Grow Mediums going to try some new stuff this year :)

[freedom4all]

First off hello again afn gardening is pretty much my winter hobby here in the great north so I'm trying to actually plan some stuff out this year and I want to try some new stuff

One thing I want to try this year is hydro I saw some pretty awesome vids on making vertical gardens and was like oh snap that'd be awesome I learned a lot about organics last grow and will be doing a soil grow for my last 2 blue amnesia plants

But I do want to try some new stuff

First off I'm totally new to hydro kind of I know the basics of setting one up but when it comes to nutes and ppm and ec and dts and all that stuff I'm at a loss and I seem to not be able to find much info on what to go by do you go by ppm ec or tds? This whole thing just blows me mind lol

After looking a good bit at nutes I found this gh maxi series and it looks pretty simple so if anyone has any comments on that I'd love to hear it

I want to grow some good salad makings this year for my vitrical garden (reference YouTube)the rain tower I wanted to put 3 of those in a 27 gallon tote that will hold 3 of those posts ccomfortabley but I only wanted to make them 2 rows high on the back and 1 row high on the front regardless for growing greens I would only need the may grow right? And that's pretty much it aside from ph stuff that I can handle

Then in another tote I wanted to do a dwc system again with the maxi line but in this tote I want to do 2 of our favorite herbs so I guess I'd need the grow bloom and koolbloom? This seems really straight forward in my head however it confuses the hell out of me at the same time I am also trying to figure out the best way to do water changes and how often to do them so any tips here would be good


So pretty much my question is maxi series good or bad? And is this a good starting point for new guy?
And for water changes what's the best way to do this cheaply and easily in tight spaces was thinking of getting another pump to just pump water out and then poor new water in but how well do you need to wash out your reservoir

Thanks for any help

 

[Ozone69]

I'm doing the "pump it out then refill" method on my outdoor NFT rig. Rigged a tee into the feed line off the pump with a couple valves to turn on/off the feed to the tubes (plants), then open up the valve to a short drain line that I put a bucket under. Seems to be working pretty well so far. Still pretty new to this, myself, so not sure of any issues to watch out for long term doing that.

For my grow closet, I'm currently just using 5gal buckets with one plant per bucket. I do a weekly swap by mixing everything up in another bucket, getting my PH where I want it, then just lifting the whole lid and net pot off the old res and moving it to the new waiting one. Dump the old bucket, give it a light rinsing out and it's ready to be the spare for the next swap.

I am thinking of trying some totes out down the road. Running into the same thing you are that I'm just not sure how to handle refils with them. Thinking the same type of swap might work, but with two plants instead of moving the entire lid, just move the net pots themselves from one lid to another. With that, though, I'd be worried about squeezing the root ball through the small hole and ripping some up. Thinking pumping out and refilling might be better, but right now I'm not pumping any water around in my closet (just air pumps) and I like the idea of keeping it that way from a "don't want to risk flooding my really old construction, wood frame floor house any more than necessary" point of view. I'd be interesting in hearing what you decide on and how it works for you.

 

[Ozone69]

P.S. I've only tried the Advanced Nutrients base stuff so far, so can't speak to the maxi line. Would like to try different nutes to see what works best for me, but it's one of a long list of things I'd like to experiment with while only having a small grow space to work with so not sure if it'll happen. :smoking:

If you're still looking, one that I've been checking out lately that's on my short list to try from some of what I've read is the Earth Juice hi-brix line. http://www.hydro-organics.com/site/plant-nutrient-systems/hi-brix-ab-2-part-liquid-nutrient-system/

 

[freedom4all]

That earth juice looks pretty good in terms of simplicity so I'm going to look into that for sure some more and look at cost as well that was one think that drew me to the maxi line is a 2.2 pound bag for a meer 20 bucks

 

[Ozone69]

Had another hit of some Krishna Kush, brain started zoning on PPM/EC/TDS so I'm back to ramble on some more. Just smack me and tell me to shut up if needed.

My understanding of it is this: First off, all three are just different scales for the same thing. EC is the base unit and usually reads something like in the .5 - 2.0 range or numbers like that. Not sure off the top of my head which is which, but the other two are this number multiplied by either 500 or 700. Which one you use is up to you. Most folks tend to use a scale that's in line with what their grow support community uses to help with trouble shooting. I haven't done that level of troubleshooting with any of the AFN folks yet, so not sure what they tend to use around these parts. I settled on TDS for now because the little handheld meter I picked up only uses that scale and I wanted both my meters to use the same for comparison and double checking.

Some nutrients will give you a recommended TDS/PPM level, most I've read the info on do not. So for me, I mix up my nutrient solution using the mL/Gal recommended, and once it's all mixed then that is the "target" TDS for my system. In my case, I'm using tap water and the initial TDS is 70 before I add anything (the stuff the city puts in). After the nutes go in, it's usually around 970. Your "target" will likely be different based off the type of water you start with. Factor in the base of what your starting with (if not using RO) when comparing the numbers to those of other growers.

I keep an eye on the number as I top off the reservoir each night. If it gets down to about half strength (500 or so) before the weekly swap, then I do an early swap. Only started happening to me when my plants were in full bloom and sucking down a good 2-3 quarts of water/solution every day. Basically, a tool to track the strength of the solution so I can do more than just an educated guess on when/if to do early reservoir swaps.

 

[freedom4all]

Gotcha yeah I'll be using water from my dehumidifier or filtered water if I need more than my dehumidifier can put out I need to get a meter thing lol

Pretty much what it sounds like to me is npk becomes pretty much erelivent (spelling??) And it's really all about the ec I did find a chart online for vegetables and fruits and the ec was close or over lapping but they said one should be at 600 ppm and another should be at 3200

Oh its cf not ec but yeah it says lettuce is 8-12 @ 560 ppm but peas are 8-18 @ 1000 ppm

I would think 8 is 8 ya know if that makes sense

 

[freedom4all]

Alright well I have decided to go with the gh floranova grow bloom and koolbloom I think I remember reading something on here about running the nutes at half of what the boxes say so it should work our fairly cost effectively thinking this is how I'll do my 2 moby dick seeds and then second go around do a blue amnesia xxl and a lemon haze from emerald triangle sadly I popped all my Russian haze seeds I had thinking I could have gotten one last grow in but I had to scrub it so yeah think that's how I'm gonna do it unless I'm thinking a wrong

For my set up I'm going to do 2 5 gallon buckets with 6 inch net pot lids and an air stone I am still up in the air about media though hydroton is to much right now so was thinking of fish tank gravel and then I was going to make a wire cage to pull side branches through

As for my soil grows my 3 gallon smart pots got super root bound last year yo the point of watering 2 or 3 times a day so I'm getting a 5 pack of 5 gallon viagrow pots to try this year and I'll be using sea grow 16-16-16 and the 4-26-26 in dr earths soil that was composted this year with some leaves and grass clippings added about 20 pounds of worm castings to the mix so perlite and I should be good to go

Anything super flawed here?