Emmie's Berry D'licious 2019 True Living Organic: No AACT, SCROG, COB, SuperSoil Production Grow & Seed Run

[Emilya Green]

Today, when finally for the first time all week that I really have nothing to do, there is nothing to do in the grow room. Everyone is watered up and getting bigger and other than pre-build a few new containers, there isn't much that I can do today other than wait and take another weigh in this evening. Once I get to the hour-2hours a day training sessions with the screen, I will think back to this day with a smile.
I did finally need to close the tent up and turn on the evac fan/filter. The smell was starting to invade the rest of the house. Other than that, nothing special going on here.

 

[Emilya Green]

I should never be left alone with nothing to do in the garden. I put together a spreadsheet to manage the watering data a little easier. Send me a PM if you would like a copy.

Here is the current data, which cuts and pastes into the forum very easily.
Note the amazing water usage today on all of the plants!

Time/Interval​	08/03/19, 07:00​	.00​	08/03/19, 17:45​	10.75​
Plant ID​	Weight​	ml/hr​	Weight​	ml/hr​
T​	359.3​	*​	308.5​	4.7​
R​	402.3​	*​	358.2​	4.1​
B​	338.2​	*​	283.7​	5.1​
G​	368.7​	*​	329.1​	3.7​
N​	340.4​	*​	299.7​	3.8​

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 17
Lots going on in the tent the last 12 hours or so. Everyone now has been topped between 4 and 5. Blackie was the first to run out of water again and need to be uppotted. She actually got up to 6ml/hr there for a while and she drained that cup in a day. It is no wonder, for this is what I found:

After seeing that, I also checked on T, who should have been at the same point, but whos water usage had gone down slightly from the day before. Hmmm.

So T and also R got to go to the GeoPots as a group last night. The containers were packed exactly the same as the solo cups, with 1/3 of container filled with supersoil. The solo cup rootball fits right down onto this at a perfect height and my base mix of soil (Roots 101/FFOF) is packed in the top. I have used no additional spikes or layers with this container build other than a layer of pine bark mulch on the top of the soil.

	08/04/19, 07:15​	9.00​
	Weight​	ml/hr​
G	303.6​	1.5​
N	285.4​	0.7​

This morning, water usage was down on the last two also, and they seemed to be a little dejected that everyone else had new soil and they didn't, and since we were coming up on watering time again anyway, they also got the transplant.

So, everyone seems to be happy, sitting in their new smart pots and on top of river rocks so that air will hit them on all sides. The distance to the lights closed up by a couple of inches so the light intensity was reduced a bit again so as to maintain 14,000 LUX or so at the canopy. Despite the now established 18/6 cycle, I am still seeing cupping on some of the leaves, the least amount on the new growth though, if that makes any sense.

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 18

I have lost my ability to weigh my 1 gallon containers right now, not owning a scale that will accomodate them, so I am back to simply using the lift method and my calendar... for now. I think I will get a little 5lb scale to get accurate measurements at this stage too.

The plants all seem to be responding well to the new digs, and the results are being seen from the topping with all of the lower nodes starting to rise up. Here is a shot of Red, building strongly.

I still am trying to figure out the lighting. The recent changes have gotten the lights and my veg table a bit too close to each other, and even though I am reducing the output level accordingly, I think that for young plants the hotspots that result directly under the lights are just too much if you get too close. I raised the lights back up to 18" above the tallest plant, and upped the intensity just a bit to what I am measuring to be about 13,000 LUX at the top of the tallest plant. We shall see, but at this point it still has me perplexed and I am curious how the LUX numbers will change once I add more blue to the spectrum to make it totally full spectrum or CRI 100. I need to check Timber, I think, who uses these same COBS, and see what they are recommending at this stage.

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 19
Most of the containers felt pretty light this afternoon, and being that they are in new smart containers, I felt it was safe to give them their first proper watering after the transplant. The room did not disappoint me and collectively they took almost a gallon of water.

I am starting to lose my cotyledons on the largest two plants and still am seeing some spotting and loss of color on the first true leaves of these plants, so it is time to start giving a little extra. The new soil, still lacking proper fungal growths and a proper microlife population, can only give so much. There is a lot of potential still there, but the poor little microslaves can only work so fast and these fast growing plants need more readily available nitrogen and magnesium. To that end, this gallon had some extra goodies mixed in it, some liquid fish for the nitrogen and calcium and everything else, some lacto for all sorts of reasons, some aloe juice for its silicates to produce strong stalks, a half tsp of Great White Myco and finally some calmag.

I still have spotted no signs of sex and all of the plants except our runt are experiencing very rapid growth of the nodes below the cut.

 

[irie lion]

Hey Emy! They've definitely kicked up a gear and are growing at a good pace. Happy and healthy plants
That's a neat spreadsheet.

 

[Emilya Green]

Veg, Day 20

Things continue moving on and even the runt has returned to the action. The tallest plants now measure in at just short of 9" and the lower nodes continue to try to take dominance. I think I have finally found the sweet spot for these lights by raising them up to 26" and then turning the power up a bit. This evens out the light at the canopy and now I am able to measure 14,500 LUX at every point, partially eliminating the dim edge effect outside the perimeter of the light fixture, at a cool 75w per side, a total of 150 sizzling watts. The plants seem to love it as indicated by the added lift, and without the cupping we have been seeing with the lights down closer.
Everyone looks about as expected at this point and everyone is using water. I expect to want to water a few of them tomorrow night, setting up about a 3 day cycle, for now.

 

[drpepe]

The hydro guys like to think that they have the market cornered on scientific growing, what with all their extra meters, pumps, timers, measurements and all. A soil grower can geek out too and can track water use exactly. Six hours ago I measured the water suspended in my soil. I just repeated the measurement and now know several very good things, mostly that there has to be a big feeder root already in action at the bottom of the cup. The weight of the cup was just measured at 148.8g and this means that 25.2g of water has been used since this morning. That converts to .85oz and dividing that by six hours I know that this little sprig is now sucking up .15oz/hr! I am going to water the outside edges tonight before bed it looks like, and I bet we see this hourly water use increase as the roots continue to develop. Look at that... Emmers can actually see inside the soil.

I just now started reading your journal Emmy and I love it. I thought I was the only one who felt soil growing actually is every bit as complicated as any other method. The thing about soil is that it gives us more time to treat our babies in case we mess up. I haven't been using a scale but I did use my hand to feel the weight when they needed water lol

 

[fanleaf]

I need to check Timber, I think, who uses these same COBS, and see what they are recommending at this stage.

Not anymore they don't. Seems to me they went with less expensive stuff now. I'm sure it's the typical reasoning of "just as good but cheaper" talk. They are a business and in the game for profit. The turn to other "less expensive but just as good" components has turned me off. Sorry for the rant but anymore they seem to squeeze profits by making things cheaper as well as parroting stuff like "lumens are for humans par is for plants". True however there is also a strong relationship between the two.

at a cool 75w per side, a total of 150 sizzling watts.

...A whole 150 watts??? The power meter probably hasn't spun that slowly during a grow in the past.

 

[Emilya Green]

Thank you @drpepe and welcome aboard! Complicated is subjective I guess, but when you understand all the components, including the billions of microbes and fungi and all the stuff going on in that soil, the details can be a little overwhelming. Thankfully, soil just works, without all the manipulation needed in other methods and it does provide a buffer against the dumb things we might do, but I am convinced that we don't yet know everything there is to know about soil or even all the things that are in it that the plants need, yet it works anyway, without us knowing all the details. Sometimes the way mother nature intended does indeed turn out to be the best.

 

[Emilya Green]

Not anymore they don't. Seems to me they went with less expensive stuff now. I'm sure it's the typical reasoning of "just as good but cheaper" talk. They are a business and in the game for profit. The turn to other "less expensive but just as good" components has turned me off. Sorry for the rant but anymore they seem to squeeze profits by making things cheaper as well as parroting stuff like "lumens are for humans par is for plants". True however there is also a strong relationship between the two.


...A whole 150 watts??? The power meter probably hasn't spun that slowly during a grow in the past.

Oh... that is sad... They probably had problems with people burning up plants with these cobs, so they chose weaker ones. If they truly understood as we do, they would do as I am going to do for the next veg run and add 2 more 5k COBS... balancing out the spectrum and getting true LUX readings is going to be key to dialing this in. I am also starting to understand why they suddenly started recommending no reflectors... That too could have kept my light more diffused and not so intense in spots to burn these leaves. I am considering this evening the benefits of taking off the reflectors during veg, focusing in during bloom.

And yes, focused I can do this at this incredibly low wattage... never before have I had this sort of efficiency. Without reflectors quick math says I have to increase the wattage 70% to get the same intensity... and thats not a deal killer.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Veg, Day11
No numbers this morning, I got lazy last night and didn't reweigh after watering. Everyone in the tent has been watered properly now, and those watered 2 days ago are going to need more water either tonight or tomorrow morning. The wet/dry cycle has begun!
Revive on the first proper watering has made a huge difference and everyone is growing fast. Our runt, now known by the name M&M is no longer the smallest plant, as a mistake was found and the new runt got stunted a bit. This was my mistake, as somehow I got a new solo cup into the mix and I forgot and didn't notice that there were no holes in the bottom. Weighing the cups each day finally clued me in, when on this first proper watering the scale maxed out at 500g! WTF A quick check as to how/why so much water was in this one revealed the newbie mistake and I quickly took a tool to the cup and made 4 proper drainage holes. She is looking much better this morning, and I have noted that I mistook the presentation of this stress as light stress, and have noted the differences.
So we will have water usage rates this evening, but overall I am quite pleased with what is happening here. The lights have been dialed back up to 18,000 LUX, the plants have been spread out for elbow room, and we are getting on with this thing.

500 grams! OMG ... what a shock that must have been ... you shake your head ... triple check ... light bulb moment ... some new cannabis strains pee

Alright ... I'm just going to get caught up on my reading here ...

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Water use continued to be at an average of 2ml/hr across the board and although no amazing growth was noted today, we know that the roots must be also expanding out as is the top growth. None of the plants will be ready to water tonight, but I do expect the first ones to need it again sometime tomorrow if they keep up at this rate. I can measure 101ml in the fastest one right now, and I have been letting them get down to 75 or so when they feel so light and I have been watering, so at 2 ml/hr, that says I am roughly 12 hours away from needing water.
Don't you love science?
I have been playing with my camera and adjusted the white balance for these shots... I am curious how they look online as compared to recent pics.
Here is Blackie posing with the new 1 gallon GeoPot Velcro transplanter! It seems the perfect height to merge the bottom of the supersoil of these cups with the top of the supersoil in the bottom third of the new containers. Also note the new plastic drip trays that I also ordered. These are the good ones... heavy plastic. I can lift the heavy solo cup on top of it with one hand.

Oh yeah... I like that color balance a lot better. I should some day learn how to use a camera.

I turned down the lights... I am sure they are getting enough. The meter says 15K lux... I bet its a lot more than that. I know @fanleaf said something one day about his meter going nuts after adding his 5k cobs... my plants say it must have shown around a 25% increase once the meter could see the correct spectrum.

color balance... its a good thing. Too bad I don't understand over exposure either

Your first picture in this post was really good ... the ones before were like dusk outside.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Pulled my chair up

Hi @Skunks ... nice to meet you. What is your avatar? I can't tell what it is ...

 

[SQl2kGuy]

I have been convinced that 24/0 is just too much when pushing the plants this hard. As tough as these weeds are, they are not super beings, and apparently they can only take so much. Seeing just how powerful these lights can be is somewhat sobering and we are learning here some of the fine points of managing such power. I have set up the timer and starting at midnight tonight the plants will get their first 6 hour dark period.
Despite all of this, the plants are chugging along at a rapid pace. All plants were consistently near 2ml/hr today despite the lower wattage of the lights. Blackie was the first to be watered early this morning and she got water with calmag since I am already seeing the first signs of magnesium deficiency under these bright lights and with filtered water.



This evening "T"apetta reached the 75ml level and got the same Water/Calmag mix, and she firmly established a 44 hour wet/dry window. We will get one more watering, and then it will be time to uppot this one, with the others following close behind. T also rose up her 5th node far enough that I could get my topping scissors on it, and off went its head. I find it to be outstanding that I am already topping on day 13!



Red will need to be topped tomorrow too, and she is within hours of needing to be watered again, probably in the morning after the dark cycle.

Here is the room shot... by the weekend we are going to start seeing some smart pots in these positions.

Interesting ... back on July 27, 2019 ... I decided to try 24-0 again.

After three days, my plants had really slowed their growth ... so I switched back to running 4 cycles of 5-1.

My understanding is that there are chemical processes which need the dark ... and most important, I read that roots grow in the dark.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Many of you probably guessed this, but the plants were not resting last night, they were building roots. While it looked like they were loafing during the dark hours, today, water use tripled! Our leader, the just topped (and beautiful) Tapeta used an average of 3.5ml/hr since lights on this morning. All of the top 3 are over 3ml/hr now and Blackie and Red will soon need their topping too.

The two little ones, runt and former runt M&M also doubled their water use from last night to right near 2ml/hr. The now runt, probably reacting to the personal slight that I never gave her a name, is starting to accelerate too and both of them are still on about a 4 day wet/dry cycle, but I am confident that with the next watering this will change, as it did for the others at this stage.

So far, none of the new growth is showing any signs of stress from the lights or any other cause. After we get a few nights in to establish the 18/6 pattern, I may start raising up the LUX again.
If we go by the odds, we have 3 fast plants and two slower ones... could this be our 3 boys and 2 girls? Time will tell. Anytime after the 5th node we should start seeing some signs...

lol ... M&M is now called former runt M&M ... I love it

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Veg, Day 17
Lots going on in the tent the last 12 hours or so. Everyone now has been topped between 4 and 5. Blackie was the first to run out of water again and need to be uppotted. She actually got up to 6ml/hr there for a while and she drained that cup in a day. It is no wonder, for this is what I found:

After seeing that, I also checked on T, who should have been at the same point, but whos water usage had gone down slightly from the day before. Hmmm.

So T and also R got to go to the GeoPots as a group last night. The containers were packed exactly the same as the solo cups, with 1/3 of container filled with supersoil. The solo cup rootball fits right down onto this at a perfect height and my base mix of soil (Roots 101/FFOF) is packed in the top. I have used no additional spikes or layers with this container build other than a layer of pine bark mulch on the top of the soil.

	08/04/19, 07:15​	9.00​
	Weight​	ml/hr​
G	303.6​	1.5​
N	285.4​	0.7​

This morning, water usage was down on the last two also, and they seemed to be a little dejected that everyone else had new soil and they didn't, and since we were coming up on watering time again anyway, they also got the transplant.

So, everyone seems to be happy, sitting in their new smart pots and on top of river rocks so that air will hit them on all sides. The distance to the lights closed up by a couple of inches so the light intensity was reduced a bit again so as to maintain 14,000 LUX or so at the canopy. Despite the now established 18/6 cycle, I am still seeing cupping on some of the leaves, the least amount on the new growth though, if that makes any sense.

That's interesting ... I've never seen that before.

The plant on the right has the top fan leaves curling up at the edges ... and the fan leaves on the bottom curling down on the edges ... and only on that one plant right?

Did you figure it out?

 

[Emilya Green]

Did you figure it out?

I think with the lights pulled down low, the resulting light and dark spots on the canopy can be intensely different, and I think my LUX readings in this CRI 90 light are a bit on the low side as to what the plants are actually seeing. I also think this particular light is much more powerful than we think it is, trying to equate LED COB light to the old HID standard.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

Wow! Still my favorite journal here!

I did get a LUX meter and I was surprised at how little I light I was giving my plants ... so I adjusted a bit and will monitor closely.

I am trying to feed, water and look more closely at the leaves as you describe here ... I am grateful for you taking the time to teach the little details.

I am going to try a few new things after speaking with @MrSauga, @The Bard, @CattleTurd and @InTheShed ... and just wanted to get your feedback on some of these soil techniques when you have the time.

1) I like soil a lot and I have been using 75% FFOF and 25% Perlite. I saw @CattleTurd using a combination of coco, FFOF, and Perlite for better aeration and drainage. If I go this route I know I will need to water more frequently, and I think I lose a bit of beneficial microbes. Do you have any thoughts or experience with this medium combination?

2) I am a few weeks away from my first harvest and I just learned to not do final flushes. I was shocked ... but there is a university-level graduate thesis out there that proves this. Have you heard of this yet? Would you like to read about it?

3) Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, I started to track my soil ppm run-off and found that it was sitting at 3200 ppm ... but the plants are healthy! I did learn that we can't measure ppm accurately in a soil grow like we do in coco. But, in my mind I still wanted to "recharge the soil" and to be rid of unwanted salt build up so the plants could thrive in healthy soil for the last three weeks of growing. Here's what I did:

I first flushed the autoflowers, that are in 5 gallon pots, using 20 litres (5 gallons) of tap water.

I really hope the elements in the tap water don't harm the roots.

Then I immediately flushed with about 6 litres (1.5 gallons) of distilled water.

Then I immediately fed with about 6 litres (1.5 gallons) of 1200 ppm full feed nutrient solution ... and got a 1350 ppm run-off. This seems good to me.

I am thinking the tap water had little time to do harm to the roots ... and most of it got flushed out later anyway.

In my mind, I am hoping this soil-recharge has put only a little bit of stress on my plants ... and for the next 2 to 3 weeks ... the soil is recharged and can run in optimal conditions to develop healthy buds. Maybe? I am still collecting data ...

Overall, I just hope I was getting rid of unwanted salts that had accumulated in the soil ... and not healthy elements that read as pmm which go up over time.

Anyway ... I am confused ... and I am trying to think ahead though. Does it make sense to do a soil recharge 3 weeks before harvest to get rid of unwanted salts? Or am I just flushing beneficial fungi and bacteria down the drain?

4) I am going to grow 2 HSO Chemdawgs for the Who Let The Dogs Out? Chem Comparison Grow! Want to join us? Have you tried the Chemdawg strains yet?

5) For the "Who Let The Dogs Out? Chem Comparison Grow!" ... I am planning on trying @InTheShed 's method of feeding without pHing the water to 6.5 like I usually do. Do you have any knowledge of this wrt FFOF soil that starts with a pH of 6.5 ...

Alright ... I'm looking forward to any feedback when people have the time.

 

[Emilya Green]

Wow! Still my favorite journal here!

I did get a LUX meter and I was surprised at how little I light I was giving my plants ... so I adjusted a bit and will monitor closely.

I am trying to feed, water and look more closely at the leaves as you describe here ... I am grateful for you taking the time to teach the little details.

I am going to try a few new things after speaking with @MrSauga, @The Bard, @CattleTurd and @InTheShed ... and just wanted to get your feedback on some of these soil techniques when you have the time.

1) I like soil a lot and I have been using 75% FFOF and 25% Perlite. I saw @CattleTurd using a combination of coco, FFOF, and Perlite for better aeration and drainage. If I go this route I know I will need to water more frequently, and I think I lose a bit of beneficial microbes. Do you have any thoughts or experience with this medium combination?

2) I am a few weeks away from my first harvest and I just learned to not do final flushes. I was shocked ... but there is a university-level graduate thesis out there that proves this. Have you heard of this yet? Would you like to read about it?

3) Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, I started to track my soil ppm run-off and found that it was sitting at 3200 ppm ... but the plants are healthy! I did learn that we can't measure ppm accurately in a soil grow like we do in coco. But, in my mind I still wanted to "recharge the soil" and to be rid of unwanted salt build up so the plants could thrive in healthy soil for the last three weeks of growing. Here's what I did:

I first flushed the autoflowers, that are in 5 gallon pots, using 20 litres (5 gallons) of tap water.

I really hope the elements in the tap water don't harm the roots.

Then I immediately flushed with about 6 litres (1.5 gallons) of distilled water.

Then I immediately fed with about 6 litres (1.5 gallons) of 1200 ppm full feed nutrient solution ... and got a 1350 ppm run-off. This seems good to me.

I am thinking the tap water had little time to do harm to the roots ... and most of it got flushed out later anyway.

In my mind, I am hoping this soil-recharge has put only a little bit of stress on my plants ... and for the next 2 to 3 weeks ... the soil is recharged and can run in optimal conditions to develop healthy buds. Maybe? I am still collecting data ...

Overall, I just hope I was getting rid of unwanted salts that had accumulated in the soil ... and not healthy elements that read as pmm which go up over time.

Anyway ... I am confused ... and I am trying to think ahead though. Does it make sense to do a soil recharge 3 weeks before harvest to get rid of unwanted salts? Or am I just flushing beneficial fungi and bacteria down the drain?

4) I am going to grow 2 HSO Chemdawgs for the Who Let The Dogs Out? Chem Comparison Grow! Want to join us? Have you tried the Chemdawg strains yet?

5) For the "Who Let The Dogs Out? Chem Comparison Grow!" ... I am planning on trying @InTheShed 's method of feeding without pHing the water to 6.5 like I usually do. Do you have any knowledge of this wrt FFOF soil that starts with a pH of 6.5 ...

Alright ... I'm looking forward to any feedback when people have the time.

ok, I am going to take this point by point because there are a few misconceptions that I want to clear up and you have asked so many good questions that I dont want to miss anything.
First I want to mention that all of the people you are going to ask these questions of are likely to give you different answers. None of us grow using the others style or methods. Each of our techniques have been honed by years of practice, and trying to mix and match between us is likely to be very confusing. I will give you my answers, but keep in mind that other responses may turn out to be different, and we will all be right, in respect to our way of doing things.

I feel a little strange adding additional coco to the strong designer organic soil. The designers already included some of that in there to help with oxygen retention, and adding more just seems like second guessing the folks with degrees, so I don't do that. I do add perlite, since our weeds do prefer a slightly lighter soil and over a 4 month grow a soil will tend to compact if not broken up with an abundant amount of perlite or pumice. 20-25% is pretty normal. This will not change your watering frequency and actually it will give the microlife (if you have any) places to hide.

Flushes... there is more confusion about this right now in the online world than ever before. You do not yet understand based on your description. That scientific article only said that nutes do not show up in the final buds, but it never said not to flush... it said that flushing at the end to remove the taste of nutes in the buds, was useless. I have written extensively about this, and because of built up salts and debris in the soil near the end of the grow, I insist that a final flush, right at the start of the final bud swell two weeks until the end, is necessary for 100% water/nutrient uptake into the plant during this most critical time. If you don't flush, the salts and debris in the soil will restrict your uptake to some degree... and to any degree means that your final yield will be less than what it could have been.
Now, what is a flush... did you flush? No, you really did not. A proper flush that actually cleanses the soil requires 3x the container size in water moving through that soil. You did 1x, not nearly enough.

So then someone told you to go down the rabbit hole of testing runoff PPM out of soil... and you got concerned. Don't waste your time testing runoff in soil... it really tells you very little. You were not measuring salt only... you were measuring anything water soluble that had broken down, moss that had broken down, minerals that were now freed up, carbon, salt... runoff PPM of soil is quite impressive, and means nothing.

Now, the water. Unless you are running an organic grow, or a hydro grow where you are tracking PPM, tap water complete with its chlorine is perfectly fine to feed a soil grow.. and actually the minerals in tap water can be beneficial to the plants, and even stave off the dreaded and very common magnesium deficiency that shows up so often when people use RO water. So all that using tap water first and then distilled water... totally unnecessary. You are overthinking this. Actually during a flush, since you are washing all of the nutes out of the soil, you don't even need to adjust the pH... there is nothing there but water, and the plant doesn't care what the pH is as long as it is within reasonable limits.... the ONLY reason we adjust pH is to activate chelated nutes in a synthetic grow.

And then, after your partial flush, you fed back nutes like a coco grower would do and this confuses me. In your soil grow, are you feeding every time you water, or are you doing feed/water/feed/water like you should? If this is the case, your flush should have just taken the place of one of your plain water waterings.

So, I call a flushed soil a clean soil, not a recharged one. To recharge soil I add back in raw minerals and cook them in over a couple of months. Flushing should be done every time the salts build up, and in a FF grow with FF nutes going in at full strength, you should flush 3 or 4 times during the grow... but that very most important time is right before bud swell at the end. A flush is also not going to wash out beneficial fungi... they sort of attach themselves to the roots and you are not going to dislodge them. Beneficial bacteria will be flushed away, but there will be more to replace them, especially if you are using FF Big Bloom, which brings a new load of them every time you water with nutes.

I have grown a couple of plants that had chemdog in their bloodlines, ran that during most of 2017 with Santero's stuff. I never have grown out a pure chemdog though, that would be fun.

Lastly, all respect to @InTheShed, but I will advise against trying to run FFOF with its strong upward drift, without carefully adjusting your pH to 6.3 every time... not 6.5, and not just going willie nillie and letting the numbers fall where they may without adjusting pH. Let me please suggest that you only try this bold experiment on a side by side test, on a plant that it wont kill you to lose... because that is what I predict will happen. Shed has some unexplained voodoo going on there in that shack, and I know that if I tried to replicate it, something untoward would happen to me... a toe would fall off or something. It is scary stuff... be sure to have backup.