megacrop + additives (mkp, magphos, calimagic, epsom) with southern ag for a while now and have had no issues.
I've never had the ph swings with mc. My shit stays rock solid for up to a week.
 
N

newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
fragileassassin said:
Been running megacrop + additives (mkp, magphos, calimagic, epsom) with southern ag for a while now and have had no issues.
I've never had the ph swings with mc. My shit stays rock solid for up to a week.
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have you tried their sweet candy? i tried a bit in my hydro setup didnt seem to make it too gunky or clog up my pumps.

its got some unique ingredients compared to MC. fulvic, humic acids, b vitamins and some microbes.

Ive asked them about using their pk booster vs sweet candy and they say they recommend their pk over it for hydro but the pk ingredients is already in MC basically
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
nope, what I listed is all that I use. Straight MC + southern ag for veg and the additives to adjust in flower.
I used their bud explosion until I ran out of the bag I got and then switched to using the mkp/magphos instead. Ive liked doing it this way as it gives me a way to change my NPK ratios how I want. I dont use any more than 3g/gal of the MC during flower.
Will likely be switching to masterblend eventually, but I have a lot of these other ones so ill be using them for a while.
 
icetech

icetech

Well-Known Member
Southern AG.. $16 a bottle for pretty much the same as tribus charges $70 for.. the stuff has been amazing for my roots... Only other thing i run is jacks.
 
N

newbplantgrower420

Well-Known Member
icetech said:
Southern AG.. $16 a bottle for pretty much the same as tribus charges $70 for.. the stuff has been amazing for my roots... Only other thing i run is jacks.
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Ag has one type of bacteria doesnt it. Amy something?

Tribus has 3 I believe. Also dunno why pay for Tribus when you can get great white. Theyre both expensive but GW has much more bacteria types. Unless its proven that all that that trichoderma is useless for cannabis
 
icetech

icetech

Well-Known Member
newbplantgrower420 said:
Ag has one type of bacteria doesnt it. Amy something?

Tribus has 3 I believe. Also dunno why pay for Tribus when you can get great white. Theyre both expensive but GW has much more bacteria types. Unless its proven that all that that trichoderma is useless for cannabis
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Fair enough, all i know is i paid 70 for tribus and it did nothing... bought AG for 16... my roots are amazing now, really happy :) Just hate to see people throw away money for not reason like i did/do :)
 
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