Lotus nutrients stand alone or additive?

The brandisn't important. The ratio and concentration of all primary and secondary nutes and overall concentration of that mix is the key. It is simpler to conceive in a soilless/hydro context, which is how i will explain it. In soil, you have the added unknown what is amended into the soil and possible some ingredients that provide N/P that need microbes to break it down before it can physically enter the plant. However, over time, the same ratios and concentrations that provide for a healthy plant do not change much. An autoflower needs very similar ratio of nutes, even if at a lower concentration, which i don't htink is actually a real correlation and more of a misperception of causality when it occurs. you always need Ca. it's not something you add whimsically or in reaction to a problem. the plant ALWAYS needs Ca at a proper proportion with the rest of the nutrients. Ratios : 112 npk / 421 K-Ca-Mg and you need a fair amount of S too, but there's no ratio that i found to follow, so far. For "organic" soil nutes, you may need 212 for NPK, again because teh Nitrogen used in some soil nutes are not plant-ready out of the bag and require "work" to be done by the microbes before it can enter the plant. so you need a stock unadulterated N-ingredient that results in a proper amount of plant-available N each day (each second.. any increment of time works -- it is a rate of provision that matters, not a counting number) Lights, CO2, environment will bring out the greatest potential in your plant. Fertilizer does not requier a name brand because the ingredients used are commodities. there are not grades of quality. MKP is always MKP. calcium nitrate is always calcium nitrate. the uncertain, non-guaranteed label stuff (aka "organic") is a crapshoot and can have quality variances, mainly dealing with consistency. in some cases it's impossible to work this stuff out in that sort of context. concentration in soilless/hydro is simply 1.3-1.5 with 10% runoff each fertigation. Proportional to growth rate, what is available to the plant over time in soil will add up to similar amount of mass of nutes taken in per day or per week over time. the plant is made of the same molecules, regardless. this stuff has to add up - law of conservation of mass. So, you need more Ca if it isn't giving the equivalent of 100ppm or so each day -- fairly normal VPD relative to stage of growth and non-extreme environment being requirements... a generally good health context is the only one to worry about. fertilizers should be cheap. if this is a premium price like athena and floraflex nutes, you've got a case of "the emeror's new clohes". Don't over pay for what amounts to 5-10% of the results. feeding is more about not stepping on our own dicks or flaps and letting the plant do its job efficienty. there's no "boosters" or magic bullet that changes everything. you want the best buds? supplement cow to 1300, give 55dLI or more and tightly control environment -- that'll improve yield. quality is genetics of the plant in question. This can have a profound effect on results, but whether you use "this" brand or "that" brand really has no effect as long as both are competent products, which is a low bar when talking about commodities.