delta9nxs

hello, people, i'm a bio-bucket convertee after four years of perpetual harvest with different styles of hydro. i'm soon to start my 5th grow with this system. i'm trying to go more organic with my ferts. i began with gh 3part, then the b.c. stuff, then flora nova, all with good results, but none are organic. in Daltron's last grow he mentioned using pure blend original and liquid karma at very low levels and getting great results. this is very appealing to me because they are both organic and i think it's just good sense to use the minimum of anything to feed your plants and still get good results. my questions are:

is anyone out there using the same stuff?

what recipe?

is cal-mag necessary with r/o water?

thanks, delta9nxs

Lollie

Hi delta9nxs,

Welcome to gardenscure.

I'm still working with General Hydroponics flora series so I can't help with going organic.

I use r/o water and cal-mag is a necessary additive for healthy growth in my garden but I'd recommend waiting to see if the plants need it. In my opinion, it's one of those fine tuning nutrients-some gardens need it, some don't. There are a lot of variables in gardening. The first step, in my opinion, is getting a general formula that works. Since I use GH nutrients maybe that's why I feel I need it. The reason I added it was because my leaves weren't as healthy as I wanted them later in flowering. I had many satisfactory harvests before I got good enough to notice the deficiency. Since you like to go with the minimum of anything to feed your plants and still get good results-which is a great idea-I'd suggest waiting.

All the best,
Lollie

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firsttimer2065

what is r/o water?

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n_d_shadows

Reverse Osmosis

snwbrdr

I am on the begining stages of using the pure blend pro grow and flower in conjunction with liquid kharma and have followed up on dals nutes for a long time now and other peoples systems as well.

from what i can tell in the bio-systems the pureblend seems to be the most stable when used with the liquid karma and with such low levels like dal experienced would be great!

Im not sure on the r/o water however...i dont have that...but the liquid karma does have alot of trace minerals and such so that may work......Id check into the LK and see if taht will work for you.

as for my reciepe im just gonna use half strength liquid karma and full strength pure blend (when there full grown of course)

well thats about all i got, im just barely gettting deeper into the bio buckets myself. but the nutes IMO kick ass so far.

I have a sick gal right now in a DWC ghetto rig with 1300 ppm of pureblend and liquid karma at like a 3:1 ratio, but there are no BB in it im just trying to nurse it back to health.....hopefully with the BB's i can lower the ppms a bit...we will see

delta9nxs

lollie, thank you for your input. i'm probably going to have to use cal-mag. it seems most people with r/o water do.

snwbr, thank you. i am trying to find the best combination of nutes and stay as organic as i can. since you are doing bio-buckets, your info is will help a lot. i'm wondering now how many people are using bio-buckets. maybe we could form some kind of group here to exchange info. while they work great the way they are, i think they can be improved. maybe people could post there nutes, training techniques, list the flow rates (which i feel are the turbocharger that makes this thing go), theories on anything to do with the science involved, medium, ph , temps, and so on. i realize there is a lot of info here already, and i have read a lot of it, but this bio thing, while still in it's infancy, is so amazing i think it deserves it's own spot or something. let me know what you think about this. later

firsttimer2065, hi, r/o water refers to reverse osmosis filtration of water. in the context of what we do here, some people live in areas where the tap water has a high rate of dissolved solids, mostly calcium and magnesium, but there can be a lot of other junk in there too, some toxic. these dissolved solids can wreak havoc with your water chemistry by interacting with your nutes and ph controls. i have had a lot of problems with my tap water being in the 360 ppm range. if you your ppm's are under about 100 ppm's you don't have to worry about it. i bought a 100 gallon a day unit at lowes for $158.00. now i have .010 ppm at a starting ph of 6.9 but i have another problem and that is finding nutes and additives, that, together, work in r/o water. the advantage now being that i am dealing with a known value and can make measured adjustments rather than guess. hope this helps.

snwbrdr

delta - for sure i would agree with you entirely i love the system and i love teh concept about it. I too agree that the system is fully tweakable and can be improved to fit ones own needs. I have changed the design of the system quite a bit, now resembles more a DWC with a control bucket....I will post a journal as soon as im ready. I just took clones today. so in 7-14 days i should have my system up and running full steam.
there are several journals since dals about bio-ponics, i have been following most of them very closely and am very impressed with the results.
maybe if we get a big enough following moderators will consider a subforum for bio-buckets or bio-ponics.....if not we still have the good ol' hydroponic thread to colaborate our plethera of wisdom.

you should start a journal delta so that you can help start the gathering information and results of the biobuckets.

I have included a pic of my system thats being built right now, its going inside a 1000w cab with c02 enrichment....the red circles are the lave rock and where teh plants will be.......

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delta9nxs

snwbr, that's what i mean about sharing info. from your pic i can see several possible advantages; if the pump is just lifting and then shooting out in free air instead of into long runs of plumbing. it could improve your flow rate. you would have to have large inlets and outlets to handle volume, but that's not a problem. also, if i read it right, this would allow the containers to be on the floor. more headroom to grow in. full contact with a large slab could help you moderate water temps. the pump could also be used to power drain the system. cool.

i have been going over this kind of stuff for a few months now, trying to find a better way. thanks, i'm looking forward to your grow.

delta9nxs

snwbrdr, see, i can get your handle right. i just reread your reply and realized i had it wrong, sorry

derethigon

I have used Pure Blend Pro Grow and Bloom on a few grows where I only changed the water once at flowering to swap out for Bloom. These nutes are very complete and all the beneficial bacteria keeps helping more and more over time. I also use Botanicare's Hydroguard, which I'll never grow without.

Good luck!