switch to botanicare from GH/Adv. advice please

Hey everyone... Stinkyattic, I've noticed a lot of mention of Botanicare, so maybe you're the one to help me out...

I grow in promix HP, under 1000 watt HPS. I use drain tables and do short sea of green in 1 gal pots... Many many little girls... My water is good, and has only about 40ppm out of the tap, with a ph of around 6.8-7. I always let my water sit overnight before using it to let the chlorine evaporate out, with bubblers going...

I've just had the worst 3 harvests ever, and had put the most work into them ever. Irony. Over the years, I've used GH, Advanced, then back to GH. The last 3 crops showed signs of fert lock out/salt build up, with a very low ph reading in my runoff. When I leached to correct it, and started feeding again, the plants bolted and finished early with a severely diminished yield, although with killer quality. This has happened 3 times in a row! crazy. I used to grow in buckets so lazily and that was more successful.

I've wanted to do this for some time now, and have just started a new crop of organic sourdiesel (Sativa predom), again in 1 gal pots. I've purchased the botanicare line. I have the following:

pureblend pro (grow)
pureblend pro soil (flower)
liquid karma
sweet
hydroguard

I planted in wet HP with only water @ 6.3. I've just given my 3 day old transplants their first feeding, using the following levels from the botanicare chart:

7ml/g gro
5ml/g sweet
5ml/g karma
no guard yet, as I just bought it yesterday...

I noticed that the ph went down hardcore with the gro... down to around 3 with plain water to start. I usually up the water to 8/8.4 before beginning to add anything, and then have to add more (diluted) still to get up to 6.3. Is this normal?

pH 6.3
ppm 600 or so (with sweet and karma)

plants were only planted 3 days before this feeding (probably too soon, but many of them were really pale on the new growth)

They are growing healthy, but I do have some leaf twisting and my plants are a bit droopy... There has also been a little bit of the leaf fringes curling up. I noticed this twice about an hour before my lights turn off (maybe this was the reason, as they were getting ready for dark). My room temps are 70-72 in the dark, and 75-80 in the light. good temps.

I am very paranoid and concerned now that I do not under feed, as this has hurt me recently way more than any overfeeding ever has. (I got 3 and 3/4 off of 8 lights last time! so bad...) I am trying to make it from beginning to end with nice green leaves that stay straight and perky. I've never achieved this, although after my underfeeding last round, I gave them some cal max and they came back and finished really healthy with nice straight leaves. unfortunately, they had already started to bolt and didn't pack on much more weight. sourdiesel is a sativa predominant strain, and is really sensitive to ferts.. the only time I got 1Lb per light, I was flushing hard every second watering. 6 gals through 3 gal pots. This was extrremely time consuming, and could not be done with a single resevoir fill up... I have a 100 gallon res... I also believe that this is not necessary.

So I'm wondering if I should be using half the strength of the botanicare charts. If so, should I only half strength the base and karma and not the sugar? Should I go food water food water, or food food food food..... This strain shows overfeeding quickly in the small leaves. They will turn into claw shapes. I hope to avoid this altogether.

So, my hunch tells me that I fed too early, and that I should just give them water next time. I am switching to 12/12 on Sunday or Monday. This strain really shoots up (sativa), so I have to get 'er flowering soon, or they'll get too big/crowded.

Three more questions:
-When I water, should I have runoff, just enough to wet all the soil, or what?
-Should I leach once every 2 weeks? Should I do this with clearex? I've heard it can create problems if some remains in the soil before you feed...
-My plants are all kept small, so my ppm should probably be much lower than the charts, right? The final height of them is about 1.5-2', and they are more leggy and not bushy(again, Sativa predom... 60% sat, 40% ind apparently).

I know this post is long, but I really wanted to give you all the info I can think of... I will check back here over the next few days hoping to see some response... Also, I've been in coffee shops scouring these forums to try and find the info I'm looking for, so if this stuff is answered somewhere else, I apologize, but I don't have the time to hunt around any more. I appreciate your understanding...

I hope to hear back from someone soon.
Give thanks...
bless up!

Check out this thread and see if it's any help:

http://boards.cannabis.com/basic-gro...-grow-big.html

PC :smokin:

I followed botanicare's recipe for seedlings. I fed my plants around 600ppm of ph6.3 food, and as I mentioned in my first post, they are looking overfed. I did a runoff test on 3 plants the day before yesterday, and they came out:

plant 1 ph5, and 1600ppm
plant 2 ph4.9 and 1000ppm
plant 3 ph5 and 1170ppm

this is CRAZY! wtf? How is this possible?

each 1 gallon pot received 500ml of the food water, as this was how much they took to moisten all the way to the bottom. How the %$&@ did my ppm rise so high, and why is the ph so low? My plants are overfed. They are growing fast, but there are rust spots on some of the lower leaves, and the new growth and many of the upper fan leaves have curled up leaf fringes and distorted leaf growth... This sucks.

So it would seem that 600ppm of botanicare breaks down/converts into way more ppm in the soil, bringing the ph of the soil way down, probably locking out some nutrients.

So in response, I watered half the garden with only 350mL ph6.8 water, and the second half with 1L of ph6.9 water. I have to get the ppm down. I will flush the first half tonight (I ran out of water in the res...).

1st feeding from the botanicare chart, and they are overfed. So I suppose I should not feed every watering, as the company instructs, and should use way less than the chart numbers... They go crazy high in the coming weeks... This is really kind of confusing... How can the charts be so far off?

I have a sensitive strain, but these ppm numbers are baffling. Today is day 1 of 12:12. My plants are less than 1' tall, and will finish about 1.5' to 2' (for the larger ones). My room temps are kick ass, and the humidity is low.

thanks for reading. If you have experience with botanicare, please offer me some advice.

one love