16000+ watts medigrow: og kush+ 13 x 1kw hps + 3 x t5 badboys + grotek = *HAPPY JOY*

I find that the best is what your using now, why else would you be using it, it's 3rd best? I have always kept an open mind when it comes to what's new and improved, some times there is a break through product that really works, but most of the time it's bull shit. If the food you use works for you and meets all your plants needs, it's all good. Thing is some plants like some food better than others, if your lucky to match both, why change. I have also found that sticking with 1 or 2 core genetics for a long time lets you really fine tune your food. I have grown 2 plants for over 8 years, no I like a change but I just have not found anything better than what I have yet. I spend up to $1000 a year on seeds looking for that killer, still looking. Just like still trying to get 1g per watt, still trying....

Ever since they found out we were using Molasses they have been selling stuff like Carbo Load, that's why MG has a big push into hydo and the MM market. Fuled by your dollars.

lol see the thing with most of the people on here, they dont actualy read

this isn't about whats BETTER. its about what are you actualy buying? when i say you dont read, i mean labels, advertisments, everything. you have to be aware of your surroundings.


dont believe what ANYONE tells you, including me. do the dam research for yourself.

Thing is some plants like some food better than others, if your lucky to match both, why change.

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Why change? you answered your own dam question.

Thing is some plants like some food better than others

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^ ANSWER.

I have grown 2 plants for over 8 years,

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and thats why you have never HAD TO change fertilizers. some ferts will out and outright kill sensitive plants like OG Kush, but then there are plants like White Russian that are almost hard to kill even with hydro ferts.

i have to admit i don't really know what you're getting at here.

i don't know what a.n tells you or doesn't tell you about their product, but whenever i email grotek's tech department with a question, i get an effing NOVEL back, lol.
so when they tell me that their biochar is derived from pine-beetle-kill wood and chitosan comes from acetylized crustacean shell (mostly krill), i'm okay with that. armed with that, i can go pick my garden guru's brain (horticulture student and landscape designer in one).
and there's all sorts of stuff that the gov't will let you use but not label because it's not *legally* recognised as having that particular agri/horticultural benefit. our labelling laws are *fucked and the minister in charge doesn't give a crap. passionate eye has a good episode about that, although it was personal products and not ferts. always best to get it straight from the horse's mouth (or try. how much they won't tell you even if asked is an indicator of things also). and being armed with specific questions helps too.

thing is, i'm not familiar with the '$25 starter kit' so i'd be curious to know what all it comes with. i DO know that we've saved a bundle of $ and PIA switching to a 1part base nute, but it's been a long time since we paid $25 for any single product, excepting the "use this once a cycle" boosters. but all the things we use don't cost *much more in gallons for what you paid for litres though .

there's all sorts of stuff that the gov't will let you use but not label because it's not *legally* recognised as having that particular agri/horticultural benefit. our labelling laws are *fucked and the minister in charge doesn't give a crap.

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^ thats exactly what im getting at. your the FIRST person to actualy be able to tell me what Grotek uses..... and i like that it means the company does actualy try.

my thing is, i've worked in certain fertalizer company on the canadian west coast..... i know what some of the companies do to make you think their product is better, when realy you could make them in your back yard...... and having graduated from the malaspina University horticultural Program (naniamo,BC, canada) i know what the differance is between a surviving plant and a striving plant.......it comes down to 16 essential minerals...... theres the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that every oxygen based life form uses.... then there are the rest......

nutrients needed (PPM Limits.)
[SIZE=-1]Primary Nutrients[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Nitrogen (N) ppm=150-100
Phosphorus (P) ppm=50-100
Potassium (K) ppm-100-400[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Secondary Nutrients[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sulfur (S) ppm=200-1000
Calcium (Ca) ppm=100-150
Magnesium (Mg) ppm=50-100[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Micronutrients [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Zinc (Zn) ppm=.5-1
Iron (Fe) ppm= 2-10
Copper (Cu) ppm=.1-.6
Manganese (Mn) ppm=.5-5
Boron (B) ppm=.5-5
Molybdenum (Mo) ppm=.01-.05
Chlorine (Cl) ppm=.01-.05[/SIZE]

most people dont know what life actualy needs to strive, or what there actualy putting into your plants.......

as long as you can ensure that your feeding your plants those nutrients, in the proper PPM at the right time in their life, your good to go.

Edited to add PPM.

Corbat420 said:

its not about what they SAY is in it. its about whats ACTUALY in it. once you understand labeling in NA you might understand a little bit better...... http://www.tfi.org/factsandstats/regulations.cfm

Labeling ONLY pertains to things what could damage human health or the environment. if it doesn't damage health or the environment in the state the chemical is in they dont have to disclose whats in the fertilizers.

plain and simple. resources cost money, if your fertilizer costs $25 there obviously aren't many resources used in producing it. thus there arn't many resources for the plant.

plants need 13 minerals to survive, and 16 to strive. the differance is 3 minerals. $25 gets you the basics, $100 gets you everything.


Edit: EXAMPLE:

AN Carbo Load. heres the label.


compaired to GroTek Carbo Max, which has no online label. the closest thing you can find is this PDF. http://www.grotek.net/en/products/guide/msds/msds_carbomax.pdf
^ from the PDF.

GroTek= Dextrose powder...... AN = glucose, Xylose, aribinose and maltose..... Mollasis in Compost tea is BETTER than grotek's carbo max.......... thats what i mean by you dont know what your buying.

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interesting..... but we don't use a carb booster like that, i think it's a load, personally.

not to mention i still don't understand what you're getting at; there's now a market niche to sell growers sugar at inflated prices (100% dextrose/ a mish-mosh of different '-ose's -- it's still all effing sugar), grotek's marketing dep't would be remiss in their duties if they didn't carry a competitive item, imo.

doesn't mean i have to buy it. i'd point that particular finger at whichever company implemented the practise in the first place.

not that it's a product that their tech dep't has even mentioned to me even in passing, they seem ALL ABOUT the chitosan (i swear one of them would marry it if he could). (hint: polysaccharide = complex carb, no need for added sugars at an inflated price from any company, thank fuck.)

i was going to edit ^this post but couldn't think of how to do it:

NOW i get what you mean.
i've found you can't go by the label on a LOT of stuff (not just ferts). being a local and having name-droppable friends may be helping me on the informational front. not that they were particularly tight-lipped before they knew that though.

and not that i think adding carbs toward the end is bs, per se, but a lot of the time it's unnecessary what with all the other stuff that's present in the micro-ecology already unless you have specific issues.

I love me some of that Liquid CarboLoad, I've been using it for a while. Sometimes I feel like I could just get away just giving my plants all my carbohydrate and humic acid/carbon supplements. I add in molasses, liquid carboload, The Sparks (local product, fucking awesome), not to mention Clearex, which also contains sucrose and glucose. I also give my plants Liquid Karma by Botanicare and Cell Splitter (not available yet, I'm just a likable guy and receive gifts all the time ) I know it wont work unless I build up a good soil, but I feel like I could go far with just that and a base. Minus the Clearex, lol.

Anyways, Mello, here is all that is included with the Six Pack from Grotek, I just looked it up in my Gardener's Digest catalog.

heavy buds 0-1-2
bud fuel 0-0-2
solo tek bloom 3-8-8
vitamax 1-1-2
monster bloom 0-50-30
blossom blaster 0-39-25

All it needs is some solotek grow, calmax, and pro-silicate and you should be ready to rock 'n' roll. I think all the liquid fertilizers are 500ml so it doesn't really work for you Mello, but it works for your friends that are starting off. Sure is a lot of pk booster though.

speaking of humic, solotek is humic based. the el cheapo in me is ecstatic not to be paying for water. and if i remember correctly the liquid supps are fulvic (<-don't quote me on that, i'll have to reread some emails back.)
my flower garden is loving the solobloom, and i've only given it to them twice. it's true about some plants responding better to nutes than others, my lavendar is on steroids.

and yeah, those bottom 2 are the "use once" boosters i was talking about (hence the crazy pk and why we only buy a wee thing of them at a time). one of them is for right when you flip and the other is towards the end (forget which is which, too lazy to go check ) so they don't go in together.

and my friends that are just starting out seem to come over with a bunch of questions and oh-so-casual empty bottles in hand, lol ["get ur own damn ferts, ya cheap bastids!"]

nice setup mellokitty

mellokitty said:

and my friends that are just starting out seem to come over with a bunch of questions and oh-so-casual empty bottles in hand, lol ["get ur own damn ferts, ya cheap bastids!"]

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LOL!! You and me both!

Growin in vegetative stage with t5 will make your plants really bushy? Is it the same
As using a MH ??

Hey MelloKitty. First time grower here. I just wanted to drop by and say you have done one hell of a job creating this thread. Its simple yet efficient. It has tons of valuable information. Thanks for donating your time to make this community smarter.

Your plants looks awesome.

Peace
allamay1608
aka stoner
aka women love me

blower said:

Growin in vegetative stage with t5 will make your plants really bushy? Is it the same
As using a MH ??

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You can literally put them 2" from your plants and they will bush like crazy. I like to change the distance i put them though to control bushyness and stretch with my toppin/lst

blower said:

Growin in vegetative stage with t5 will make your plants really bushy? Is it the same
As using a MH ??

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i think it's fair to compare the 2 for plant vigour, yeah.
and like roachclip says, i think they give the grower better control.

ever thought of using the Dyna-Gro nutrient line?

ive used the BLOOM nutrient line for a couple of years now (www.yellowbottles.com) and although i get GREAT results, its really expensive!!

ive been following one of "Homebrewer's" threads on dyna grow vs a advanced nutrient line where it seems like the dyna gro outperformed the more expensive A.N.

the nutes are cheap and provide ALL essential trace elements!

i know im going to try Dyna-Gro this next run!

nice setup man! GL

thanks for stopping in, i've been following that thread too (great stuff)!

thing is, grotek's not what you'd call expensive to begin with. if i do the math by what corbat says, the lineup we use is between 3 and 4 times cheaper than a.n for instance. (i'd heard it was expen$ive but holy $mokes, batman!)

i'd certainly be interested in doing a dg/gt side-by-side sometime, maybe if i have some spare cash by the time we flip.... but that's a big maybe lol.
that and i'm really digging that they're kinda local; they know exactly what i'm up against especially well.

Corbat420 said:

you could say that.... but then again i have a full line-up of AN products. paid over $600 for the full line, 1 L bottles. Grotek isn't better beacuse its cheaper, basically the same thing except grotek doesn't have MANY of the unlisted ingredients that are in alot of the more expensive nutes.

it doesn't matter what you use, as long as you know how to use it.

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I ditched advanced for greenplanet nutes. Now i grow top self. Ive never got that with advanced. I buy one bottle that advanced puts in 5 bottles. Its called massive.
Then i also use grotek's vitamax, prosilicate and monsterbloom . For base i use green planets Two part Hydrofuel A+B and recently bought there Grow two part to replace Grow Micro Bloom for veg and first three weeks.
At week 4-6 I use massive at 3/4 strength and monsterbloom at 1/3 strength.

How much does it cost you in power bills to run over 16k watts?

puffenuff said:

How much does it cost you in power bills to run over 16k watts?

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a LOT!.....

mr.smileyface said:

I ditched advanced for greenplanet nutes. Now i grow top self. Ive never got that with advanced. I buy one bottle that advanced puts in 5 bottles. Its called massive.
Then i also use grotek's vitamax, prosilicate and monsterbloom . For base i use green planets Two part Hydrofuel A+B and recently bought there Grow two part to replace Grow Micro Bloom for veg and first three weeks.
At week 4-6 I use massive at 3/4 strength and monsterbloom at 1/3 strength.

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i think like woodsmaneh! says, it's all about finding a combination you're comfortable with, right? if a.n were 4x as idiot-proof for the money, it might be worth it, but that's not what i'm seeing in homebrewer's thread...
and there hasn't been a dirt problem i haven't been able to solve between vitamax, a silica product (like pro-silicate) and/or changing up my watering habits.

it's been a few days since an update, eh...? i'll see what i can do about that....