Fox Farm VS Advanced Nutrients VS General Hydroponics

puffnpaint said:

First grow i used gh, grow went really well and i got some killer smoke, second grow all i had was what came with the bubbleponics system i bought last year. Went ok got decent smoke third grow ff, went really well till i used the tiger bloom, killed em all dead. Fourth grow same as third. Present grow, i went back to gh but im putting the ff enhancers in too. This crop is by far looking the best so far. Buds are about to start breaking branches, and i have a month left.lol all have been mango except for the third that was super silver haze and i was really bummed about losing those.

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Do you follow the Lucas formula? What FF do you add with the GH? Did you use FF hydro and if so what system were you using?

I use the GH and love it it's simple to use and works great. It's only 3 things to keep track of and I've heard it's very forgiving if you don't get things exact.

Fox Farm o is organic. As such it is best used justfoe soil grows. Foxfarm is not good for aero, soil free hydro or bubble phonics as it is organic and therefore foaming and bacterial problems just don't make it worth while for those applications. If your gping to go soilless or aero, or bubble phonics stickw ith chemical preparations. While I thtink very little of GH and AN prices as they are grossly over priced they are about the only manfacturers selling many lines of formulations that are complete or nera coplete. Most are missing about half the secondary and trace nutrients. It is really sad when you figure everyone are charging way to much.

For GH use a Lucas method mix of 1 part Micro to two parts Bloom, or use Maxibloom, or if using hard tap water use Hard Water Floramicro. Gh flora magic is a god formula where high EC is desired I would not consider Florabloom as they have no calcium nitrogen or Iron.

AN went dumb and went without calcium on most of its formulations so if your using RO water that will be a problem. Sensi One Powder Concentrate Grow is their only main line formualtion that contains calcium and it is over loaded with calcium at 8%. AN's micro's have no calcium nor its Connoissers. Only its Sensi Bloom Part B, Connoisser B-0155, and Grow-0169 have magnesium. Pretty sad being they claim to be the best.

Like I always say, "How do you tell when AN's owners or marketers are lying? When their lips move."

If you really want the best just ask out their for someone who mixes his/her own compete fertilizers formulations. Anyone who does can easily mix them for probably 25% of AN or GH retail prices in a powder form. I know it cost be less than $5 per gallon to mix any standard formulation with all macro, secondary and micro nutrients in a two apart mix at a x100 concentration. You would need to furnish your own gallon jugs and water.

Typically I spend about $16 to $18 to make up 5 gallons of concentrate (2.5 gallons Part A and 2.5 gallons part B) there fore enough to moix 500 gallons. My RODI water cost more than that to produce for 500 gallons of nutrients.

There are a few good hydro and aero formulations out there that are good, but they are not organic and they are not cheap. Remember just because some manfacturers says a organic fertlixzer can be used for hydro does not mean inert hydro or aero. Even then saying it can be used only means it is possible, not that it will give esay operation or good performance. In general using organic nutrients in soil less hydro, bubble ponics or aero is a PITA. You can definitely grow smooth clean tasting buds with all chemical nutrients.

fatman7574 said:

I know it cost be less than $5 per gallon to mix any standard formulation with all macro, secondary and micro nutrients in a two apart mix at a x100 concentration. You would need to furnish your own gallon jugs and water.

Typically I spend about $16 to $18 to make up 5 gallons of concentrate (2.5 gallons Part A and 2.5 gallons part B) there fore enough to moix 500 gallons. My RODI water cost more than that to produce for 500 gallons of nutrients.

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When you say there is enough for 500 gallons do you mean 500 gallons of diluted concentrate or usable solution?

It is a formualation equivalent to two parts Florabloom and one part Floramicro (Lucas method mix). 500 gallons of solution diluted at a level of 495 gallons of water to five gallons of concentrate. Usable depends on the EC level you which you actually mix/dilute. It would in all likely hood need to be diluted further than that as it is a mix for a TDS of 1946 ppm, a pH of 5.4 and an EC of 2.8 Myself, I run a very low EC in comparison to a lot of people as I use a higher pressure pum in my aero system so I spray a mist rather than a gurgling spray. I run intermittant of only a few seconds per minute. I very seldom run an EC over 1 so the mix makes a great deal more than just 500 gallons. More like 1400 gallons. As most people seem to be running an EC closer to 1.4 to 2, figure it will make about 1000 gallons or 700 gallon respectively.

I have a commercial RODI system that only takes 1.3 gallons of tap water to make 1 gallon of filtered RODI water, and my tap water costs 4 cents per gallon. My nutrients cost ($18/1400) = $ 0.013 per gallon. This means my water cost almost 5 times as much as the fertilizer. With others it will vary as most people have cheaper tap water but if using a standard RO filter the rate is usually at least 5 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of RO water.

Below are the detail for 1 gallon x100 concentrate (two 1/2 gallons actually). It is a two part solution if in liquid so 1/2 gallon Part A and 1/2 gallon Part B. Part A would only contain the Calcium Nitrate and the Iron Chelate. The rest would all be in Part B.

ppm levels
Nitrogen 176
Phosphorus 333
Potassium 396
Magnesium 100
Calcium 228
Sulfur 132
Iron 3.33
Manganese 1.67
Boron 6.67
Zinc 1.00
Copper .33
Molybdenum .27

Molar
N mMol.l-1 12.6
K mMol.l-1 10.2
P mMol.l-1 10.7
Mg mMol.l-1 4.2
Ca mMol.l-1 5.7
S mMol.l-1 4.1

Ounces
Calcium Nitrate 15.1
Iron Chelate .45
MonoPotassium Phosphate 21.0
Magnesium Sulfate 13.5
Manganese Sulfate .090
Boric Acid / Solubor .490
Zinc Sulfate .058
Copper Sulfate .020
Ammonium Molybdate .007

Volume of Stock Solutions
1 gallon

Dilution Rate
100

guff6387 said:

Do you follow the Lucas formula? What FF do you add with the GH? Did you use FF hydro and if so what system were you using?

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i followed the label on the gh, when i went to flower i added open sesame after about three weeks i switched to beasty bloom, i ran out of gh a week ago so now they are on cha ching big bloom and mollassas. Using bubbleponics, never had a foaming issue. Matter of fact the crops i lost were doing better in veg with ff than with gh, wound up losing them to a ph problem i couldn't get under controle caused by tiger bloom. next grow i'm gonna give the ff another go from the begining except i'm not gonna use the tiger bloom.

after seeing my girls this morning i think if i do try ff from the beginning i'll be leaving out the big bloom too.

have been using fox farm on a few grows no and have had no problems. The only time i have ever gotten 11 leaflet sets was when using fox farm in a DWC.

GH 3 part has worked well for me. I have also used AN's overdrive during the last couple weeks before flush and have gotten good results compared to the plants that I did not use it on.

I am now saying f$%k all these mixing bullshit and using Ionic Grow/Bloom/Boost, used a lot of pricey nutrients before and after I saw what kind of yield Heath Robinson gets with Ionic, cant go wrong. Ionic is hard to find in the USA but I found humboldt hydroponics had it. They have a hard water formula that im going with, simpler the better.

i am a gh man all the way. But even tho I am amazed at how lame advanced nutes can be with products like wet betty I cant deny that whenever I add some big bud i see s huge spurt. However I have been using the lucas formula all around and loved it. I recently experimented with adding back the three part to veg then using the lucas with flower and adding some big bud powder. I loved the lucas formula addback formula for its ease but I realised that for veg i could just add a mixed bottle of the right three part ratios back to my res tank until I get my correct ppms. I know that is simple but i take it slow when it comes to experimenting. After all it is months for a grow.

Not saying fox farm and advanced nutes are bad at all not to mention im addicted to fox farm ocean forest soil in every aspect of my indoor garden but they both denied my samples request when i first started growing. But Botanicare and Hesi nutes didnt.

just started flowering a few days ago using the fox farm Big bloom, grow big, and tiger bloom in a DWC system w/ a 400w HPS. Veg growth was amazing the plants exploded in a 3 week period.

Guy Smilie Here!

I have noticed that mixing them is baddddddd, BTW ! you get lots of build up, salts runoff and burn.... tootles!

i have suffered some root rot, at least i think. Some plants mysteriously dropped and the roots were exposed to some hot water by mistake. I added hygrozyme and sea kelp to a low dose of gh three part for a few weeks and now clean white roots are popping out and growth is slowly picking back up. Low salt and cold water and hygrozyme i think helped.

hygrozyme is my favourite cause its the only one i used when i ever had any problem. and sensizym is way over priced. and basically does the samething... Cannazym is the less expensive one i think. FF dont exist to me. GH I tried it in the pass and because I grew with AN before I wasnt so impress... If you want a marijuana plant that looks beatiful in every way with alot of trichomes showing and great taste and look with nice green leafs... well your gonna have to get an's based nuts... or for real any based nuts will do.. just the additives really do what they say and more then u expect. Like my scorpion juice is ment to combat disease and all that stuff I think but damn do I ever see mad trichomes production whenever I use it. So all that to say you can use any base nuts but i suggest an's additives... and if u dont feel like spending on all the additive... just use AN Sensi A & B it will give u decent results on its own also. BUT ADDITIVES WORK MAGIC!!!

I am using the gh flora series performance kit in fox farm soil....I do not feel my yields are as big as they could be...I have been following the feeding chart that comes on the box the kit came with....are any of you that are using the gh flora series following the feeding chart or do you have your own chart you use with these nutes- what is every ones thoughts on a dwc system also-

GH FloraSeries, Grow, Bloom, Micro plus GH Advanced, FloraBlend, Floralicious Plus, Rapid Start, Kool Bloom, Diamond Nectar, CalMagic, FloraKleen(flush), also Dyna-Gro's Pro-tekt Silica, and Botanicare's Hydroguard.

Plants explode, top and bottom. Very easy to use, PH stable, rarely need any PH adjusters.

Best DWC nutes for the money IMO.

chronicals77 said:

GH FloraSeries, Grow, Bloom, Micro plus GH Advanced, FloraBlend, Floralicious Plus, Rapid Start, Kool Bloom, Diamond Nectar, CalMagic, FloraKleen(flush), also Dyna-Gro's Pro-tekt Silica, and Botanicare's Hydroguard.

Plants explode, top and bottom. Very easy to use, PH stable, rarely need any PH adjusters.

Best DWC nutes for the money IMO.

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can u tell me what ratios u use please in key stages say start at middle range n finish at as im finding the chart is overdoing it a bit i just own the 3 stage at the mo

budulyk said:

can u tell me what ratios u use please in key stages say start at middle range n finish at as im finding the chart is overdoing it a bit i just own the 3 stage at the mo

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What I have discovered is the chart ratios is too much atleast for the first week. Its best to use 1/2ml per gallon for the first week to 10 days after transplant. I change nutes every 10 days. The second change do 1.25ml per gallon for 10 days and if your plants use it up quickly you can try 2.5ml per gallon. I usually stay at half what the chart calls for because if not I get some nute burn. Different strains however absorb nutes at different strengths so unforntunately some experimentation is required. At half strength though my plants absorb these nutes quickly but not too quickly. They love this shit! Better than anything I have used outdoors and ive used everthing from organics to MG to Dyna-Gro and even some advancements like Earth Juice and stuff. Not saying those are worthless but ive never had plants grow as fast and use as much nutes as DWC indoors with GH base and advanced nutes. Indoors is much more controlled too.