"The idea behind a water softener is simple. The calcium and magnesium ions in the water are replaced with sodium ions. "
cannabis doesn't like sodium beware
RO water is safe of course, atention if you use floraduo with ro you must use the soft water version even so they advise to use at least 25% tap water
I was wondering where you obtained that info from. I have never seen nor heard of it. Not to say it doesnt exist, just want to know where to find it. The other thing is that I am curious why I would use tap water. There is an over abundance of arsenic, radon, radium(a,b,and a+b), chlorine, borine, and about 17 heavy metals in central and southern cali city water. Wouldnt it be easier to just add in a little Ca and Mg?
So, I have a few forums that I had subscribed to (this being one of them) and this is the first time that I have come across floraDuo as a main topic. I have been using it since last summer. I got a hook up of a few quarts of it before it was out in this country and had to go to GHE site to see what the feeding sched looked like. The issue was that alot of the things over there are named something different. Stupid me didnt save the GHE bottles that actually had ALL of the ingredients in it, not just the "plant food". Anyway, I have been struggling a little with working out a good feed sched that works for my grow. I was originally using the old Flora series, supplemented with the 3 part FF granuals. Since then I have done alot of research into which american nutrient companies took the toxic waste that was supposed to go to EPA labs. Apparently millions of tons of toxic waste is bypassing the EPA by them giving it to nute companies that are putting trace amounts of it in the nutrients and claiming that they are under the EPA safe tolerances standards. Regardless, I am pretty sure everyone here will agree that we dont want ANY toxic waste in our nutes. Anyway, thats what lead me to stop using the FF granuals.
So I went with the floraDuo supplemented with the rest of the GH line for expert recirc, with the exception of the sweetener, and calcium. I was using Techniflora SugarDaddy for sweetener, and MagiCal for ca/mg supp.
After a few cycles of that I had too many issues with lockout because of the Techniflora nutes. The problem was the the sweetener is mostly nutes with 2% cane sugar thrown in. I realized that the dry koolBloom has proportionately measured S, K, and P in them and I was wasting my time dumping in sugardaddy. As for the MagiCal, that didnt play well with the GH line at all. It caused a K lockout, so I switched to GO CaMg+, thinking that since it was organic, I would not have the lockout issue. Its only been 2 wks since switching to CaMg+, but my girls are doing much better. I am still fighting with PH fluctuations a little but believe that was caused by the aeroFlo setup I had going. The pump was too small to power it, and I had slow water circulation. That lead to the accumulation of gnats, which were a pain in the ass to get rid of. I usually use nemotodes to get rid of gnats, but I had to use some Actinovate to deal with the algae problem. The thing is that Actinovate kills nemotodes. So I just used some cedar oil before a flush to kill the gnats.
Anyway, now that I have become a GH whore, I am wondering if anyone else is dealing with PH issues or deficiencies with the floraduo? I had a long talk with the GH rep at the local hydro shop and explained my issues and told him the issues that I was having. He explained to me that the new GH floraduo feed chart is different than things used to be with GH. Apparently these nutes are designed to be used together. Not the normal marketing ploy to get people to buy a bunch of unnecessary shit, but genuinely work together. So, I conceded and bought the stuff. I will say that it is working out okay, but I must be doing something wrong. One thing is that I am not using the rapidStart as it contains growth hormones, and I have no interest in consuming anything with GMOs in it. That is another reason that alot of our GH products differ from europe. They are way more advanced in their ag practices than we are. They dont go for that chemical crap, GMOs, or toxic things in the nutes. Their government is more stringent on testing than the FDA or EPA in this country. I think that next grow I will try floraduo with only GO additives and see how that does. I used to use flora series(lucas formula), CaMg+, and Bioroot and killed with that shit. Now that I 900 bottles of nutes(over exaggerated) I am having issues. That or I will continue to adjust the formula for optimal mix. The other thing that might help is that I bought some seeds for Barneys Farm and am thinking that I will finally have some stable genetics to try on. I have been relying on clones from the clubs and the crops are never uniform, which is bullshit. Usually you only have one runt in the group and the rest are pretty uniform. So in the end I guess it boils down to tailoring your nutes for each specific grow. I will just start the new grow at 80% strength, and push it up till burn them a little to see where the EC ceiling is on the new strain and take it from there.
that was my first syntex fertilizer since i always use organic powder stuff for cannabis.
