Tools:
A must have is a pH meter. I can't stress this enough. A decent digital one will do you wonders preventing needless issues and when trying to track down the source of issues later on. With that get calibration solution which is usually a 7.01 solution depending on the meter. Also ph up and ph down to adjust your solutions.
Water:
Hard water from that tap is terrible for your plant. I used my tap water 1st time around with crappy soil and had soo many problems. Some peoples tap water may be ok. You can get a decent Reverse Osmosis filter on Ebay for 60 bucks or so. I got some some extra attachments and ran mine off of the water line for my washer since I'm in an apartment and thats the only hose attachment I have. I did not like the idea of the under sink filters with small tanks. I fill 4 x 5 gallon buckets up slap some lids on and there's my purified water down to 10ppm or less. You can go get distilled water but that may get pricey after a while. Especially when they get bigger and thirstier.
Soil:
I currently use Fox Farms Ocean Forest with some dolomite added since for my Ph was a tad low. Lime is alkaline and offsets the effect of peet moss breaking down which makes your soil acidic. Your soil should be 6.4 to 6.8 on the pH scale. You would test this with the digital pH meter mentioned above by running pH adjusted neutral water "7.0" through the soil and collecting the runoff water and measuring its pH. You would then adjust your water accordingly. If the runoff is 6.0 which is too low I would try running 7.5 through and see if you ended up around 6.5. You can/should adjust the water/nute solution with ph up/down. When you find a good in value that produces an out value between 6.4 and 6.8 then you should adjust any solution going in whether it be straight water or nutes to that value that gives a good runoff value. If you find the runoff to be excessively low consider adding more dolomite "pulverized" lime to the mix to bring it up. Stable pH is your best friend.
There are other types people speek highly of such as pro-mix and sunshine mix #4. I don't have experience with these.
These soils may have trace nutrients from somewhat natural sources like worm castings, bat guano etc. These are OK. What you do not want is the kind with added little fertilizer pellets/balls. They will screw your whole program up. You want total control of what is going in as far as nutes.
The important thing is the pH and the drainage. Cannibis likes to dry out between waterings. This prevents root rot. Root rot occurs when the soil is constantly soaked and the roots don't get any oxygen. So do not over water!
NUTES:
there are many many kinds to speak of. You will nutes for 2 phases:
N-P-K = Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium. These are considered the Macro Nutrients ( I beleive)
Nutrients will be sold with some sort of NPK value
Vegatative/Grow
Higher N values than P or K. I am running Age Old Organics at 12-6-6 there
Run these nutes from 2 weeks after sprout and through the veg cycle. Start at 1/4 dose and work up to full dose if the plant tolerates it.
Flowering/Bloom
Lower N values than P and K.
I use FF Tiger Bloom which is something like 4-8-6 If I remember correctly.
There are tons of additives available for micro nutrients and the sorts. You'll have to research them and see if you buy into the claims. I believe there are a lot of gimicks out there.
Light is very important too.
Cool color during veg 5500-6500K Flourescent can be great Metal halide is better. These are string in the blue spectrum. This helps keep your plants nice and stacked. They will stretch and be lanky and generally unhealthy if you don't use the right light. Just cuz its bright doesn't mean its usable by the plant.
Warm during flower. High Pressure Sodium is best. I think around 3000K is the color. I forget. HPS is strong in red/orange/yellow spectrum.
What kind of light are you using now?
Time to smoke a bowl and eat some grub.
having trouble finding out whats a good soil for my plant...i was wondering if there is any soil out there that has most or all of the nutes i need for my plant? I heard about fox farm are there more good soils? Water what is good water to use for my plant? i been using dasani someone said it might not be ph balanced like it should be so im looking for all the right solutions here and i need good results not so cheap because i want my plant to pay me back in the long run...
please respond NEED RESPONSE!
