Rooting Plants

If your plant has no roots, shake well and use 1 squirt of KelpMax for 1/2 cup of warm water and soak your plant in it for 1-2 hours. Then, pot the plant without rinsing and use the soaking water in the reservoir. Keep using KelpMax at the same concentration for the next 2 waterings. (To be more precise, use KelpMax at 1 mL per cup, the bottle contains 10mL).

Transition to LECA

For a newly transitioning plant, use the same amount of KelpMax for 2 waterings, then begin using the General Hydroponics Trio. Use KelpMax once a month along with the General Hydroponics nutrients.

Feeding your Plant

For 1/2 cup of water, add 4-8 drops the brown solution, same of green and red, in that order. 4 drops for light feeders and 8 drops for heavy. Mix well after every solution added.

To measure and feed in bulk, use half the bottle (5mL) of each solution to 1 gallon of water. Mix after each color, brown first, then green and red. Half the amount for low feeders.

The Nerdy Stuff

I recently swapped out GH RapidStart for KelpMax in my kits. Reason being, KelpMax is a natural seaweed extract and it tends to be more chemically stable and can remain highly effective for at least 3 years. Another reason is that a natural product like KelpMax makes it very difficult to overdose your plant. If you are interested in how Kelp Extract works, read this article from Ray - one of the pioneers of growing in semi-hydroponics. You can also order more KelpMax from him directly through that link.

Why General Hydroponics and not something like Liquid Dirt? It’s because GH is a proven nutrient system used by countless people who grow in active and passive hydroponics. These fertilizers are synthetic which allows the grower a great amount of control over what nutrients the plant receives because the NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) ratings of these fertilizers are known. With any product that does not disclose ingredients or have a guaranteed analysis (the 10-10-10 number you see on fertilizers) you actually have no idea what your plant is getting. Would you buy food that’s labelled healthy for you without seeing a nutritional breakdown?

The other issue is with using organic fertilizers in a passive hydroponics setup is just not recommended by experienced growers. Unless advertised as such, most organic fertilizers will not be readily available to the plant to start, and relies upon healthy beneficial soil bacteria to break down the organic components into usable NPK for the plant. In LECA or inorganic medium, you can maintain an active biome, but relying upon bacteria to break down fertilizer means it’s going to smell real bad as the bacteria digests the fertilizer. The variability of this approach is too risky for my liking, and many have reported a decline in plant health after 4-6 months of exclusively using products like Liquid Dirt.

Why do you not include Superthrive? I thought it is suppose to help with transitioning plants. Superthrive is another interesting product where the full list of ingredients is unknown, but many suspect that kelp extract is one of the primary ingredients. It also contains synthetic auxins (plant hormones) that can degrade over time. KelpMax is a much better product, lower in cost, and more shelf-stable.