I know salts from fertilizers build up over time in the soil of a container grown plant, and may eventually cause toxic issues for the plant.
I have used FF Sledgehammer for several grows and I have to use gallons of water to flush the salts. The directions of Florakleen only use a small amount of the product in a small amount of water until you get runoff…and that’s it? How simple can this be - but my question is, How effective is Florakleen and do lots of folks use it?
I use it but flush a larger volume of water than is recommended. It can’t hurt and I’m looking for both a TDS below a certain amount (250 ppm) and for at least a couple of days. That seems to get the solids level down enough for me to enjoy the finished product.
Flushing with just enough water to achieve the beginning of runoff seemed a bit questionable. What you say makes more sense in that the flushed out salts need to be removed - not just sitting there unless the salt’s chemical composition is changed.
Just as a starting point, what volume of flushing water with FloraKleen would you say to start with in a 5G fabric pot with Ocean Forest or similar soil? I’ll check the dissolved solids as you mentioned, just looking for a starting point or an idea of typical volumes you have used…
Here’s what I do: whatever the package recommends: a couple of gallons? I use straight R/O and water it in then leave it for a couple of hours. THEN I run 2 or 3 times the pot volume through in straight R/O. Watch the output numbers until you see a decent drop.