Skybound's Journal

Skybound said:
A general apology to the 420 community at large. I know I get a little annoying when pushing salts and Hydro Buddy. I won't try to stop, but I am genuinely sorry if I annoy people with that lol.
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No need for apologies around here. I checked out Hydrobuddy at one point but since I only really use the phone I’ll wait to see if they get an app.
Do you mind running some Botanicare stuff through it? Is that easy?
So generally for flowering I use just the Pure Blend Pro Bloom- soil formula, along with some Cal-mag. That’s really about all, most of the time.
I’ve got some other nutes and supplements and sometimes throw a dash of something in to tweak phosphorus or nitrogen levels at different stages, but mostly just use the two bottles. Generally my plants seem happy. Am I missing something big?
For something like P Chunk in mid flower I would probably use a mix with around 1000 ppm of PBP Bloom, and 150 ppm of CalMag

PBP Bloom

PBP Bloom


Cal Mag

Cal Mag


I also tweak things with a dash of this sometimes.
Remo -Bloom

Remo -Bloom

 
I can, but I need ya to tell me the liquid weight of each bottle is on the front label bottom. It'll say how much ml and how much it all weighs. For the record, 1ml of zero PPM RO weighs 1 gram, so therefore 1 liter weighs 1 kg, but the nutes make that weigh more. I need those numbers to input into Hydro Buddy as Density.

Side note, I can't help but notice there is no sulfur listed in any of those bottles. Does your buds smell like dry white paper? :laughtwo::laughtwo:

Custom Solution.png
 
Seeing as how there are sulfates being used to make the products, you should question their reputation automatically for not listing the sulfur content on the bottles. You can't really use too much, but you can get deficiencies if using too little.
 
Skybound said:
I can, but I need ya to tell me the liquid weight of each bottle is on the front label bottom. It'll say how much ml and how much it all weighs. For the record, 1ml of zero PPM RO weighs 1 gram, so therefore 1 liter weighs 1 kg, but the nutes make that weigh more. I need those numbers to input into Hydro Buddy as Density.

Side note, I can't help but notice there is no sulfur listed in any of those bottles. Does your buds smell like dry white paper? :laughtwo::laughtwo:

Custom Solution.png
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I mean, you gotta question any company that got bought out by Monsanto, the maker of round up, also the maker of agent orange back in WW2... but I must admit, I’m currently running botanicares pro blend hydro formula with good results and no intentions on changing right off, once I get my room close to the point of automation and my climate 100% controlled (I’m at about 95% controlled till I get my air temps straightened out in the summer during flower) then I’ll start worrying about dialing my nutes in perfect, but to be completely honest before I even worry about that I’ll be working on either figuring out a way to water cool my leds, or adding ducts to them to run outside air thru them, OR, the option that will probably come after the ducts happen is, build a COB light or a quantum board
 
Camaro1691 said:
I mean, you gotta question any company that got bought out by Monsanto, the maker of round up, also the maker of agent orange back in WW2... but I must admit, I’m currently running botanicares pro blend hydro formula with good results and no intentions on changing right off, once I get my room close to the point of automation and my climate 100% controlled (I’m at about 95% controlled till I get my air temps straightened out in the summer during flower) then I’ll start worrying about dialing my nutes in perfect, but to be completely honest before I even worry about that I’ll be working on either figuring out a way to water cool my leds, or adding ducts to them to run outside air thru them, OR, the option that will probably come after the ducts happen is, build a COB light or a quantum board
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IMO, QB would be money better spent. As to Monsanto, good luck finding a line that they don't own. They selling all you guys water, lol. I kid you not, 10 years of full control for $200 if you live in the states. Most of us already make RO, so using salts with Hydro Buddy gives you total control. Shit, even w/o the app like Weasel, I could give you a great regimen. Mine I haven't changed in 2 months aside from perfecting my micro blend which I'm convinced was a success.

As to automation, depending how deep you want to go with it, I did a lot of work on an Arduino project to control 8 outlets, 8 dosing pumps and 2 or more DHT temp/humidity sensors and last we spoke @Latitude17 was really fleshing out the code as well as developing an all in one board that pretty much makes my project look like a tricycle in terms of peripherals and control. Here's my Github code, it relies on using Blynk so you can monitor and control your grow over the interwebs. I've abandoned that endeavor as I plan to quit growing hopefully before 2020, but you're more than welcome to take from it what you will. My input about controlling atmospheric conditions is to build an actual airlock that would make NASA jealous, then build your house around it. Anything less and you'll have to make peace with the result of your best effort.

Skybound420 - Overview

Skydroponics has Dial-a-Dose mixed in.
 
Ok I went and checked. Not sure how precise we need to be since I get the feeling from looking at the labels that they rounded the numbers. But I get density, in gr/ml, of:

Remo- 1.1

PBP Bloom - 1.058

Cal-mag -1.057
 
My bad, I also need to know your doses in ml per gallon or liter
 
Hmmm. Now that’s something I haven’t checked in quite a while since I’ve just measured by ppm for the last few years. I have a rough idea but will mix up a feed sometime tomorrow and measure that more precisely. Thanks man. ;)
 
No probs bro, just lmk. The more accurate you can be, the better result I'll return. Do note tho that the PPM registered on a meter is never the PPM that is measured in the app. When I crunch my own numbers, it outputs in EC of usually 1.0 which should be 500 TDS on my meter, yet is closer to 750 on the meter. My only guessed explanation to this is that when inputting the chemical comps of each salt, they too are listed in percentages, yet no info is given regarding the inert compositions, so even though the app counts the soluble contents, it does nothing for the unsoluble contents, while my meter still detects the bump in conductivity across the probes.

This is why it's better to measure what you're putting in, because once it's in the water, our meters can only tell us the guestimates. When I make up a res, I note the starting point and use my meter each day to see if the TDS increases or decreases.
 
For shit-n-giggles, I targeted the macros + Ca & Mg to what I mix and this is the output. Note - Mass (g) now directly translates to ml/Gal (I also use gals) so 11.5 ml of CalMag etc.

Capture.JPG


The Macros and CaMg look great, but Iron looks hot, Zinc hot and copper is hot, but that is at the doses the app returned according to my targets.

Edit - for comparison, my micro mix is targeted to
Fe = 2 ppm
Mn = 1 ppm
Zn = 0.3 ppm
B = 0.3 ppm
Cu = 0.2 ppm
Mo = 0.05 ppm
 
I’m peering at what you’ve posted there. So you’re saying that this shows a mix of
-11.5 ml per gallon of Cal Mag
-8.9 ml/gallon of Remo Bloom
-3.3 ml/gallon of PBP


Right? That seems like a strange mix to me. It’s not one I’d normally use, (which doesn’t mean much). Normally I’m around 3-5 ml/gal of Calmag and up to about 20ml of PBP.
I don’t ‘normally’ use the Remo Bloom. Won it in a 420 contest. Sometimes I use it because I feel I should be adding micronutrients....:lot-o-toke:

I did a test mix tonight.

-One gallon of rainwater (zero ppm)
-3.5 ml Calmag - 150 TDS
-20 ml PBP. - 950 TDS
- And a minuscule amount of ph+

- totals ~1100 TDS

Which is about what I’d feed something like the PC in mid flowering. I might go up to 1200.

This would be a fairly typical mix for me. Like I say I used to add a little of other odds and ends at times. But mostly just PBP Bloom and Calmag. Is this completely out to lunch? How about the micronutrients- would seem to be missing. The plants don’t generally seem to complain about it.

I am growing in Sunshine mix which does have a trace amount of nutrients, but no micros as far as I know. So I don't think that’s relevant.
 
Yes, those peculiar doses are what Hydro Buddy suggested to achieve the macro targets I listed, and it did not consider possible toxic levels of the micros. As stated, I ran that for shits n giggles and it was not meant to be suggestive in nature at all. But that is the magic of Hydro Buddy as it enables one to accurately change the NPK targets which can then augment the feed chart to account for what the grower sees on the plants. I did this with GH before I switched to salts. When I did switch to salts, I still used GH Flora Micro to sort of fill out the micros that the salt brand was lacking. I used that for well over a month before finding a shitty salt micro blend that I struggled with for a while. I now have procured all of the individual micros, chelated, and concocted my own blend that I have mixed into a concentrate and have been using for about 2 weeks now.

Here is the output of CalMag @ 3.5ml/Gal and PBP @ 20ml/Gal. You didn't list a dose for the Remo product though.

Capture.JPG


It looks like N is a bit too thin, but if you're not seeing N def, I'd leave it be, the same with Ca. I'd watch for P tox and maybe K tox, but they can handle K well, but the P might cause some grief. It's so hard to find viable info on the various ranges that are ideal for cannabis, all I can do is sort of reverse engineer other nutes to see what's working for people. I got all numbers from a few growers on RIU, but they all shared them with a sens of unease or lack of confidence, but in comparison, these numbers are on the lower safe side of the spectrum so I have plenty of room to increase as I see fit.

You said the sunshine has trace nutes but no micros which is kind of conflicting. If sunshine mix is a soil, I'd be less worried because in there and available are much different things. It's only the nutrients with immediately available nutes that can be the most damaging that should cause concern.

CalMag and PBP alone looks very lacking in sulfur and trace elements, so I hope there's a source for those thing elsewhere in what you're feeding.
 
With Hydro Buddy, you can input all of the nutrients you have on hand that gives accurate Guaranteed Analysis on the label (fuck AN for not), then either program it with their suggested doses to see what the NPK is, or target the NPK and others yourself and compute. That uses the nutrients you listed and returns the closest to those targets that you listed which will allow you to experiment with elevated or lessened levels of different things. Here are some other schedules I crunched, GH, Jack's 321, and some other common regimens found in hydro books or farm studies.

Example Charts.JPG
 
Thanks a lot Skybound.
So- I didn’t include the Remo because it’s not really part of my most common feeding routine. I wanted to see what baseline I’d get with just the PBP and Calmag. Then I have at least some dim perceptions of what I might need to add. I can’t exactly expect you to be my personal nutrient coach - but this gives me a way better idea of what’s in there than I had before.
I do have a PC somewhere and its possible I may have to break down and get Growbuddy on it and start messing with this stuff.
I did find a source of sulphur on my shelf, which is Botanicare CNS-17 (1.14% sulphur). I may have others.


Edit- Epsom salts is a potential source too I think.


I’m reasonably well tuned into the N supply at least, cause it’s easy to detect and fix N problems, and in flowering I usually increase it by adding more Calmag, or decrease it by switching to GH Calmag, which has less N.
Re the P and K l will have to start looking more closely at things I think.

So I see a lot of variation in those recipes. And it’s interesting to see how high the levels of some of those so called micronutrients are. What formula do you follow?

Oh yeah- Sunshine mix is peat moss, perlite, lime. It supposedly has a trace amount of fertilizer just as a seedling starter, but generally speaking is supposed to be a type of inert soilless fluff, it’s not soil.
 
When I crunched GH's whole feed chart, and compared it to a few others, as well as ask a fuck ton of questions on RIU, I concluded (for now) to use the same micro nutrient blend throughout the grow veg/bloom so I mixed my custom micro solution as follows in elemental ppm;

Fe - 2ppm ----- (Iron)
Mn - 1ppm ---- (manganese)
Zn - 0.3ppm --- (Zinc)
B - 0.3ppm ----- (Boron)
Cu - 0.2ppm --- (Copper)
Mo - 0.05ppm - (Molybdenum)

Beyond that, it's just a matter of targeting the macros and secondaries which I understand are technically called micros themselves, but being in such elevated ppm, growers refer to them as secondaries which are Cal, Mag, Sulfur. I don't think Silica is classed, but many of us use it none the less. Here is my current feed chart, though in the next cpl weeks I'll get back to screwing around with the numbers in the upward direction for P and K.

Full Grow Targets.JPG
 
I'm thinking of taking K up to just below 200 and P to about 70, maybe to 75. I have purpling stems that I'm certain I can chase out unless PC is a purple stem strain, but I don't think I have a purple stem pheno. A couple to a few leaves I also notice get tiny pin holes I suspect to be the beginning of K def. That will be lessened as the summer sets in and the air RH increases, but I still want to chase that out as well. My weekly starting TDS is around 730-750, but I've thinned it out as low as 650 with no problems. I'm also thinking of throttling the sulfur again. In Jack's charts, they have the sulfur up to 100 and there's plenty of Jack's 321 grow journals out there to get reviews of to compare against. My patients love the PC BTW, but I'm still waiting for one of them to say that it's a super sweet taste. I've not smoked any yet.
 
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