Supplements for flowering?

[stinkyattic]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned TopMax, my personal FAVE.
It's got all the organic goodies in it. Great stuff, and I even use it on stressed veggers if they are showing hints of soil problems. Organic acids wOOt.

[Zandor]

Here are some goods ones to think about using.

Gravity flower hardener - Gravity Flower Hardener - 8 ounce | Plant Nutrient Enhancers - General=

Purple Maxx - Purple Maxx | Plant Nutrient Enhancers - General

Both by Bushmaster.

[latewood]

Good stuff, latewood.

So when I get my supplement I plan to do a res change. It's about due, so decent timing. Is it true that what I should do then is add my water, my cal mag+, the recommended amount of the supplement, and then my GH 3 part until I hit my desired PPM?

How about during top offs? I am adding nearly 2 gallons per day now on a regular basis. Any preferred top up method? IE: ro water only, ro + calmag only, full nute top up? I've seen several methods posted around the boards from respectable people (based on their grow logs and post quality).

Thanks for any additional input from everyone.

just use ro water or add a little calmag 3ml per gallon, but If I do this I don't always add calmag to my nutrients...It is a preference once you learn to grow.

[MisterE]

Well I did my res change with about 25ml of the supplement+GH up to 1000ppm and some weak calmag. I'll keep a close eye on them and top up with ro+calmag every other gallon.

Amazingly, with everything mixed and topped up to the proper waterline, it was exactly 5.8PH. How cool is that.

[latewood]

buffers

[MisterE]

Yeah normally with just a lucas formula plus calmag, my ph drops to 5.5 or so and I have to Up it. With this mix it just so happened to come out right at 5.8, lol. Pretty handy.

[JackdaWack]

Organic acids wOOt.

YEAH!!


Also a ph of 5.5 aint bad and will go up, actually some people prefer to have a lower ph and let it go to 6.0 then back to 5.5 not sure how much it actually helps the roots take in nutes but my guess would be the same as just leaving it at 5.8 middle ground.

[MisterE]

One of the strange things with my grow though is my PH doesnt rise.. it falls. In fact I had such a problem with it falling during veg that I did a ton (a ton) of reading on PH and water and finally found a source. Source said baking soda helps also buffer the water, and lo and behold using disolved baking soda rather than GH PH Up solved my constantly falling PH issue.

[latewood]

OK...Not me...I'll stick with the Pro stuff.

I'm glad for you...:smokin:

Just for everyones reference. baking soda DID NOT stabalize my rez; In fact I never have to use PHY up, unless I screw up and add too much ph down. So I suppose it is best to experiment with your own water and decide for yourself. Goodluck

[MisterE]

Yep, thats exactly the conclusion that I came to
I was following everyone's info. to the T, and gosh darnit nothing was working. I figured maybe I had algae or root rot or something, so completely broke down my system, washed with mild bleach, rinsed and scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed and used some H2O2 and the roots were bright white and everything seemed just fabulous in the res. and water system.

But that darn PH just kept falling. I was using GH PH Up 4 or 5 times a day, it was crazy! Then I read BigTokes thread on ICMAG and like a miracle the baking soda worked for me the very first time and has been very stable ever since. I have to assume that my water through my ro filter just comes out with almost no ph buffering capability at all. And with GH 3 part nutrients, just not enough built-in buffering.

After this harvest I'm going to just fill some containers with tap water and ro water and see what the PH does over time in them. Sometimes there's just no substitute to gathering your own data imp: