Product Evaluation.

[oldtimer1]

hi ot,been following your growing methods for a while now with great results cheers.

i,ve been pondring on a couple of thoughts as to the changes you,ve made to your set up and supplies etc.

1,do you still use your own soil mix.

2,do you still use 60/40 hps/mh.

3,are the new digi ballasts up to scratch now.

i know your a busy man but if you get time then thanks

i was surpised to here how bad the adjust a shade was,i use one and it works great for me.

to be honest i bought it because the large reflector can hold 2 lamps so i could get the benefit of 60/40 hps/mh,in saying that it works great aswell and can be turned easily every light cycle.

i know im just a novice,just wanted to share my thoughts.....cheers jaffaman

This is for mainly for jaffaman, but others may be interested.

1, No I don’t still use my own compost mix, as I got older the work lifting and mixing has became to much, my mind is willing but my body is not so good. I would still prefer to, for a couple of years a friend did it for me, its a lot to ask and he would forget the odd ingredient. As a comment some of the newer compost are pretty good and I think they will improve further.

2, I tend to change the lamps as I outlined above, it suites what I have at the moment. I still think a mix all the time is better, but I would make changes ie start with 40/60 hps/mh, then 60/40 then back to 40/60 for the last few weeks.

3, To be honest no, I think it is still emerging technology, they are the best by a long way as far as driving hid lamps and the light they produce, the radio interference is sorted, but reliability is still a problem. I went up one day the red light was on, the lamp was fine, it was the ballast that had failed. Ok I have spare ballasts, so could replace immediately while the digital unit was replaced. Its a faf doing that in the middle of a sog grow, also I don't look every day, at some points I may only look every 4 to 7 days. Ok there is a no quibble 3 year new for old on failed Ventronic ballasts. I asked the shopkeeper at the time and he said mine was the only one to fail on the latest version, they have sold lots and I’m sure there may have been others since. The thing is venture are a main stream manufacturer, to make profit, the things they sell have to be reliable, so the way I see it any glitches will rapidly be sorted out. I like the Ventronic enough to have dug deep bought some more to replace the rest of my coil and core ballasts, if that means anything.

As to your Q about the sunmaster hps, I don’t think there is a lot between it and the Nav-t-supers but without doing a direct side by side in the same room I can’t really tell to be truthful.

As a final comment using the adjust a shade as you are is a good idea with two lamps, its main problems are its size and that it reflects mainly in two directions off set to one side, so its light distribution over 360 is very uneven. With your set up its much more balanced, a quarter turn every day for 4 days then back would distribute the spectrums very nicely, its a lot of faff is all.

I hope this helps, Ot1

[jaffaman]

cheers ot thanks for the info

peace jaffaman

[jaffaman]

hey ot1 just thought i would show you the small adjustment i,ve made after a wee tip from your good self.

after a wee bit of thought i came up with this for the lights to be turned a quarter and i must say it does the job a treat,

thanks again ot1.

peace jaffaman.

[jaffaman]

forgot to say ot,i need to get some more halides for the flower room,i use the 400w venture whitelux 4000k coolwhite.

last night i found a web site that sells 400w whitelux but rated at 5200k daylight.

which one do you think would be better.

paece jaffaman.

[oldtimer1]

5200k every time, glad things are working out for you.

[jaffaman]

5200k every time, glad things are working out for you.

cheers ot,it just shows you how the little things can make alot of difference.

peace jaffaman.

[seedsandsticks]

Has anyone used the venture metal halide 600w HIT lamp?

I use a 600hps and 400mh, but would like to be able to change to 600mh and 400 hps during flowering.

[oldtimer1]

I use the venture 600w MH, I think they are 7200k, so very blue white. You can get powerplant or BLV 600w halide but they are 4000k, personally I prefer the venture.

[frangiNeuron]

Respect OT1!

An inspiration to all in method and application!

Any news on if the reflector is commercially available yet?

Googled for it and could only find a dimpled, non miro version.

I understand no links, but an affirmation that it is out there would allow me to release the dogs of search!

Peace and love for the new year to all !

frangiNeuron

[Guest budzilla2010]

I'm glad I came across this thread as I think I'm going to give 'GH Biosevia' a go in Hydro, using Fytocell as the medium.

I believe the Fytocell would be a very good place for the BM to thrive in because of its large open cell structure.

I was toying with the idea of doing a Organic grow using 2-1 Batmix - Fytocell and using PM or Biobizz nutes. I think from what OT1 said its safe enough to give Biosevia a go in Hydro, if it doesn't work out then I'll switch back to mineral hydro nutes.

It does look an interesting prospect to manage a microherd in a Hydroponic medium. TBH i'm getting bored of Lucas Formula and want something else worthwhile to spend my time on and I think if this works it will be well time spent.

I have been trying to find reports from other Hydro growers using this product but the resources on the net are rather limited.

I was hoping that by opening this thread up again someone would have had a go in the last 4 years since the OP.

Does anyone have any views/results/opinions they can share with me please??

Thanks in advance ...BudZ...

e2a - For clarity, I am planning to use 100% Fytocell as the growing medium.

Shopping list so far is, Mineral Magic, BM Culture, PM Granules, Biosevia Grow and Bloom.

Edited March 9, 2011 by budzilla2010

[Happy Hippy]

HI budz

Is it because you specially want to go organic hydro your looking at Boisevia or can you not just give it a go with ot1 bloom/grow etc but still use your fytocell as your growing media?and water by hand to become more involved..

Peace

[Guest budzilla2010]

HI budz

Is it because you specially want to go organic hydro your looking at Boisevia or can you not just give it a go with ot1 bloom/grow etc but still use your fytocell as your growing media?and water by hand to become more involved..

Peace

Hi dude, thanks for replying.

Well from what I've gathered the OT bloom and Biobizz wont work in Fytocell as there is no means to populate a micro herd, but form looking at the Biosevia range the BM Bioponic mix creates a microherad that feed off the nutes (forgive me if I sound naive, not much organic experience and a bit of a noob all round).

I water by hand anyway, i currently only grow passive Hydro in Fytocell or perlite mix. I get really good results using Lucas formula but I want to try and get those sort of yeilds but also get a good tasting organic bud, OT says Biosevia tasted better than Biobizz.

OT got nearly the same yield with Biosevia as he did with Biobizz and I've heard that Hydro users will get 3x as much in soil using this nute range. I feel its something that has to be tried as if it works it would be a no brainer.

basically the reason I am attracted to this is that it has been said to taste great and the yield is good, like 75% of what you'd get with Mineral hydro nutes.

Have you used this Happy Hippy'? or have you tried Biobizz in Hydro (I assume you would still need BM Bioponics mix, unless you could get the same effect using Granules???) ?

[Happy Hippy]

HI budz

Is it because you specially want to go organic hydro your looking at Boisevia or can you not just give it a go with ot1 bloom/grow etc but still use your fytocell as your growing media?and water by hand to become more involved..

Peace

Hi dude, thanks for replying.

Well from what I've gathered the OT bloom and Biobizz wont work in Fytocell as there is no means to populate a micro herd, but form looking at the Biosevia range the BM Bioponic mix creates a microherad that feed off the nutes (forgive me if I sound naive, not much organic experience and a bit of a noob all round).

I water by hand anyway, i currently only grow passive Hydro in Fytocell or perlite mix. I get really good results using Lucas formula but I want to try and get those sort of yeilds but also get a good tasting organic bud, OT says Biosevia tasted better than Biobizz.

OT got nearly the same yield with Biosevia as he did with Biobizz and I've heard that Hydro users will get 3x as much in soil using this nute range. I feel its something that has to be tried as if it works it would be a no brainer.

basically the reason I am attracted to this is that it has been said to taste great and the yield is good, like 75% of what you'd get with Mineral hydro nutes.

Have you used this Happy Hippy'? or have you tried Biobizz in Hydro (I assume you would still need BM Bioponics mix, unless you could get the same effect using Granules???) ?

No m8 ive not tried it myself but have used Ferile Fibre coco with organic bio bizz nutes and fishmix from the FFibre company...i have 2 bales left to use and im going to give hydro organic a grow and finish em off with Ot1 bloom as this is the best thing ive finished with so far...just with compo mind.

Very interested in your fytocell knowledge quest tbh..

peace

[oldtimer1]

I don’t have a clue about hydro growing with organics, that can really work in the real world. I was asked to test the above in compost. The rest of this is just idle speculation on my part.

When I was offered these fertilisers to test, ghe’s recommendation was that they could be used in active hydro with a constant flow oxygenated nutrient/water bio filter to enable a living culture, have a home to breed and multiply, constantly flowing from and to the reservoir. I can understand that working fairly well.

They sold an inoculant mix selected to thrive in a water culture, called biomagix to populate the bio filter.

As far as I know BM Culture is just trichoderma h.

I don’t, as I said have a clue about hydro design for hydro, PM organic, biosevia organic and biobizz, should work fine in an active bio filter system.

Without testing and I’m not really interested in taking the time to do it, Its quite possible that the micro heard in granules could be supported in a medium like fytocell or just coir with the addition of a little boost to help them establish.

I’ve seen people complain about PM+s coco nutrients, then when you look they have a static reservoir, connected to an auto pot system, they don’t understand growing. PM+s coco nutrients are a mix of chemical salts and organic components, without circulation and constant oxygenation some will sediment out others start to putrefy under the anaerobic or part anaerobic conditions. Its just a matter of understanding the science behind what is going on.

So if you used fytocell as a medium and it was not overwatered so it developed anaerobic conditions and you managed to establish an active micro heard, it could work with something like biosevia, but the critical thing is you need the microbes to break down the organic particles in the fertiliser, if you use fytocell without, you would get a build up of unused organic matter, this will tend to putrefy, nasty bacteria thriving and all sorts of nutrient problems would develop cumulating at the end of your grow just when you don’t need it. Coir would probably be a better bet as its sharper draining, hold more air and naturally acts as a home to microbes and fungi.

[vince noir rock n roll star]

excuse me for jumping in here ..i believe fytocell cannot be overwatered to create aneorobic conditions ..max water retention is about 66%