How to flush properly?

ridefas78

ridefas78

Well-Known Member
i'm sorry for asking all these dumb n stupid questions that i'm sure have been asked before. my local hydro store stocks fox farms products, so i picked up some of the sledgehammer. how to properly flush do i need to remove my plants from my tent to have a constant flush or do you just water the plants like you would during feeding?
 
Flushing means moving a large amount of water thru your soil in one setting, and without sledgehammer the recommended amount would be 3x your container size... with sledgehammer you can get by with less. Most of us physically pick our plants up and move them to a drain or a bathtub to do this. Flushing definitely does not mean to simply water your plants, it requires a lot more water than that.
 
Emilya said:
Flushing means moving a large amount of water thru your soil in one setting, and without sledgehammer the recommended amount would be 3x your container size... with sledgehammer you can get by with less. Most of us physically pick our plants up and move them to a drain or a bathtub to do this. Flushing definitely does not mean to simply water your plants, it requires a lot more water than that.
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well my problem is i'm trying to do the flush in the 3rd week like they suggested in their feeding but i have a trellis and i really dont want to move them around and stress them if i don't have to
 
Might just Try n get something under to catch the water
 

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okay i'm getting ready to start. will i be watering the plant with nutes after i flush it? or does the plant just eat off what's left?
 
ridefas78 said:
ummm..... well about that.... tha'ts why i'm wanting to flush. i realize that you shouldn't be doing that. *walks away head down in shame* lol
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well, at least you now know. The traditional way to run soil is water/feed/water/feed all through the grow. If you come back with pH adjusted water after the nute pass, it gives any leftover nutes a chance to be reactivated and use up by the plant, instead of slowly building up in the soil.
 
Emilya said:
well, at least you now know. The traditional way to run soil is water/feed/water/feed all through the grow. If you come back with pH adjusted water after the nute pass, it gives any leftover nutes a chance to be reactivated and use up by the plant, instead of slowly building up in the soil.
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yeah i'm surprised my plants aren't freaking out. i checked and the ph was good but the ppm was like 5k...i've been flushing with water and i did one run of the sledgehammer. have it down near 3k now. this would be easier if i was able to use tap water but where i live the chlorine is bad
 
ridefas78 said:
yeah i'm surprised my plants aren't freaking out. i checked and the ph was good but the ppm was like 5k...i've been flushing with water and i did one run of the sledgehammer. have it down near 3k now. this would be easier if i was able to use tap water but where i live the chlorine is bad
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You have been filled up with many mistruths and misconceptions. I am glad to be able to help at least a little. If you did anything to test the pH of your soil, you wasted your time. The pH of soil is incredibly misunderstood these days, but let me just say that there is NOTHING that you need to do regarding the soil pH. Simply make sure that every fluid that hits that soil has been adjusted to 6.3 pH, whether it is just water or water mixed with nutes.

PPM is also meaningless in soil, and all you are doing by trying to flush for less ppm is along with the leftover nutes that went out with the first bit of water, you are measuring and trying to flush out the microfine particles in the soil. Technically, if you ground up your soil into microscopic particles, the ppm would be off the scale. PPM measurements of soil are meaningless.

Lastly, tap water and chlorine. If you were running a hydro operation where ppm actually means something, it is important to use "clean" water, or water with zero ppm of accumulated solids. Then, your measurements show you accurately how many nutes you have added to that water and how much of it is being used by the plant. In soil, tap water, with all of its minerals and additives doesn't hurt a thing... in fact not using it brings along a recommendation that most people running filtered water along with strong LED lighting, will need a calmag supplement. It is because of lot of the calcium and magnesium can come along for the ride in our tap water. It is good stuff. The rule I learned was if your tap water doesn't kill you or your pets, it is ok for your plants.

Chlorine also gets a bad rap. Those growing using organic methods where all the minerals are added to the soil before the grow and the grower only needs to give water all through the grow, bacteria, microbes and fungi are doing all the feeding of the plant. Chlorine is added to our tap water, and our pools, specifically to kill these bacterium, molds and fungi, so if you are in an organic grow, avoiding chlorine is important in order to keep the grow going. Read these next words very carefully: Any other grow method is not harmed in the least by a little bit of chlorine, in fact the element chlorine is one of the 19 elements that we know these plants need at least in some small amount. There is no need to be afraid of your tap water. This is a myth made popular by online self proclaimed grow experts in order to make themselves sound important. Think of how well your outdoor garden and shrubs do with water from the garden hose. Truth be told, it takes swimming pool concentrations of chlorine to actually start to kill the microbes in our soils.

I hope this helps alleviate some of your stress. I know it did for me when I first realized how indoctrinated I had become by believing everything I heard on the internet and I started challenging some of these bro-scientists to prove some of the snake oil they were selling. Believe nothing; test what you can.
 
Emilya said:
You have been filled up with many mistruths and misconceptions. I am glad to be able to help at least a little. If you did anything to test the pH of your soil, you wasted your time. The pH of soil is incredibly misunderstood these days, but let me just say that there is NOTHING that you need to do regarding the soil pH. Simply make sure that every fluid that hits that soil has been adjusted to 6.3 pH, whether it is just water or water mixed with nutes.

PPM is also meaningless in soil, and all you are doing by trying to flush for less ppm is along with the leftover nutes that went out with the first bit of water, you are measuring and trying to flush out the microfine particles in the soil. Technically, if you ground up your soil into microscopic particles, the ppm would be off the scale. PPM measurements of soil are meaningless.

Lastly, tap water and chlorine. If you were running a hydro operation where ppm actually means something, it is important to use "clean" water, or water with zero ppm of accumulated solids. Then, your measurements show you accurately how many nutes you have added to that water and how much of it is being used by the plant. In soil, tap water, with all of its minerals and additives doesn't hurt a thing... in fact not using it brings along a recommendation that most people running filtered water along with strong LED lighting, will need a calmag supplement. It is because of lot of the calcium and magnesium can come along for the ride in our tap water. It is good stuff. The rule I learned was if your tap water doesn't kill you or your pets, it is ok for your plants.

Chlorine also gets a bad rap. Those growing using organic methods where all the minerals are added to the soil before the grow and the grower only needs to give water all through the grow, bacteria, microbes and fungi are doing all the feeding of the plant. Chlorine is added to our tap water, and our pools, specifically to kill these bacterium, molds and fungi, so if you are in an organic grow, avoiding chlorine is important in order to keep the grow going. Read these next words very carefully: Any other grow method is not harmed in the least by a little bit of chlorine, in fact the element chlorine is one of the 19 elements that we know these plants need at least in some small amount. There is no need to be afraid of your tap water. This is a myth made popular by online self proclaimed grow experts in order to make themselves sound important. Think of how well your outdoor garden and shrubs do with water from the garden hose. Truth be told, it takes swimming pool concentrations of chlorine to actually start to kill the microbes in our soils.

I hope this helps alleviate some of your stress. I know it did for me when I first realized how indoctrinated I had become by believing everything I heard on the internet and I started challenging some of these bro-scientists to prove some of the snake oil they were selling. Believe nothing; test what you can.
Click to expand...
just with all i hear about not to use chlorine it makes me nervous. i believe i understand what you mean about the ppm in the soil water because there are fine partials of dirt and what not. so you think i can just run one full water flush and that should be sufficient?
 
do not confuse the term flush with the act of giving water only. Yes, you do only one big flush, using however much water is suggested when using sledgehammer and then you are done with that until the next time it is called for, when the salts have built up again.

And yes, chlorine is all the rage on the online chat forums... you would actually get the idea that it is important to filter it or something. It astounds me how gullible people are.
 
Chlorine is an essential micronutrient. But the key in that is "micro." In excess, it can contribute to salinity stress. I don't know what would be considered to be excessive, though. We have a lot of it in our municipal water supply. So much that, when my father was still alive and fighting the cancer battle, Mom saw him attempt to drink a glass of water and vomit from the "bleach" smell. She immediately got one of those charcoal filter gizmos that goes on the end of the faucet spout. Some of our city's water lines date back to the mid/late 1800s, and I don't think anyone knows exactly how much water going into the system never reaches a customer. I think the water department uses massive amounts of chlorine in lieu of proper infrastructure maintenance. We had a... I don't recall, exactly, a 9'", 12", something like that in diameter, one of the main supply lines get so bad about ten years ago that enough water failed to come out the other end that they finally replaced it. Turned out that the thing had been installed more than 150 years previously. Kind of boggles the mind that any of it is still usable at all. I've got some 40- to 50-year old galvanized water pipes running upstairs that has so much internal corrosion that only a relative trickle comes out. Assuming I live long enough to pay the place off, I'll probably save up for a total system replacement right after I do the electrical system. The only thing I can think is that, maybe, all the heavy clay in the ground in this region sort of serves as somewhat of a barrier, keeping a lot of water in the supply pipes. But even still, some of them... when they follow the course of a road, and then "head cross country," there's often a line of healthier vegetation showing the path of the water line. I strongly doubt that my city's water system is unique in its condition, either. This country is so full of band aid "fixes" that it's scary to contemplate. And some people want to privatize the water system, which is even scarier. Just imagine, turning it over to for-profit entities. We'd all end up with TWO incoming water lines, one of which would have water that would be safe to drink. And by "all," I mean... rich people :( .

I let water sit uncovered overnight, in the sun for a couple hours, or pour a capful of H2O2 into a gallon jug of water, put the lid on, and give it a quick shake. But I'm not obsessive about it; sometimes I don't bother.

That's chlorine. Chloramine, (the result of adding ammonia to chlorine, basically) on the other hand... is nasty when it comes to plants, and the feeding of. Seems like it tends to be reactive in the presence of nutrients, and then you can end up with something that's in a form that plants can't readily access. I'm really hoping that the local government people decide that it's just too expensive to make the switch to that.
 
Emilya said:
Lastly, tap water and chlorine. If you were running a hydro operation where ppm actually means something, it is important to use "clean" water, or water with zero ppm of accumulated solids.
Click to expand...

Emilya said:
Chlorine also gets a bad rap. Those growing using organic methods where all the minerals are added to the soil before the grow and the grower only needs to give water all through the grow, bacteria, microbes and fungi are doing all the feeding of the plant. Chlorine is added to our tap water, and our pools, specifically to kill these bacterium, molds and fungi, so if you are in an organic grow, avoiding chlorine is important in order to keep the grow going. Read these next words very carefully: Any other grow method is not harmed in the least by a little bit of chlorine, in fact the element chlorine is one of the 19 elements that we know these plants need at least in some small amount. There is no need to be afraid of your tap water. This is a myth made popular by online self proclaimed grow experts in order to make themselves sound important. Think of how well your outdoor garden and shrubs do with water from the garden hose. Truth be told, it takes swimming pool concentrations of chlorine to actually start to kill the microbes in our soils.
Click to expand...

Emilya said:
And yes, chlorine is all the rage on the online chat forums... you would actually get the idea that it is important to filter it or something. It astounds me how gullible people are.
Click to expand...


I'm using bleach in my hydro reservoirs now. 2ml/gal, every day. Not a problem. :cheesygrinsmiley:

(Evap rate is 2ml+/- per day, and really you can go a tick higher without issue. 2ml is the top for me though.)


It's been working really well, and compared to hydroguard, etc... it's way less expensive.
 
My father was a research scientist for Environment Canada. Canada Centre for Inland Waters/National Water Research Institute. According to him there is enough chlorine in tap water when it gets to your tap to prevent the proliferation of bacteria, but not to kill it outright. Now that is up here in Ontario, and our standards for drinking water are pretty strict after the Walkerton incident, but we've never had any problems drinking it, giving it to our pets, and watering our plants with it.
 

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