Any idea how hot FFOF is?

Spazz24

Spazz24

Well-Known Member
Growing in Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and my runoff PH is steady around 6.2-6.4, but my runoff PPM’s are out of control. I’m not sure if the Ocean Forest soil is really this hot or if my Bluelab PPM pen is not calibrated correctly.

The past two times I watered with a good amount of runoff and it’s higher every time. This time around the pen is telling me they’re putting out 2500ppm.... That seems a little absurd to me considering I water every two days and they’re young plants so I don’t add nutes at all. Someone told me my pen must be off and that Ocean Forest doesn’t even run that hot to begin with but I’m curious to know how hot is this soil going to get before it starts coming down if it is known to really be this hot.

At these PPM levels at only 2 weeks into veg I fear I’m going to wake up and find these plants dead one of these days soon.
 
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PadawanWarrior

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
Spazz24 said:
Growing in Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and my runoff PH is steady around 6.2-6.4, but my run off PPM’s are out of control. I’m not sure if the Ocean Forest soil is really this hot or if my Bluelab PPM pen is not calibrated correctly.

The past two times I watered with a good amount of runoff and it’s higher every time. This time around the pen is telling me they’re putting out 2500ppm.... That seems a little absurd to me considering I water every two days and they’re young plants so I don’t add nutes at all. Someone told me my pen must be off and that Ocean Forest doesn’t even run that hot to begin with but I’m curious to know how hot is this soil going to get before it starts coming down if it is known to really be this hot.

At these PPM levels at only 2 weeks into veg I fear I’m going to wake up and find these plants dead one of these days soon.
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It is hot at first, but after a 3-4 weeks my plants were ready for nutes. I turned my FFOF into living soil and am experimenting with no-till now. How about some pics?
 
Spazz24

Spazz24

Well-Known Member
PadawanWarrior said:
It is hot at first, but after a 3-4 weeks my plants were ready for nutes. I turned my FFOF into living soil and am experimenting with no-till now. How about some pics?
Click to expand...
Right before I transplanted them out of solo cups I noticed that funk going on, on my leaves. Narrowed it down to a PH issue on my end that I corrected. After transplant fast forward a bit and now I see these little dots popping up on other leaves so I calmaged them with 6.5 water. Plants seemed to like it but the ppm’s are freakin killing me. Just a gallon of water with calmag my pen was telling me was around 500ppm.
 

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PadawanWarrior

PadawanWarrior

Well-Known Member
Spazz24 said:
Right before I transplanted them out of solo cups I noticed that funk going on, on my leaves. Narrowed it down to a PH issue on my end that I corrected. After transplant fast forward a bit and now I see these little dots popping up on other leaves so I calmaged them with 6.5 water. Plants seemed to like it but the ppm’s are freakin killing me. Just a gallon of water with calmag my pen was telling me was around 500ppm.
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Looks like you may have bugs when I zoomed in to the pics. Have you checked with a loupe or microscope?
 
Spazz24

Spazz24

Well-Known Member
PadawanWarrior said:
Looks like you may have bugs when I zoomed in to the pics. Have you checked with a loupe or microscope?
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Haven’t checked with the microscope yet but I have checked the under side of the leaves and I haven’t seen anything. I will check with a microscope tomorrow just to make sure there isn’t bugs that I can’t see by eye.
 
Gemtree

Gemtree

Well-Known Member
Fox farm is known to have a low ph. I always planted seedlings in it fine I think what most people think is hot soil is actually over watering since it's denser than a lot of bagged soil.
 
Southerner

Southerner

Well-Known Member
I’ve used a ton of FFOF in my time. I’ve popped seeds in it, all stages of veg, and have even flowered with using minimal inputs the whole run. I don’t even pH adjust and my water comes out between 7.0 to 8. You don’t need cal mag with it at that stage ether. I’ve only used veg nutes and cal mag in ffof when plants are in a too small of container for long periods of time. My guess is overwatering. The ppms of runoff in organic soil don’t really mean anything. Let it dry completely and use water only for a couple weeks is my advice.
 
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