Hydro Sucks Soil Rules

stickycrippler said:

like mentioned before plants grown in soil always win the cannibus cup! Must be a reason!

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King's Blend 26 up, 4 down
A particular strain of marijuana engineered by California based musical artists the Kottonmouth Kings. The group traveled to amsterdam and entered King's Blend into the Cannibus Cup. The strain won first place.

i know KMK uses Hydro so......

cloudflyer said:

Wow it has been my experence that you should always PH your water first then add nutes.

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why would you pH your water and then add nutrients when most nutrients contain pH buffers?

I believe you should add your nutrients and then pH adjust if necessary (I find using either GH nova series, three-part or FoxFarm 3-part balances my pH pretty well)

420EVERYDAY said:

maybe aero would win but i dont have time to play with the benjamins with soil cant really lose but with hydro you can easily screw up a crop plus im more of a water once a day kinda guy with hydro you cant go out of town with soil you got a couple of days

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I go out of town for over a week at a time with hydro. you gotta be willing to invest some time into your system. If you prefer soil - go for it.

If your pH is all over the place, then i propose something else is amiss (rather than blaming the system) - wouldn't the pH problem be the same when watering for soil?

i think adjusting ph in hydro would be easier than trying to hand watwer 50 plants in soil

ThatGuy1985 said:

And on the other hand i have seen people who have grown in soil with there plants that have been vegging for 72 days and aren't even near the size.

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^ must no have known what they were doing.

i say they both have there benefits, right now soil is for me due to much easier organic food applications.

email468 said:

why would you pH your water and then add nutrients when most nutrients contain pH buffers?

I believe you should add your nutrients and then pH adjust if necessary (I find using either GH nova series, three-part or FoxFarm 3-part balances my pH pretty well)

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Those PH buffers are generally so that the PH does not raise or fall dramatically. Every book, dvd, and article I have read says PH balance your water first, then add nutes. But I am sure it would work both ways as long as the final PH is obtained

I'm new to this thread as of today and I also am a noob. Grow started 4-28-08. I needed a system for stealth (no noise) as wife isn't into my "hobby". After much research I decided to go with a relatively newly developed self-watering system called "Auto Pot". Click this link: (Auto Pot Growing System from Home Harvest Garden Supply). The medium I use is called "Coco Noir". Nothing more than cleaned coconut husks. Great wicking and air holding abilities. Now look at my little babies below and then tell me it doesn't work. You'll notice water on some of the leaves, the reason is that I did put just a tad too much nute in my last bucket of feed water (just from the tap--PH balanced before nutes), so I flushed them & cut back on the nutes. I've recently topped them or they would be a lot taller. But width is all you could ask for, and health?, no problems there either. My nutes are "Ionic Growth" for veg & "Ionic Flower" for flowering. I cannot keep an eye on them all the time, so I needed something that would basically take care of itself. They say it will self feed up to 3 weeks. I'll be going on vacation for 10 days and all I have to do is guess at the height of my lighting system (Sunblaze 24 with 4X24" T5 bulbs in red spec on 24/7). Anyway, I just had to put my 2 cents in because I do believe in hydro. At least for my application.

cloudflyer said:

Those PH buffers are generally so that the PH does not raise or fall dramatically. Every book, dvd, and article I have read says PH balance your water first, then add nutes. But I am sure it would work both ways as long as the final PH is obtained

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That's strange - my reading and experience has been the exact opposite. Adding nutrients changes the pH so why would you bother correcting before adding the nutrients?

email468 said:

That's strange - my reading and experience has been the exact opposite. Adding nutrients changes the pH so why would you bother correcting before adding the nutrients?

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Well looky there I gave bad advice. My case is the exception because my water is between 9-10 out of the tap (after reverse O too). So I need to be I applaud you.

"
3. Do not pre-adjust pH of raw water: Note that the pH values being discussed here are the values of the recirculating solution - not your make up water. Generally, unless your make up water has a high alkalinity, you should not bother attempting to adjust its pH prior to the nutrient being added. This is simply because the low buffering capacity of scheme water makes such an adjustment difficult to perform accurately. What you will experience if you attempt that procedure is that unless you dilute your "pH UP" and "pH DOWN" reagents or you have practiced the operation many times, rather than achieving pH 6, you will get wild pH swings either side of pH 6 and without ever landing on that value."

cloudflyer said:

Well looky there I gave bad advice. My case is the exception because my water is between 9-10 out of the tap (after reverse O too). So I need to be I applaud you.

"
3. Do not pre-adjust pH of raw water: Note that the pH values being discussed here are the values of the recirculating solution - not your make up water. Generally, unless your make up water has a high alkalinity, you should not bother attempting to adjust its pH prior to the nutrient being added. This is simply because the low buffering capacity of scheme water makes such an adjustment difficult to perform accurately. What you will experience if you attempt that procedure is that unless you dilute your "pH UP" and "pH DOWN" reagents or you have practiced the operation many times, rather than achieving pH 6, you will get wild pH swings either side of pH 6 and without ever landing on that value."

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funny that you mention this because i've been reading conflicting reports and was getting ready to retract my statement!

damn i wish we'd just rise up and get this legalized already so we can start running some large-scale experiments.

I'll bet they don't have this uncertainty on orchid forums!

dude i did a transplant from dirt to hydro and my plant doubled in size within 4 days. went from 12inches to 24. i was amazed so i bought some nutes and started using them then through it into 12/12 and it grew another 12 inches during flowering. i never ph tested my water or nothing just used filtered sink water and it was just fine. so hydro is the way to go if you want big huge plants. if not then stick to dirt and grow tiny little plants. well unless you do outdoor grow in the ground.