why dont some people like botanicare

see a lot of people hate botanicare. is there a reason why? its sorta expensive but its what i use for hydro and it works for me. what do you guys recommend instead?

I have heard good things about Botanicare, they have a Raw product line now. I had good luck with 3D Organics on my last grow, i got it free too from the last expo i went too. I heard House & Garden products are excellent also, hope this helps some.

i like botanicare they have great products

glad to hear. im new to hydro and i love it so far. i cant say if its good or bad because i've never had anything to compare it to. i'll post some pics when i get a chance. i got 2 beautiful ladies ready for flower using only botanicare, tap water, and a cal mag supplement. cant believe how fast it is compared to soil. although im told it wont taste as good.

Botanicare is not horrible. Have you flowered anything yet? Let us know how you like it.

Same reason why some people hate Advanced Nutrients and Fox Farm or General Hydroponics, I would suppose. Although to me it doesn't seem like Botanicare gets as much shit as those three companies seem to around here. I use Liquid Karma and some of the Organicare products and I love them (especially Humega).
I would also say that a lot of people really don't even realize exactly what product x is doing for them, or why exactly they are using it.

jack ripa said:

Botanicare is not horrible. Have you flowered anything yet? Let us know how you like it.

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nope, im about to start flowering on 2 sweet tooth clones. i've always been a soil guy but i just started experimenting with a small hydro system. excellent results in veg. i'll keep posted how the flowering is going.

Nullis said:

Same reason why some people hate Advanced Nutrients and Fox Farm or General Hydroponics, I would suppose. Although to me it doesn't seem like Botanicare gets as much shit as those three companies seem to around here. I use Liquid Karma and some of the Organicare products and I love them (especially Humega).
I would also say that a lot of people really don't even realize exactly what product x is doing for them, or why exactly they are using it.

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thanks for the post. i've always heard advanced nutrients is way overpriced. i've only used their overdrive (bud hardener). not sure if it made a difference or not.
i like fox farm. been using it for my soil grow. i used their soil last grow but switched to humboldt. not sure which i like better but both seem high quality. i just add some lime. gotta be careful with that tiger bloom. its so easy to burn with it. that big bloom is great though. i use it all the time.
i've always been told to stay away from general hydroponics. not sure why. i use their ph down and ph 7 calibrating solution for my hydro. im gonna stick with botanicare though otherwise for my hydro. its sort of expensive but it works and until i use something that works as good for cheaper, i'll stick with it. not sure if im even going to stick with hydro though. i love the process but not sure if i would have the time for it. i barely have time for my soil plants.

Do you know that all these "magical" nutes/additives being sold at hydro stores and other places are nothing more than a huge rip-off? Do some research on their ingredients and you'll find everything in larger quantities and at 1/10 the price of the hydro stores.

Rj41 said:

Do you know that all these "magical" nutes/additives being sold at hydro stores and other places are nothing more than a huge rip-off? Do some research on their ingredients and you'll find everything in larger quantities and at 1/10 the price of the hydro stores.

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do you have a source to back that up?
yeah thats fine if you want to go to walmart and buy a few big bags of junk thats supposed to be used for a 100 square foot yard. one of my patients started off using all that shit before i was his caregiver and burned the hell out of his plants. sure they worked for him, but after i introduced him to fox farm, everything is much nicer.

I cant say anything bad about it.WORKS GREAT FOR ME, FULL LINE.SOIL

skiweeds said:

do you have a source to back that up?

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Are you joking? lol! I'm not going to get into yet another long discussion over this. The sources are everywhere. Do some research for yourself. It's easy.

I will provide one example though. I'm looking at my free sample of SNS604B. 97.11% water. In case someone doesn't understand that, it's ninety seven point one one percent WATER! WOW!! $90 for a quart of H2O!!
other ingrediants: .1% (that's ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT) humic acid. I can buy 10lbs of that stuff at my local garden ctr for $7.00. Next:.48% kelp. $11 for 9lbs at the local garden ctr. Lastly, 2.31% plant oils/extracts. Mumbo-jumbo to confuse unwary buyers into thinking they're getting something "magical".

skiweeds said:

yeah thats fine if you want to go to walmart and buy a few big bags of junk thats supposed to be used for a 100 square foot yard. one of my patients started off using all that shit before i was his caregiver and burned the hell out of his plants. sure they worked for him, but after i introduced him to fox farm, everything is much nicer.

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Now, now, calm down. Sounds to me that that person simply didn't do their research ahead of time.
Throw some Tiger Bloom on your girls. Whoops! Added a tiny bit too much now your girls are all fried!
See what I'm saying?

Botanicare makes quality products, there CalMag in my opinion is the best on the market and priced reasonably. I only use Calmag from them, but have used there line in the past and do not have any complaints. Some lines are overpriced and lots of there additives are not needed. Just find one that works for you and only use additives if you need them or want a little something more. It is all a learning process that you must figure out what is best for you and your individual garden. Everyones garden is gonna be a little a different unless you are using a sealed room and not bringing in any outside air.

Rj41 said:

Are you joking? lol! I'm not going to get into yet another long discussion over this. The sources are everywhere. Do some research for yourself. It's easy.

I will provide one example though. I'm looking at my free sample of SNS604B. 97.11% water. In case someone doesn't understand that, it's ninety seven point one one percent WATER! WOW!! $90 for a quart of H2O!!
other ingrediants: .1% (that's ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT) humic acid. I can buy 10lbs of that stuff at my local garden ctr for $7.00. Next:.48% kelp. $11 for 9lbs at the local garden ctr. Lastly, 2.31% plant oils/extracts. Mumbo-jumbo to confuse unwary buyers into thinking they're getting something "magical".


Now, now, calm down. Sounds to me that that person simply didn't do their research ahead of time.
Throw some Tiger Bloom on your girls. Whoops! Added a tiny bit too much now your girls are all fried!
See what I'm saying?

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i see what you mean but i simply just dont have time to be doing all that research and mix my own nutes like that. if i had some kind of guide on what to buy and how much to mix, it would greatly help. i just prefer nutrient companies because they have done a lot of research and testing and found out what ratios of what are best. sure they mark up their price to make a profit but thats just business. i'd rather leave the mixing research up to them. that is really cool you mix your own though. its just i cant see myself finding time for it at this point in time. i have 3 gardens in different locations that i visit at least once a day. plus i work 2 jobs. maybe down the road when i find the time i will get into mixing my own stuff. its just i take it i would have to do a lot of experimenting to get things right. thanks for the post and the example. something definitely worth looking into when i get some extra spare time.

HumboldtHealer said:

Botanicare makes quality products, there CalMag in my opinion is the best on the market and priced reasonably. I only use Calmag from them, but have used there line in the past and do not have any complaints. Some lines are overpriced and lots of there additives are not needed. Just find one that works for you and only use additives if you need them or want a little something more. It is all a learning process that you must figure out what is best for you and your individual garden. Everyones garden is gonna be a little a different unless you are using a sealed room and not bringing in any outside air.

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for sure! i only use botanicare for my hydro along with tap water. no other special additives. no molasses or peroxide. plants look great so i dont see a need to. i was using a 56''x56''x78'' tent 600w hps with all fox farm plus bloombastic in soil. i spray the surface of the soil every once in a while with neem also to help prevent mold. now i have about a 10x10 part of a basement. 7 600w hps. also using the lumatek ballasts which have the super lumens feature. mostly soil but also a small hydro setup. then another small room for veg. my exhaust is an 8'' 720 cfms. im actually working right now on sealing my room because in time im going to get a water cooled co2 generator. going to cost me over a grand though cause along with the co2 generator i need to have some control units for it. not cheap but worth it and will pay for itself.

Personally, I use bits and pieces of everything and I've found that Botanicare does have some good products that work well for me. I absolutely have to use their CalMag because I feel it's the best one on the market. From what I've heard, this CalMag seems to have the most "Water Soluble" CalMag than say General Hydroponics CalMag. This is what I've been told by my Hydro Store but I can't argue with the results. I've also used their "Sweet" products for carbs. Works awesome as well but I'm switching over to Advanced Nutrients Liquid Carboload for my next grow to experiment and see the difference. Supposedly, the AN Liquid Carboload is the purest form of carbs to your plant/beneficial microbes. Again, I'll be experimenting to confirm this, but I can definitely confirm that the CalMag and Sweet products from Botanicare work well. No complaints.

Also, for all you CoCo growers out there, CalMag is essential. Your CoCo needs to be supplemented with CalMag or else it will start pulling it from your plants. The Botanicare CalMag cleared up all of my spotting.

im using the bontanicare nutrient line in organic soil and i cant say anything bad about it
buds are already frosty as hell at only 23 days flowering

the only thing i've heard bad about botanicare is that their sweet contains cianide i do believe it was.. i smoke cigs, so it didn't really turn me off to the product.. i'm just repeating what i've read on here in the past..

racerboy71 said:

the only thing i've heard bad about botanicare is that their sweet contains cianide i do believe it was.. i smoke cigs, so it didn't really turn me off to the product.. i'm just repeating what i've read on here in the past..

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A lot of hydroponics fertilizers contain EDTA, which is a synthetic chelating agent made from sodium cyanide and formaldehyde. If a product contains EDTA it should be listed in the ingredients; usually you'll see it with a nutrient, for example "iron EDTA", "zinc EDTA", "copper EDTA", or as "disodium ethylenediamine tetra acetate".

skiweeds said:

i see what you mean but i simply just dont have time to be doing all that research and mix my own nutes like that. if i had some kind of guide on what to buy and how much to mix, it would greatly help. i just prefer nutrient companies because they have done a lot of research and testing and found out what ratios of what are best. sure they mark up their price to make a profit but thats just business. i'd rather leave the mixing research up to them. that is really cool you mix your own though. its just i cant see myself finding time for it at this point in time. i have 3 gardens in different locations that i visit at least once a day. plus i work 2 jobs. maybe down the road when i find the time i will get into mixing my own stuff. its just i take it i would have to do a lot of experimenting to get things right. thanks for the post and the example. something definitely worth looking into when i get some extra spare time.

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Got ya. Yeah, it is pretty time consuming sometimes. After a while though it gets routine which makes it faster. When I weigh the time against the amount of money I save though, it's well worth it.
I haven't ever come across a guide or chart to use. Maybe someone else has? Myself, I've always done the trial and error thing. As for what to buy, when I'm in my local garden center I've always just looked at the labels of the products that others are raving about and bought the same ingredients separately for HUGE savings.

I see a couple people mentioned Sweet? Oh man, I have to try to restrain myself! LOL!
Can someone tell me how much they paid for their bottle? And post the ingredients maybe?.
A $2.00 bottle of Blackstrap Molasses does the exact same thing.
Don't get me wrong, Sweet does work. But so does molasses for only a couple dollars.