I am known to the botanicare line so I grabbed some Hydroguard which I have used in the past. I was talking to the store guy about root rot and he was telling me that all the bacillus subtilis products are being taken off the market due to some patent or something. SR90 is off the market, some other brand had to pull their line, and now botanicare has stopped making Hydroguard. what is this all coming to now?

I am also doing a treatment of H2O2 on a few buckets to see if I can tell any difference.

as for my ppm... I think I may be able to resolve why it seems so low. By using Lucas Formula or other manipulations of the orginal G-M-B: 0-5-10 and 0-8-16 for flower, one only achieves around 600-960ppm the whole cycle. It calls for adding the formula and replace each day with ph'ed water for 7-10 days. Well when only adding GH products with RO water and no cal-mag or other products I get around 900ppm. say I add my calmag and also parts of the gro to help balance 'N' more during early veg.

That tops me off around 1250ppm. So, I add that day 1... then each day for 7-10 days before a res change I just replace with ph'ed RO water. That number may go up to 1350ppm in 24 hours due to less nutrient uptake then water (not ready for that high a solution). I replace the lost water with RO and that number will drop to say 1150ppm in the res. The number will still go up each day because the solution is too concentrated yet people pump it full of nutes even when plants dont need it.

So, I keep adding RO to replace the lost res water and each day it will bump that res ppm down to around 500-700ppm when fnished before replacing the res on the 10th day. The plant is really not happy with this I have found so I keep it so the crop is continually feeding and my ppm will drop each day instead of rise. sure this number is suppose to stay constant to show the correct amount of nutrients each plant wants. I know different particles are absorbed by different plants and we must replace a full spectrum of nutrients on a res change.

I have never actually done res changes before, found no need. I will setup my 5 gallon and change the res only when going from veg to bloom. I simply top off each day with the around the same solution that is currently in the res. This way my res is always at a constant number. If a radical drop in res ppm happends I know the plant is needing more food and I bump up the ppm all together. Im full bloom they take in about a gallon a day so I am always replacing with ph'ed 0-8-16 solution. I usually get caught up in things and wont even look at the res for a few days and it will drop 100ppm, I will the replace that 100ppm and add about 50ppm to bump it up a little until I get a constant reading.

No CO2, no sugar boost, 1000w HPS

I have done this with great results everytime. depending on size I usually pull 4-6 oz a plant with around 6-8 under one light.

I usually veg a clone for 25-50 days depending on if I top a few times or just let 'em go. So I get big bushy plants with many top chutes to capture all that light.

The only problem I have faced is the top getting too heavy for the stem in the hydroton to support around middle of bloom. This has been a continually annoying problem as I can not move them around as much. I will use bricks on the lids to hold the stem vertical. I have done a SOG screen before but things became a hassle is a small space.

I am looking to build some tables that have a SOG screen that can be adjusted for height of the grow. This way the screen will be secured to each table and not to a wall or floor. I am still thinking up the plans but if anyone has input... let me know.

So I am wondering if this is why I still see great results. Because even with soil, most people will boost with a 1200-1700ppm solution in bloom and then every other day feed with RO water. The concept is simple to see that the initial solution will be cut in half when the same amount of RO water is added to each soil pot. The same concept will apply for hydro.

I tried to bump a few 5 gal to 900ppm, up from the original 550ppm. and I got dark green leaves, looks like some leaves maybe getting toasted at top on the edges and tip. but it is a test and I will see the results 4-5 weeks into flower. The numbers jumped to 1050ppm the next day so I followed Lucas formula and add only PH'ed RO water and the number jumps down to 800ppm. This is less then I started at and the plant even left extra nutes in the res solution and uptook more water. So, if I continue to follow these directions I will achieve around 400-500ppm or maybe less at a res change needed in 7 days.

maybe this will help clear up why I think many nutrient solutions are started high but really end up low in the end. This is just what i am seeing in my test.