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Plant Questions


junkman

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Too funny. This whole industry is so full of crap... So much of the products r just junk, and yet we have stores full of it. Used to think that it must just b me, and if they r still selling it, it must'v just been me. Yet i still c products selling that have caused all sorts of problems to multiple growers iv known. That ebb&gro system is another example of a problem waiting to happen, yet it is still being sold and used, though no one i know personally that tried them have ever kept them around,,, yet it is still out there and is selling. I dont think people r very honest about their real results, be it pride or insecurity or whatever.

 

Im heading to the store to reup on items, il pick up a small bag and just check it out again. Just to c if i get the same results.

on the other side are growers starting off at the bottom of the plant resource scale, and then stating that "X" brands of products are failures. I here it often, so I don't complain much about products, but I've tried them all, some bought all at once. those black lines are safe for air possibly, but change up chems in a bad way with salts and water for example.

 

local rock stores will be able to supply a dumptruck of perfect grow stones. I don't know the name of them anymore but

they are used specifically as backfill for structural landscaping, roads, etc. not commercial lava stones, but they are lava I think. lava stones jerked me too. sand, wood chips, perlite(floaty PITA), gravel(heavy) worked ok for me, but I settled on hydroton, then a dumptruck delivered a pile of those other rocks. I still have piles of them scattered. I love aero but temps jerked me, at the time I didn't want to invest in a chiller, silly me. something tells me organics might work in that system...not sure. They work with my dutch bucket drain to waste though. I still dream in hydro, but live in dirt now. lol

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the real boogers are in those multiple bottles of nutrients they sell. there are no rules, anyone can make and bottle these in there garage. labels are cheap, and nutrients are around 1900%(last I checked) cheaper when purchased at the farm store, and mixed accordingly. issue comes when "additives" are placed inside using names like chelators and such. bloom boosters, crop dusters, hedge trimmers, baseball throwers, blah, blah.....some of those items contain great substance, if you wish to grow for photography, but smoke at your own risk. caveat emptor

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On the plus side grass, that is all called 'experience', and most peeps entering in this arena have none. After all, its just growing plant... How hard can that be? Shiit, they do it outside all by themselves, lol. What? Hundred dollar bills dont just bloom right on the stems?!? ;-). I know it isnt kind to suggest, but a lot of these johnny come lately types deserve the hard knocks.

 

I bought a 9L bag of the stuff, and to start out I out it straight into a 3g bucket, w a 1.0ec/6.0ph solution. Took about 1.5g to fill past the top of the rocks where the upper layer began to float. Wanted to check to c what it does w/o a prerinse, but will transfer it to a pit and do some rinses (will capture and check the runoff during that process too) before i do another soak. Il check her in about 8hrs, then again at roughly 24hrs. Depending on what i c, will do the rest of the test. Noticed they changed the label on the bags... They say a 'quick rinse', so we shall c.

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That's cool grass, i have to believe u will have the same results... It is the very nature of this medium imo. Dont bother wasting the 10bucks and giving this company any more cash flows.

 

So, it is snowing first of all, wtf?

 

After 9hrs of soaking (no prerinse)... Ec surprised me in that it hasnt moved, or at least less than what my meter can register. It is slightly cloudy, not that the fluid isnt clear still, but def has particulate matter in there.

 

The ph... Drum roll... Is at 8.4. Okay then. The only things i know of that raise the ph so drastically w such little in ppms is hydrated lime, and potassium silicate... And this stuff, whatever the actual chemistry is.

 

From my recollection, i ran around 8x the volume of the medium the first time i tried to flush the medium, and in the end, it kept raising the ph. My bet is that it would be the case throughout the entire grow, that the high ph is within the very nature of the medium itself. Perhaps it would be okay to cut it into some peat amd drop the dolomite lime, but certainly not as a stand alone hydro medium.

 

Total bulllshiit of a product, for what we do at least.

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my spring water is a steady 6.9

I have oodles of hydro nutes unused, DM being one that never affect my ph once in solution.

 

I filled  buckets with fresh water and ph was 6.9

I let it sit till evening and rechecked @ 6.9

 

I whirled some of those bogus grow stones about a "quart" full straight out of the bag into one unrinsed and the other rinsed.

 

half hour and  ph checks with stones were soaring @ 9 rinsed or not.

 

I added  a half strength fert to both and the ph dropped to 8.5, this morning both settled at a burning 9, while

 

ferts alone in water reads 6.8

 

 

 

I got re tinkle'd, tossed the buckets and the remainder of the bag into a hole in the yard, never to look back.

I imagine the revenue resulting from growers begging for solutions is enough reason to overlook any issues like this.

I buy dirt only now. and switched from the hydro store to the nursery for my supply. interesting the nursery has begun selling

hydro nutrients and lights now.

 

next findings......mites actually originate at the grow store......... :P

I live on a farm, no mites in the grow. I park my lawn tractor next to my soil mixing station, on a dirt floor.  20 feet away form the grow room entrance. my dog has free reign on the dirt floor, and even works with me occasionally in the garden, no she doesn't have her card yet, we outlaws ya know..

 My chickens often "bathe" in my newly mixed dirt for weeks before I use it. I don't encourage this, but see it often.  All of my spent soil is dumped and stored for months on same dirt floor, in trays, etc.  I wash my octopots and bags about once a year, otherwise its a rough shake off of the roots, a thump on the res, and refill.

 

I found that mites are shipped with ladybugs as feed. grow store stocks ladybugs, and they aint starving.   Mites?  yep, I know the score now!

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phaq em!  been there, done that. I tell people about the stones, tubing, air stones, garden hoses,  and more.....some believe, some don't. stores don't care, manufacturer believes it is user error of course. some plants actually didn't care about the soaring ph in my trays while others failed over and over........"my plants loved them" can be heard from some.....

   caveat emptor.  phaq the grow stores. I used to be a supporter, even paid higher prices than online and told them so. asked for information....fail....provide information.....fail.......stand by products.....fail.......taking known losers off the shelf......fail.....Phaq em!

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Yeah its pretty bad grass. I noticed today that pH meter was off cal after playing w the stones yday... It was reading .2 higher than normal, after sitting in the cal solution for about a half hour. I already have trust issues w ph meters, the fact that this crap is adding to my doubt about getting a reliable and consistent reading is irking me. I just had to recal at .2 lower... Tomo i hope to be at .2 lower than cal, thinking maybe whatever is leaching from the stones works its way out. I scrubbed the probe too. Didnt mind validating the concerns over this crap, but really dont like it fukkin w my gear.

 

 

But yeah man, i look at the grow shop as a high danger vector for everything. And beyond the wet products that come in w bugs and eggs, the people r another risk vector. Iv seen people bring in their super stained, super filthy scrubbers in wanting to change out prefilters, only to wrestle the old one off right there in the darn store. It is more than likely those peeps grow mold, and that sock is embedded w thousands upon thousand of spores.., shaking off and into the air and onto all the products in the vicinity, which we may buy and transport right into our grow. And im sure some of those other customers come straight from their gardens to the shop w bugs crawling on them to boot. Grow shops r a high danger location. I wont type it here, but im sure we have both witnessed other activities that add to the concern as well. All sorts of bad bugs at those shops. Shiit, some places even have pallets dropped off outdoors, butted up against the grass growing outside, left there until they get around to bringing it inside... Along w whatever bugs started crawling on em, or spores that blew on em. And the ahops that actually grow plants inside... Jackazzes

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you guys should contact the company and aks for refund / explanation.

 

The product hasnt chaged in 4yrs apparently, although i swear the old language on the old bags was even more cautionary. Point is that they know perfectly well about the problems w their products, yet that hasnt stopped them from pushing it out the door, and marketing it. I highly doubt they would care about any complaints/concerns offered by the customer.

 

But yeah, if everyone returned the product, then maybe the stores would stop selling it. But most growers enter into it unaware and try to stick w it throughout the chop, like the op to this thread, hoping for the best, hoping it is something else, unwilling to cut their losses and start anew, wasting a few months of growing. So none of that gets returned. People just run it and try again (foolishly) the next chop, attributing their problems to some other cause. And more gets sold. In the end they move onto something else... The cost of personal experience i guess.

 

But grass has an old bag, and i just spent 10bucks on a sample bag, so it isnt really worth it to bother. Plus, could u imagine bringing back in wet/used medium for a return? If i worked there, i would refuse it, under the simole premise that they not only used it, but that i coupdnt account for how they used it, if the fault was there's or not. No way to tell. U bought it, u used it, no returns. Just dont buy it again if u dont like it, other people use it... Would be the standard line in a grow shop, imo.

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