House and Garden Aquaflakes A&B

Thought I'd share my experience with H&G.

At the request of the people fronting the money, I ran Aqua flakes A & B for a few weeks in our room.

Gotta say I'm not impressed. I really don't like companies that intentionally give you incomplete base nutes so that you need to use the whole lineup to get quality results. Their flakes A&B only includes macronutrients, NPK Ca and Mg. This is probably why they request that you foliar feed with one of their additional kelp products every week. To correct the micro deficiency caused by their base nutes.

2 of our 4 strains started showing serious deficiencies running this line. And we were running the entire H&G line aside from the foliar feeding. Proper ratios at 1.4EC.

Just gotta say I'm not a fan. I've had 1 part base nutes give better results. I'll still use their roots excelurator, but that's it..

I used magpro and protekt in my Aqua Flakes test and it did really well. I have a feeling that they don't list all their ingredients on the bottles and mislead their customers about the percentages of the minerals they do list. Nevertheless, my grow was trouble-free and consistent with no surprises. That's a lot more than I can say about Connoisseur .

Did you use just the base? or all of their kelp products too?

The A & B base alone did terrible for me. Switched to the same EC of floranova and they exploded with growth and deficiencies were gone.


Edit: Even their MSDS and the aapfco analysis state that they only use macros in their base, NPKCaMg.

Clown Baby said:

Did you use just the base? or all of their kelp products too?

The A & B base alone did terrible for me. Switched to the same EC of floranova and they exploded with growth and deficiencies were gone.


Edit: Even their MSDS and the aapfco analysis state that they only use macros in their base, NPKCaMg.

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I grew with RO water in my ebb & flow tables using protekt, Aqua Flakes a & b and magpro, that's it. I fed at the same EC that has given me great results with GH and DG and H&G did well. Overall I really liked it and based on their concentration levels, the base was as cheap to run as DG. Again, I was adding magpro so maybe it's short on mg? It's hard to tell as they list one set of NPK values/ratios on their bottles yet register another with Oregon's Dept. of Agriculture. That's one thing I didn't like about their product, if you don't know what's in it, how can you learn from the grow or tweak the feedings for optimal results? You're pretty much growing on blind faith with some of these companies which is unacceptable IMO.

I have run both aqua flakes, and coco a and b in coco smart pots...... I like the aqua flake if i am running a recirc style run as that is what it is made for so i noticed the doses where a little lacking if ran DTW where Hydro would be better for this but to hot if ran recirc.

Anyway, all I used was SilicaBlast or the Madd Farmer Equiv. I also used Cal-Mag and that was it...... had pretty consistant results with both but an back to CSN-17 and Silica and its all I need.

I do love Roots Excel. for early veg though!!

Aqua flakes is actually a bloom nute in europe, since they don't have the veg nutes out here, they sell a product called N27 that is a N + MG boost.

Clown Baby said:

Their flakes A&B only includes macronutrients, NPK Ca and Mg.

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What else should be in there? Lets see you have stated they have the micros and the npk so whats missing? A plant only requires elements to grow...The deficiency I am betting is IRON. Magnetic driven water pumps and air stones deplete IRON rapidly in a hydro system and a cal mag supplement with IRON in it should be used. Oh and on a second note I guarantee your wrong because part A I know for a fact has humic acid in it but thats not listed either. They wont tell you whats in there for a reason...the competition would know also.

mr. green thumb 01 said:

What else should be in there? Lets see you have stated they have the micros and the npk so whats missing? A plant only requires elements to grow....

• Oh and on a second note I guarantee your wrong because part A I know for a fact has humic acid in it but thats not listed either. They wont tell you whats in there for a reason...the competition would know also.​
  
  

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My complaint is that all of this could easily be added to their base instead of making you buy all of the additives to make it a complete fertilizer.
And what does your knowledge of humic acid have anything to do with micros? and im pretty sure their humic comes from the multizen.

As far as your arguement for an iron deficiency, well then H&G must use some special swedish iron, because ive never had an iron deficiency with any other nute line, mag pumps or not.

Point of my post was that this company makes you buy at least 3-6 bottles to get complete nutrition when it could instead be consolidated into one or two. Shady business practices trying to take advantage of uninformed growers. This is also why im hesitant to buy AN products..

I was just sharing my experience with H&G. If you want to keep shelling out money for it, then by all means do.

mr. green thumb 01 said:

What else should be in there? Lets see you have stated they have the micros and the npk so whats missing? .

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also, I stated that thay have "MACROS" NPK Ca Mg. <Those are macros, not micros.