Is Fox Farms Ocean Forest just ass, or am I screwing this up?

[emanresu]

Yeah I see the Masonite in my Happy Frog. I called it out here in the past looking like bits of shingles but now that you mention it does look like Masonite board.

Here’s a couple of the chips I pulled out of my 4” starter pots. I use HF for seedlings and then a mix of Coco Loco and Oxean Forrest with some extra perlite and a little worm castings & guano potting up to fabric bags.

I got a big 3CF bag of OF and seems ok. From a member tip here I throw the FF ina bin with soil a few inches deep and let it dry out a bit, turning every day for a week and seems to keep gnats at bay. If I didn’t have enough or short on time, I use the fresh wet stuff at the bottom of the bag and dry at rhe top layer to keep live eggs away from the surface.

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I just gave my open bag a real good looking over and yep, I see a lot of this in there. They definitely mulching it and using it for filler. Maybe the reason why it's not as hot as people say it used to be. I'm still not all that disappointed. It's not cool, but stuff still works pretty well. If I got some with fungi, bugs, or something nasty I would be really upset to. I do think I am going to give ProHP a try when I run out of all the ocean forest and happy frog I have left though.

 

[Captspaulding]

I just gave my open bag a real good looking over and yep, I see a lot of this in there. They definitely mulching it and using it for filler. Maybe the reason why it's not as hot as people say it used to be. I'm still not all that disappointed. It's not cool, but stuff still works pretty well. If I got some with fungi, bugs, or something nasty I would be really upset to. I do think I am going to give ProHP a try when I run out of all the ocean forest and happy frog I have left though.

Yeah run what you have, glad you have dodged the bullet for the most part
Pro hp is something I considered trying to, I’d def like to see how it goes
For you. legit, ff is great place to start, and the folks who keep doing this stuff Almost always jump ship for a medium, with let’s say, “less variables” that’s putting it as nicely as a clown can tho.

 

[Crabs_308]

Exactly three weeks ago, I transplanted 18 plants into 5 gal. fabric bags filled with pure Fox Farms Ocean Forest. In the past, I had amended that soil. This time, I did not.

Well, three weeks into it and all the plants are turning lime green and drooping like mad, starting with new growth and moving throughout the whole plant. I have not added any nutrients.

I'm not over- or under-watering. I have good drainage. The pH of my water is between 6.3-6.6 for every watering. I water until I get a tiny bit of runoff, then wait until it is dry two kuckles down into the soil before watering again. I use tap water, which has iron and other micro-nutrients in it. The air temps vary between 71-81 degrees F. The plants are in full veg, and are getting 18 hours of 500-750 ppfd of full spectrum light, depending on their position.

And the plants all started acting like they were over-watered, even though I know they were not. They began to droop and become lime green from the top, down. Here is a photo of the worst of the plants, at the worst time.

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Two days ago I decided to feed them a 1/2 dosing of FF Big Grow (6-4-4) when I watered. Today the plants have perked up to look normal, but they are still lime green. I think they might be greening up, or it could be my imagination. Here's what they look like today.

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No longer droopy. Nice and perky again. But (so far) still light color. I don't know how long it should take them to green up.

I thought FF Ocean Forest was supposed to be chock full of macro and micro nutrients. Is it not? Or am I doing something wrong? For the life of me, I cannot figure out what I might be doing wrong, here. I check over and over again, and everything seems right. The only thing I haven't been doing is feeding them nutrients, on the assumption that the Ocean Forest would get them by at least through veg. Seems like the organic nutes should definitely last more than three weeks.

Your sage advice?

As it was told to me before using any Fox Farm product, the pre-mix is only good for about 30days, then you will have to feed and re-amend after that. What you are seeing looks like an iron or possible cal-mag deficiency. Sounds like you sort of figured that out after fertilizing. I would get a PPM meter or start keeping track of what you are feeding, but yeah, Fox Farm, only good for 30 days tops then you have to feed. I always start feeding and adding in micorrizae after day 25, especially if the plants are growing quickly, and drinking well.