Avoid These Pitfalls, Traps & Swindles You'll See on Hydroponics Forums
Online hydroponics marijuana forums aren't all to be trusted... 
We recently ran an article explaining how you can participate in online hydroponics forums to network with thousands of medical marijuana cultivators worldwide. After the article was published, we got covert information from whistleblowers who work for or have worked for online hydroponics forums. They said my first article failed to adequately warn growers about swindles, traps and pitfalls found on many online hydroponics forums. Let’s take a look at their concerns…
Medical Marijuana Growers: Always Cloak Your Identity and IP
My previous hydroponics forum article emphasized that medical marijuana growers should always use strict online security strategies. I’m glad I gave you that warning, because online forum staffers confirm there are lurkers on forums who attempt to lure you into giving personal information. Some of these lurkers are law enforcement. Others are rip-offs. Never give out personal information that ties you to marijuana cultivation or reveals too much about your actual identity or location. Always use internet security protocols to cloak your physical location and computer identity.
Hydroponics Forums Sponsored By Hydroponics Companies
Online hydroponics forums appear to be neutral social networking sites run for the benefit of the marijuana community. You don’t think of them having a commercial agenda. It looks like a free information site. But some online forums are covertly sponsored by marijuana seed companies and/or hydroponics companies. This influences the medical marijuana information you get. In some cases, moderators shape discussions, remove or edit comments, and ban commenters in order to further the secret commercial agenda of the site’s hidden sponsors. In other cases, a site's moderators or management are biased in favor of various hydroponics companies out of sheer ignorance, and they carry that ignorance over into how they manage site content. Let's just say that many of the people running and moderating these sites are not professional marijuana growers!
Spreading That Tired, Old “$3-a-Bottle” Nutrients Fraud
If you study online marijuana cultivation forums long enough, you’ll see some commenters promoting a predictable set of old school hydroponics ideas. Like the sad claim that all hydroponics nutrients are alike, and that all plants are alike. You’re supposed to believe you can feed el cheapo $3 a bottle fertilizer, or grow in generic soil purchased at Home Depot, and still harvest incredible medical marijuana. Professional growers are disgusted by this inaccurate advice. They tell you that the better the water, nutrients, climate and light you give your plants, the better medical marijuana yields you’ll get. And they of course recognize that old school fertilizers don’t work well in today’s hydroponics environment...instead, those fertilizers damage your plants.
Paid Shills Use Hydroponics Forums For Non-Stop Slagging
Some people posting comments online are paid or unpaid employees or associates of hydroponics companies and/or cannabis seed banks. I used to wonder why forum discussions of Advanced Nutrients sometimes featured vicious, predictably-worded attacks against the company’s products, marketing, and even its spokesperson and co-founder, Michael “Big Mike” Straumietis. I didn’t see these attacks on all hydroponics websites, only a few, where the same flamers are posting over and over. These people slag Advanced Nutrients for making medical marijuana nutrients, having a professional website, even criticizing Straumietis's personality and appearance. The slaggers also give props to rival hydroponics companies. Sure I understand how some negative comments may be from people who used the company's products and didn't understand how to use them. Or they had other plant problems but blamed them on the nutrients. But most of the attacks look like an organized campaign. And after a hydroponics website whistleblower explained the real deal to me, I now understand why there seemed to be a coordinated group of attack dogs on some internet forums who persistently slag Advanced Nutrients…it's because they work for competing hydroponics companies and are paid to attack Advanced Nutrients.
Forum Cultivation Advice: The Good, the Bad, & The Ugly
Another pitfall of hydroponics online forums is that some of the grow advice is inaccurate grow advice that’ll fry your marijuana plants or otherwise cost you many lost grams per harvest. You’ll see people posting comments as if they know what they’re talking about, but their advice is so off-base that it’s obvious they know nothing of recent developments in marijuana hydroponics techniques and products that make growing easier and more productive. Simplistic old school thinking combines with closed-mindedness to give you lame grow advice, and some of it has a covert commercial agenda to prop hydroponics companies that don't make products specifically for marijuana plants.
You will also see well-intentioned newbies, or stubbornly opinionated long-time growers, trying hard to guess what's wrong with a crop after a grower posts grow details or pics of troubled marijuana plants asking for help. In many cases, the grower asking for help did not provide enough information so other growers could accurately diagnose what's going wrong. In the video accompanying this article, you'll see a guy who has multiple problems in his grow op (the marijuana is in week 7 of bloom and the buds are airy and lame), but he is just guessing as to what the problem is. In online hydroponics forums, many of the commenters would be just guessing too. The videomaker says his crops are in week 7 of grow phase, when actually they are in week 7 of bloom phase. This kind of confusion leads to bad grow advice. And it just builds on itself as the comments thread progresses, as bad advice is given about bad advice, while the real crop problems go undiagnosed!
When you want the most productive information on how to grow medical marijuana, come here to Big Buds. You can look at our vast storehouse of articles on hydroponics cloning, growing, lighting, climate control, harvesting and strain selection and see immediately that Big Buds offers you an online hydroponics medical marijuana cultivation information gold mine.
So there you have it…swindles, traps and pitfalls to avoid on hydroponics medical marijuana cultivation forums. My original article may have been a bit too naively optimistic, and I thank the forum insiders who gave me the back-story. I guess it goes to show you can never be too careful!
