Beneficial bacteria and fungi and TDS/PPM

dmbdutch

Member
I went down to the local hydro store about a month ago to pick up a few things, among them were both some compost tea and mycho/tricho (like Oregonism, Great White, or GH's Substrate), and I asked the fellow that usually advises me on nutrients if Great White was truly superior to the others. At the time I was on GH's full Flora series which I've since abandoned for Hydro Fuel, bottom line the guy tells me I'm wasting my money on any kind of beneficials or tea because any solution that's over 800ppm will roast any kind of microbial life I try to get goin'.

I think it's bullshit. I bought it at first but a few weeks later and the crop I didn't innoculate with trichoderma or feed with teas is fucked with root zone fungus of some sort.

So long story short I gotta know; can beneficials survive in a solution over 800ppm? I rock Hydro Fuel's 2 part bloom with Massive, Liquid W8, Finisher and M.O.A.B. @ 1400-1600ppm in cal-mag adjusted RO water and I want to add both a home brewed tea fed with the Liquid w8 and some Great White.

I really appreciate you guys taking the time to help my desperate noob ass. :joint:
 
Have you read Dr heissenburgs tea thread? I'm sure your question has been answered there. BTW any beneficials in the store are waste of money or way over priced. This time around I used tea from the begining. I have been letting the plants pH tell me when they need more food. My ppms haven't gone very far above 800 ppms. Third week into flower ladies are looking great. Still haven't changed the res since day one.
 
Have you read Dr heissenburgs tea thread? I'm sure your question has been answered there. BTW any beneficials in the store are waste of money or way over priced. This time around I used tea from the begining. I have been letting the plants pH tell me when they need more food. My ppms haven't gone very far above 800 ppms. Third week into flower ladies are looking great. Still haven't changed the res since day one.

No I haven't, where can I find the good dr's tea thread? And you must be using a vastly different technique than I am because all my research into hydroponics indicates you need to change your res at least every 10 to 14 days. I've seen myself the kind of aweful burn that results from trying to stretch a batch too long. How does your ph tell you that you need "more food".
 
Yep, they shouldn't die just because they are mineral nutrients. It might kill some, but they should live. It would be pretty easy to find out with a microscope.
 
Is the tea a must for hydro setups? I plan on running multiple Ebb & Flows and didn't plan on using one, so should I do Heisenbergs' tea?
 
Well i cant agree with using h202 over heis tea! But h202 does work most of the time. Know this a res thats kept
At 63f to 66f should have no problem with h202 but if you get any higher you are in danger of a outbreak! And thats
Where heis tea kicks ass
 
So I dropped my Hydro Fuel ppms to around 800, reinforced my sagging trays and raised the back end an extra inch to get rid of every last drop of standing water, and flushed the depressingly blighted jilly beans with h2o2 for 24hrs, but most importantly I'm pumping up my two flowering trays with 1 gal of Heisenberg style tea (EWC, Oregonism, Baseline Humus, +N Guano and +P Guano) and backing it up with a liter every night, in other words, shitloads of bennies. At any rate they're all happy as hell, and recovering from their issues, even though my perpetually empty well is forcing me to use straight tap water @ 400ppms instead of RO & CalMag.

My plan is to continue the halfed application rate of the hydrofuel through my upcoming crop of purple OG then assess it's performance. I've heard really good things about it but the fact that half my garden damn near died as soon as I switched to it speaks volumes to me, the fact it leaves more residue than GH also doesn't bode well. If they don't show drastic improvement I'm switching to organics, possibly all soil or damn near.
 
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