Xlr8's "Flo N Gro" Hydro Multiple Strains 2011

[Xlr8]

My pleasure!

The stuff works just as well as the commercial product, AND it doesn't have that obnoxious SMELL that the commercial Clearex has in it. I was always worried that whatever that "scent" was they add would end up in my buds! It smells like the same scent they put into "Ben Gay", whatever that scent is? All I know is that I personally can't stand it!

Thanks for the reps!

Can't wait to try this. You earned those reps.

 

[Xlr8]

5 Stars from me too Mate!

Thanks my friend!

 

[Xlr8]

We need a thread in the DIY section for the home-recipes. I am sure BPN has a few he can contribute as well. Simply amazing how easy it is to make a lot of these at home, for 10% of what they cost. I'd rep you again GG7, but it's telling me to spread the love around before I can do it again. Thanks ***** (5-stars)

Great Idea - like that a lot, Steve.

I will have an easy recipe for root Dm up tonight as well as links where materials can be purchased from eBay. I have tons of recipes I can share!

Sweet - very cool!

I LOVE that IDEA!!

I know that there are a lot of 420 folks out there on a fixed income that can't afford a lot of these fancy commercial products, but who's grows could definitely benefit from having access to some of these formulations.

I'd support such a thread 100%!

Yup. Let's help some folks out. The return for something like that is always much greater than what you give

+reps to a great sponsor

Love the generosity and positivity. What makes me like the 420magazine community so much is the spirit of helping people out. I also + repped you last night Blue Planet for being such a supportive and involved sponsor.

 

[Xlr8]

Picture update Sept. 9


Group photo (Top: Lavender, Lucy, Lucy --- Bottom: Chocolope, Skywalker, Skywalker, Magic Bud):

Chocolope seedling:

Lavender:

Magic Bud:

Lucy 1:

Lucy 2:

Skywalker 1:

Skywalker 2:

Nice side view of Skywalkers (bottom), Lucys (top), and Magic Bud (far right on bottom):

 

[Mr. Krip]

Gorgeous, Bro!

Those are some VERY healthy looking plants!

 

[Xlr8]

Thanks Mr. Krip -

They've been really happy since entering the Flo N Gro and getting the nutes dialed in a bit.

I'm still trying to decide how much to let them veg, given that I have so many in there at once. This tent is new to me, and I may just trigger flowering a bit early before they get too big to keep it from outstretching it's space...

 

[Truth Seeker]

Smoke2Js.

To everyone else: If you haven't seen Smoke2Js Magic Garden, you are really missing something.

this is true!!! another BPN grow!!! go check him out!!! then go through my BPN blog for the list of us doing a BPN grow!!!

 

[Blue Planet Nutrients]

Hi BPN. it's really cool to have you following along - loving the way they look in veg right now, and no complaints at all on the nutrients. If it works this good in Bloom, I'll be really thrilled. New growth has been perfect. Thanks!

Found a good image of the label for DM Zone

Ok so here we go:

First of all, VERY IMPORTANT!!! : TOO MUCH copper will KILL your plants. no Joke. So please, please, please, if you use this recipe you must have a VERY accurate scale. something like a jewelers scale that measures grams to at least one decimal place.

This recipe is for 1 gallon of homemade RootZone DM

first of all, when buying copper sulfate, there a couple different formulations for that particular chemical. so, what I have done is this: The following link is for 500 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
CHEM CU SULFATE PENTA ACS 500G - Laboratory Chemicals - Laboratory Supplies - 8EJ50 : Grainger Industrial Supply

The molecular weight of copper sulfate pentahydrate is 249.68
The molecular weight of copper is 63.546
divide 63.546 by 249.68 and you will find that copper sulfate pentahydrate is 25.6% copper. If you use another form of copper sulfate, make sure that you know the molecular weight of the compound which you can find using a periodic table. the reason I say this is that there is also Copper(II) sulfate (cupric sulfate) which has a higher percentage of copper because it is not hydrated.
Anyway, for 1 gallon, you will need exactly 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate which is 1.024 grams of elemental copper per liter of water and thus 3.88 grams of elemental copper per gallon
1.024 grams elemental copper per 1000 ml RO water equals .1% soluble copper.

The amount of potassium nitrate in that stuff is negligible. I don't even know why it is in there. They use roughly 13 grams of potassium nitrate per gallon which does not contribute to the potassium or nitrogen content of your nutrient solution much at all.
So, just throw in 13-14 grams per gallon of potassium nitrate (saltpeter) and you will have roughly .06% nitrogen and .15% potassium
you can get potassium nitrate just about anywhere. you can get it on ebay for about $5 a pound all day long and most of the stuff listed on ebay is refined and high quality....much more pure than what is needed for this recipe.

anyway, to re-cap this recipe for 1 gallon of homemade rootzone DM:
use 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
13 grams of potassium nitrate
and 1 gallon (3785) ml pure RO water

There you have it. 1 gallon of RootZone DM for pennies!

Thank you very much... as I bow deeply for the audience lol

 

[Xlr8]

Ok so here we go:

First of all, VERY IMPORTANT!!! : TOO MUCH copper will KILL your plants. no Joke. So please, please, please, if you use this recipe you must have a VERY accurate scale. something like a jewelers scale that measures grams to at least one decimal place.

This recipe is for 1 gallon of homemade RootZone DM

first of all, when buying copper sulfate, there a couple different formulations for that particular chemical. so, what I have done is this: The following link is for 500 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
CHEM CU SULFATE PENTA ACS 500G - Laboratory Chemicals - Laboratory Supplies - 8EJ50 : Grainger Industrial Supply

The molecular weight of copper sulfate pentahydrate is 249.68
The molecular weight of copper is 63.546
divide 63.546 by 249.68 and you will find that copper sulfate pentahydrate is 25.6% copper. If you use another form of copper sulfate, make sure that you know the molecular weight of the compound which you can find using a periodic table. the reason I say this is that there is also Copper(II) sulfate (cupric sulfate) which has a higher percentage of copper because it is not hydrated.
Anyway, for 1 gallon, you will need exactly 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate which is 1.024 grams of elemental copper per liter of water and thus 3.88 grams of elemental copper per gallon
1.024 grams elemental copper per 1000 ml RO water equals .1% soluble copper.

The amount of potassium nitrate in that stuff is negligible. I don't even know why it is in there. They use roughly 13 grams of potassium nitrate per gallon which does not contribute to the potassium or nitrogen content of your nutrient solution much at all.
So, just throw in 13-14 grams per gallon of potassium nitrate (saltpeter) and you will have roughly .06% nitrogen and .15% potassium
you can get potassium nitrate just about anywhere. you can get it on ebay for about $5 a pound all day long and most of the stuff listed on ebay is refined and high quality....much more pure than what is needed for this recipe.

anyway, to re-cap this recipe for 1 gallon of homemade rootzone DM:
use 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
13 grams of potassium nitrate
and 1 gallon (3785) ml pure RO water

There you have it. 1 gallon of RootZone DM for pennies!

Thank you very much... as I bow deeply for the audience lol

Super cool, you deserve that bow!

+Rep for the outstanding effort and commitment to the community. Really cool that you took all the time to put that together and share it here.



A little side-note, I noticed that DM had a change for a while in one of the chemicals in Zone. Zone used to be yellowish with a little particulate matter, but for a while it had more of a clear look with a lot of light blue particulate matter, and wasn't quite as "foamy".

I think they got a lot of complaints about it because I've heard they are back to the original "yellow" formula... I have some of the "blue" formula that I'm using up right now, and I don't trust it as much for some reason - probably just because it looks so much different and has those fairly large light blue chunks throughout it that I worry will clog up my system, but probably won't, I saw they addressed this on their website once saying it won't cause problems clogging anything and should be harmless.

 

[Blue Planet Nutrients]

Super cool, you deserve that bow!

+Rep for the outstanding effort and commitment to the community. Really cool that you took all the time to put that together and share it here.



A little side-note, I noticed that DM had a change for a while in one of the chemicals in Zone. Zone used to be yellowish with a little particulate matter, but for a while it had more of a clear look with a lot of light blue particulate matter, and wasn't quite as "foamy".

I think they got a lot of complaints about it because I've heard they are back to the original "yellow" formula... I have some of the "blue" formula that I'm using up right now, and I don't trust it as much for some reason - probably just because it looks so much different and has those fairly large light blue chunks throughout it that I worry will clog up my system, but probably won't, I saw they addressed this on their website once saying it won't cause problems clogging anything and should be harmless.

google images for copper sulfate pentahydrate and you will see that the color of that compound is very dark blue. A few grams in a gallon of water will turn the water a very light blue. The potassium nitrate is colorless once it is dissolved in the concentration mentioned in my post above. I can clone the yellow stuff if I had a label with a guaranteed analysis to look at. They might have used a form of chelated copper. copper EDTA is a darker color and may look yellowish if mixed with water to get .1% copper.

 

[OldMedMan]

Hi Buddy...the girls look great!!

Love the fact your getting help from BPN first hand. What else could you ask for? Well, a bigger tent, for all those Ladies. I think your right, flower soon.

 

[Xlr8]

Hi Buddy...the girls look great!!

Love the fact your getting help from BPN first hand. What else could you ask for? Well, a bigger tent, for all those Ladies. I think your right, flower soon.

Yes, the Mini-Matter is nice, but it would be nice to have that full Matterhorn... Someday!

Blue Planet has been wonderful so far - couldn't agree more! Wish I was more comfortable with chemistry, though.

 

[Goldengoose7]

I'm really tempted to try this home brew from BPN, but I guess I should read up on what the heck this stuff is supposed to do for your plants first!

All the warnings he posted kind of make me dubious to even handle this stuff!

 

[Xlr8]

For future reference, I put both the recipe for the clearing agent (like Clearex) from GoldenGoose7 as well as the Root Zone recipe from BPN in my Blog, too (with all due credit given) for those who ever want to refer back to it. I'll keep other good tips and recipes there as they come up and it makes sense... though a recipe section would be a great spot for them. I'm too medicated at the moment to figure that out...

 

[Blue Planet Nutrients]

I'm really tempted to try this home brew from BPN, but I guess I should read up on what the heck this stuff is supposed to do for your plants first!

All the warnings he posted kind of make me dubious to even handle this stuff!

Copper sulfate will kill fungal infections, bacteria, and algae. Copper is also a necessarry micro nutrient for plant growth. Now, a plant only needs about .02 ppm of copper in a hydroponic nutrient solution. My MICRO for example will put your Cu ppm right at .02 ppm when you add 10 ml per gallon in your reservoir.
My micro is 0.001% copper vs DM rootzone which is .1%
Copper is also used as a root killer and it works really well when you mix the stuff in high concentrations. I have a septic system with field lines that run into the woods and the copper sulfate I use kills any roots that might clog my lines.

The Root zone by dutch master contains .1% copper sulfate. I forgot to read how much they recommend to add per gallon but .1% is a lot of copper in a product for plants. I wouldn't add it to my garden if it were me but the recipe for the Dm product is there if anyone wants to make some of that stuff for cheap. But, if you bought all that stuff you would have enough of that product to last a lifetime. Buying a bag of copper sulfate and potassium nitrate is really only useful to someone like me who would mix up a huge batch and sell it but I wouldn't want to sell anything with that much copper in it.

The DM gold Zone contains only .002% copper which I would trust a little more. But why pay so much for a little copper and an insignificant amount of nitrogen and potassium? JUst use a little H2O2 to kill anything in the reservoir, right?

copper will make the root environment sterile because it kills algea, bacteria, fungus, etc... the potassium nitrate is used in such a little quantity in the DM product that it is basically useless for anything. The copper is what they are selling.

The BEST solution is to just use H2O2 and forget the root conditioner...
hydrogen peroxide will keep the environment sterile and will not harm your plants.

To sum things up in my professional opinion: when you purchase rootzone, you are just paying a lot for a little copper. Copper is not needed in large quantities for a plant to thrive. H2O2 will sterilize your root environment and it is less likely to cause any harm to your plants. My 2 cents.

Another tidbit: copper sulfate has been used for over a century to control fungal infections in grape vineyards in France. It has been mixed and used as a foliar spray. I would consider using copper sulfate spray on MJ if i did indeed have a fungal infection during Veg but not bloom.

It is time for some edibles....I am about to chill really, really, hard........

 

[Xlr8]

Hi BPN -

Thanks for the added info - great stuff. You certainly have a ton of knowledge I lack when it comes to nutrient formulations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but:

H2O2 in the wrong quantities can kill roots and plants, too. There are those who would hesitate to recommend Hydrogen Peroxide for many of the same reasons you have concerns with Copper - personally I'm a believer in H2O2 for emergencies and sterilization, but not for adding to and maintaining clean reservoir and root zone. Having said that, I've seen people use H2O2 with great results when used at the right strength, which is the obvious key for either product (H2O2 or DM Zone).

I've also personally seen a difference in root health by running DM's more aggressive recommendations, for example, so the amount of Copper doesn't seem to be hurting the plants at all. Though I do know Cannabis is without a doubt sensitive to Copper - to say the least.

My vegging plants right now are getting an aggressive dose of DM Zone, frankly, and you can see that they are very happily vegging along, so somehow it works and it does work. I do use the DM Gold Zone product, and I think that's all they make now...

I've run DM Zone higher levels than their aggressive recommended amount with no ill affects (positive ones though). They used to recommend heavier levels of it, but adjusted it down - but it worked fine at their previously higher recommended levels too, so there must be something that is keeping the Copper from having a negative reaction in the plants??

Not trying to pimp their product, but I've seen root health improvement at high concentrations with Zone, never any ill effects, and it does work somehow, and in my opinion is better at higher recommended levels especially if reservoir temps are a bit high or root zone aeration subpar...

Thanks again for your support and participation. Not trying to disagree with you at all my friend, just trying to add my 2 cents based on personal experience. I'm open to being wrong or missing something, but these are my opinions based on usage.

 

[Aaron Quix]

Holy Bajeebus dood, 26 pages in three weeks!!?? I'm backed up like NewYork traffic!! Got some reading to do....

 

[Mr. Krip]

Ok so here we go:

First of all, VERY IMPORTANT!!! : TOO MUCH copper will KILL your plants. no Joke. So please, please, please, if you use this recipe you must have a VERY accurate scale. something like a jewelers scale that measures grams to at least one decimal place.

This recipe is for 1 gallon of homemade RootZone DM

first of all, when buying copper sulfate, there a couple different formulations for that particular chemical. so, what I have done is this: The following link is for 500 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
CHEM CU SULFATE PENTA ACS 500G - Laboratory Chemicals - Laboratory Supplies - 8EJ50 : Grainger Industrial Supply

The molecular weight of copper sulfate pentahydrate is 249.68
The molecular weight of copper is 63.546
divide 63.546 by 249.68 and you will find that copper sulfate pentahydrate is 25.6% copper. If you use another form of copper sulfate, make sure that you know the molecular weight of the compound which you can find using a periodic table. the reason I say this is that there is also Copper(II) sulfate (cupric sulfate) which has a higher percentage of copper because it is not hydrated.
Anyway, for 1 gallon, you will need exactly 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate which is 1.024 grams of elemental copper per liter of water and thus 3.88 grams of elemental copper per gallon
1.024 grams elemental copper per 1000 ml RO water equals .1% soluble copper.

The amount of potassium nitrate in that stuff is negligible. I don't even know why it is in there. They use roughly 13 grams of potassium nitrate per gallon which does not contribute to the potassium or nitrogen content of your nutrient solution much at all.
So, just throw in 13-14 grams per gallon of potassium nitrate (saltpeter) and you will have roughly .06% nitrogen and .15% potassium
you can get potassium nitrate just about anywhere. you can get it on ebay for about $5 a pound all day long and most of the stuff listed on ebay is refined and high quality....much more pure than what is needed for this recipe.

anyway, to re-cap this recipe for 1 gallon of homemade rootzone DM:
use 15.14 grams of copper sulfate pentahydrate
13 grams of potassium nitrate
and 1 gallon (3785) ml pure RO water

There you have it. 1 gallon of RootZone DM for pennies!

Thank you very much... as I bow deeply for the audience lol

Excellent work, BPN! +REPS!!!

 

[Blue Planet Nutrients]

Hi BPN -

Thanks for the added info - great stuff. You certainly have a ton of knowledge I lack when it comes to nutrient formulations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but:

H2O2 in the wrong quantities can kill roots and plants, too. There are those who would hesitate to recommend Hydrogen Peroxide for many of the same reasons you have concerns with Copper - personally I'm a believer in H2O2 for emergencies and sterilization, but not for adding to and maintaining clean reservoir and root zone. Having said that, I've seen people use H2O2 with great results when used at the right strength, which is the obvious key for either product (H2O2 or DM Zone).

I've also personally seen a difference in root health by running DM's more aggressive recommendations, for example, so the amount of Copper doesn't seem to be hurting the plants at all. Though I do know Cannabis is without a doubt sensitive to Copper - to say the least.

My vegging plants right now are getting an aggressive dose of DM Zone, frankly, and you can see that they are very happily vegging along, so somehow it works and it does work. I do use the DM Gold Zone product, and I think that's all they make now...

I've run DM Zone higher levels than their aggressive recommended amount with no ill affects (positive ones though). They used to recommend heavier levels of it, but adjusted it down - but it worked fine at their previously higher recommended levels too, so there must be something that is keeping the Copper from having a negative reaction in the plants??

Not trying to pimp their product, but I've seen root health improvement at high concentrations with Zone, never any ill effects, and it does work somehow, and in my opinion is better at higher recommended levels especially if reservoir temps are a bit high or root zone aeration subpar...

Thanks again for your support and participation. Not trying to disagree with you at all my friend, just trying to add my 2 cents based on personal experience. I'm open to being wrong or missing something, but these are my opinions based on usage.

It's all good brother. I know quite a bit about the few things I specialize in and very little on certain aspects of plant nutrition and I am constantly searching for new tricks that I can put in my grower's toolbox

well, I have used h2o2 in the past with good results because Personally, I want a very sterile environment when growing a hydroponic garden. I haven't ever heard of causing any harm to plants when using the weak stuff that is typically sold in a grocery store mixed at around a tablespoon/gallon. After I did my calculations for the recipe I posted, I looked back at how much copper was in the stuff and was kind of surprised once I made the connection to what I, myself typically use in hydroponics. I just opened one of my old college text books and refreshed my memory on copper nutrition. It says that copper toxicity can occur at greater than 0.1 ppm in hydroponic solutions. At 10 ml/gallon, a product with 0.1% copper would increase the copper ppm by 2.7 ppm. After I calculated that, I was a little shocked the wheels started turning.

I am definitely very curious to find out more about copper nutrition and MJ or if even my textbook is wrong or too conservative with their numbers about copper concentration in nutrient solutions. I need to know now I am going to do some looking around for some more info. Anyway, all good stuff , I'm high

 

[Mr. Krip]

...I've run DM Zone higher levels than their aggressive recommended amount with no ill affects (positive ones though). They used to recommend heavier levels of it, but adjusted it down - but it worked fine at their previously higher recommended levels too, so there must be something that is keeping the Copper from having a negative reaction in the plants??

Not trying to pimp their product, but I've seen root health improvement at high concentrations with Zone, never any ill effects, and it does work somehow, and in my opinion is better at higher recommended levels especially if reservoir temps are a bit high or root zone aeration subpar...

Hey guys,

First, much kudos, again, to BPN for being a great member of our 420 family, in addition to being a great sponsor!

I definately trust BPN 100% on his science and abilities to not only provide a fantastic line of nutes, but also in his ability to "reverse-engineer" other products we've had success with.

That being said, for BPN or any of us to be able to effectively re-produce some of these other products, we really need to be aware of what's in them, which may NOT necessarily be the case.

I've posted the following article a couple of times before, but it's worth reading for anyone trying to duplicate the formulas of their nutes, or just understand the difference between two lines of nutes.

YOU’RE BEING ROBBED! Why States Aren’t Telling You the Truth About Your Hydroponics Nutrients

BPN, I'm sure you're aware of these issues since you're in the industry, and maybe you can add some additional perspective, but all I can say after reading it is, "I feel for you brother!"

Hopefully things change to make it better for all of us!