Leaves "burning" but PPM going down daily...

[Hydrolized]

:Warning. I always see posts for help that lack lots of information. I have tried to include as much detail as possible to avoid repeated questions about things I forgot to mention, so I apologize for this turning into a novel. Hopefully some of you will be generous and patient enough to read through it all and give some light to the situation:

What STRAIN is being growing? SS White Russian
What was the establishing technique? (Were the seed or clone?) Seed
What is the age of the plants? Day 30 Flower, Day 50 Total
What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower)Flower
What Technique is being using? DWC
What substrate/medium is being using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc.)Hydroton
What is the Nutrient temperature? 63F
What Nutrient's are being used? GH Flora Lucas 6:12, 5ml/g CalMag+, 1ml/g Floralicious Plus, 5ml/g GH Liquid Koolbloom, 10ml/g Aquashield
What is the TDS/EC/PPM? 1050ppm .5 conversion (800ppm not counting the CalMag+)
What is the pH of the "Tank"?5.9
Are you sure the calibration is correct on the equiptment?Yes
When was the last watering? DWC!
When was the last feeding change? (ie. grow-bloom-micro-additional)Res change every 10 days
What size bulb is being using?1000w Solarmax
What is the distance to the canopy? 18"
What is the RH Factor? 35%
What is the canopy temperature?75F
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include flucutaion range)70F Day 60F Night
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) 150cfm exhaust, 50cfm clip fan
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? Yes
Is the water HARD or SOFT? R.O. water <5ppm
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched?No
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so, What and When?No
Are plant's infected with pest's?No

Sending this out here for a friend doing a legal grow..couldn't help him out as I have no experience growing MJ...stick to the legal outdoor "boring" stuff like veggies

Plants started showing brown spots on lower leaves the week before flower when they were at 500ppm Lucas only, no calmag. When they went into flower, the spots got worse, leaves started dying. I told him brown spots usually is Ca, if the pH is correct. So week 1.5 flower he changed the res to 800ppm of GH flora lucas, and added 5ml/g CalMag+ which brought it up to 1050 (250ppm from the CalMag+, but I heard your not supposed to count that value when stating your PPM's?). Everything got much better, both plants grew new nice green leaves, lower leaf spotting and dying stopped.

So as of week 3 last week, he mixed the res with 625ppm lucas which is 5ml Micro 10ml Bloom/gallon, then added 5ml/g Liquid KoolBloom bring it up to 800ppm, then added the CM+, totalling at 1050. (the Floralicious Plus and the AquaShield don't add any significant PPM's) pH is rock solid 5.9.

Started to get the brown/yellow leaves again, starting at the bottom and working its way up to the newer top fan leaves....

At this point I told him I had heard a lot of times that what looks like nute burn is actually underfeeding. He told me that the PPM's from day 21 to day 28 were going down, so obviously the plants were eating more nutes than water, right?

I had heard that SS White Russian was very nute tolerant and needed a lot of Ca/Mg..but am thinking that the 250ppm of CalMag he is using should be enough considering most tap water is between 100-300ppm...(adding calmag to RO is just to fix that imbalance anyways, right?)

So I told him to try upping the nutes to 1250ppm, so actually that would be 1000ppm not counting the calmag....around 825ppm of Lucas @ 7ml/g Micro, 14ml/g Bloom, then another 175ppm of Liquid Koolbloom @ 5ml/gallon (still half of what GH says on the bottle).

Two days later, he told me all the tips turned brown and curled down. Obviously this is a good sign of nute burn, so I told him to cut it back down to 1050ppm (800ppm w/o CM).

Today, a few days after this crazy up and down shindig, he calls and says the curling down/tip burning stopped, GOOD. BUT, the brown/yellow spotting is still there, still getting worse, still climbing up the plant.

I asked him for pics to post, and got the pics below.


This is where I am confused. It LOOKS like a K deficiency, and/or a Ca deficiency, no? Or could this really be nute burn? Kind of ruled that out since the PPM's are NOT jumping up everyday as in classic overfeeding DWC cases I see on here...actually slowly going down...

With 5ml/gallon 250ppm of CalMag and pH at a good solid 5.9 I can't see how it's a Ca def....I DID read somewhere that White Russian needed "double" CalMag when using RO water, but I have never heard of anyone using the whole 10ml/g 500PPM's of it like it states on the bottle...thoughts on this?

If it's a K def, it should have went away when the PPM's were upped to 1250....but when that was done, the tips burnt like it was getting too much!!!

So it seems like a catch 22, they need more nutes to stop the fans from doing that, but when they get more, they get tip burn! (this is what I think but like I said I really have no hands on experience)

I have burned my eyes with hours and hours of searching for "brown spot leaves" and "nute ppm" etc...and have found that the general best way to do nute strength, is to not listen to anyones ml/g references, rather pick a starting point, watch your ppm's, and go from there, since every plant is different and every stage of each plant is different... I can understand this concept.

With his PPM's going DOWN 10-20ppm every few days this SHOULD mean the plants are eating more nutes than water, and the PPM's COULD/SHOULD be increased....in this case, when they are, burn!

I have seen a few threads where "burnt tips" was actually a K def/pH problem....I really wanted to tell him to just go for the full 8:16 Lucas formula with no koolbloom and the 5ml of CalMag and see if it really was a underferting problem...but I don't want to kill everything he has and probably ruin a friendship over it in the process.

So clif notes

Lower fans brown spots, yellowing/drying up
Added CalMag, got better.
Later into flower, started doing it again
Upped nutes, got tip curl down/tip burn
Lowered nutes, tips flattened out, PPMs dropping slowly
Fans still getting worse.

I'm thinking now to tell him to just leave the Flora and koolbloom PPMs the same and up the CalMag+ to 10ml/g to see if thats it, but 500ppm of CalMag seems like way too much and could lock out other nutes, correct?


Roots are bone white, rez temp is good, pH rock solid.

Help!


TONS of thanks for anyone caring enough to endure that book of confused whining!

 

[Hydrolized]

For shits and giggles here is a graph that was forwarded to me, I figure it's nice to troubleshoot looking at hard data, no?

 

[PuReKnOwLeDgE]

I will chime in I grow in RDWC. I run a white widow cross (white lightning = white widow x NL#5) and she likes it right around 850ppm. I use floranova bloom and the foxfarm tripack + calmag when needed. DWC is a lighter feeder then most sytems as far as nute concentration goes.

It is weird his ppm is dropping and they are still burning. I don't know if its the koolbloom or not but something is to hot.

I usually max out in RDWC right around 1.8 EC 900 ppm @ conversion. 1.5-2.0EC range for most plants.

 

[Hydrolized]

Thanks for your time PK.

So I take it you are saying when looking at those pics you are seeing burn, and not a def....correct? I still couldn't find a definitive "burn vs def." thread with pictures showing the difference between nute BURN and a Ca/K DEFICIENCY since they are similar looking (especially K since its brown burnt tips)...actually saw a lot of threads with pics like the ones I posted with people getting into flame wars over whether it was burn or def!

What you said pretty much sums up what I have put together from scouring the web...DWC takes a little less nutes than "normal" because they are always 100% available to the plants....people usually use a little less than Lucas suggests, sticking under 2.0 EC.

I read a post on GC.com from Simon himself (SS breeder) saying he runs the WR at 1.9EC...so I'm just not getting why these are exhibiting this "burn" when only at 1.7-1.9....confusing me even more on whether its burn or not!

About the KoolBloom, this browning/spotting/dying was going on before the LKB also, during veg when they had no CM+ and were undernuted...he upped the nutes AND started the CM+ at the same time so I'm not sure which fixed it for the short term...

Thanks again for your input, hopefully some other ICer's that have been boggled by this same thing and will chime in.

 

[Chimney]

dfgdfgfd

 

[Hydrolized]

Thanks for you time and that link, Chimney.

I remember hearing about the 50/50 tap/RO before and mentioned it but apparently the water out there is fubar and people don't even drink it...hence why he invested in a RO system.

I forgot the CM+ had 2% N in it but I don't think that caused the "burn"....after reading that thread though it still focuses on proper pH along with tracking EC as FreezerBoy hammers into everyones head (for good reason)....in this case pH is solid and EC is dropping...confusing.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[Chimney]

dfgdfg

 

[Hydrolized]

Anyone else want to take a look at the pics and give their opinion on burn or deficiency?

 

[Guest 18340]

OK, 6/12 is not the Lucas formula, it's 8/16.
Lucas has gone as far as recommending 5/10 for less intense lighting in veg, like flouro's.
But you're flowering under 1000watts.
Here is my suggestion, use straight tap, mix using the 8/16 formula, ph to 6 and see waht happens.
I don't grow using DWC, i'm drip to waste in coco, but a cal/mag def is a cal/mag def and you're just not giving them enough of either from the base nutes.
Also, cal/mag gets added to the water first, then add nutes and ph.
Again, this is all just my opinion.

 

[Indecent]

Looks overfed to me too.

It's not too uncommon for damaged fan leaves to continue dying off even after the problem has been corrected. After the "Lowered nutes, tips flattened out, PPMs dropping slowly" step, has he noticed additional fan leaves exhibiting the problem?

Hopefully the "Fans still getting worse" is referring to the same leaves getting worse and not additional leaves being affected. If it is the same leaves getting worse, maybe you fixed it already and they are dying off normally?

 

[MynameStitch]

I'm thinking now to tell him to just leave the Flora and koolbloom PPMs the same and up the CalMag+ to 10ml/g to see if thats it, but 500ppm of CalMag seems like way too much and could lock out other nutes, correct?

once you fix this problem, damaged leaves will not recover...... you want to pay attention to un affected growth to see if it spreads.

This problem all comes down to pH and too much nutes how big these plants are?
How often are you testing your pH? the plants removing nutes from the water is normal if they are not being burned, is he testing the pH after the nutes are being removed from the water?
Does he use pH down or add more nutes to keep the pH the same?

I will tell you your plants pH Is not staying stable, spotting effects show this on the leaves, you should always go by what your plants are telling you rather than reading about how the strain likes this and that. You can read about how a strain is and such, but that does not mean you are going to get the same pheno type as the other person and the one you got may be a little more picky..... even if you grow the same strain, no 2 plants are alike unless they are clones of each other.

You are supposed to count everything when you add to the res, this takes in account for tap water ppm if using it.
Same goes for your RO water your using.

THat ppm of cal mag is nuts not all strains can take lucas formula....


With his PPM's going DOWN 10-20ppm every few days this SHOULD mean the plants are eating more nutes than water, and the PPM's COULD/SHOULD be increased....in this case, when they are, burn!

The size they look like should be taking more out of there, if they are taking that small amount, then the amount in the res is too much or the pH is incorrect.

Have you used lucas formula with this strain before? Your plants are showing multiple problems, not just micronutes, you also got a phosphorous/nitrogen problem it looks like.
I have burned my eyes with hours and hours of searching for "brown spot leaves" and "nute ppm" etc...and have found that the general best way to do nute strength, is to not listen to anyones ml/g references, rather pick a starting point, watch your ppm's, and go from there, since every plant is different and every stage of each plant is different... I can understand this concept.

Perfect!!! That is exactly what needs to be done!
When you put high ppms on small plant you cause them to grow slow and they show these problems.....

you need to start over and go by the size of your plant/ppm ratio. If you want to use lucas formula, you need to cut the dosage, cause these plants can't take it.
Your pH is also not solid, there is pH problems and I am sure they are cause by the high nutes.

Now with the problem before you added more nutes, this could be caused by either pH going up and down, or the amount you gave them was too much.

How often does he test his ppms?

 

[Hydrolized]

OK, 6/12 is not the Lucas formula, it's 8/16.
Lucas has gone as far as recommending 5/10 for less intense lighting in veg, like flouro's.
But you're flowering under 1000watts.
Here is my suggestion, use straight tap, mix using the 8/16 formula, ph to 6 and see waht happens.
I don't grow using DWC, i'm drip to waste in coco, but a cal/mag def is a cal/mag def and you're just not giving them enough of either from the base nutes.
Also, cal/mag gets added to the water first, then add nutes and ph.
Again, this is all just my opinion.

Thanks for your time evlme. I know and he knows Lucas is 8/16, but it's been said that in order to adjust for different strains, you just keep the RATIO, which is what lucas is talking about, which is the 1:2 ratio. The mixing order has been CM+, Micro, Bloom, LKB, FP, AS..so I think the order is alright.

I was thinking of telling him to go to full lucas 8/16, but after even going 7/14 (1200ppm) they tip burned so I held back on that thought...

I'm thinking now to tell him to just leave the Flora and koolbloom PPMs the same and up the CalMag+ to 10ml/g to see if thats it, but 500ppm of CalMag seems like way too much and could lock out other nutes, correct?

once you fix this problem, damaged leaves will not recover...... you want to pay attention to un affected growth to see if it spreads.

This problem all comes down to pH and too much nutes how big these plants are?
How often are you testing your pH? the plants removing nutes from the water is normal if they are not being burned, is he testing the pH after the nutes are being removed from the water?
Does he use pH down or add more nutes to keep the pH the same?

I will tell you your plants pH Is not staying stable, spotting effects show this on the leaves, you should always go by what your plants are telling you rather than reading about how the strain likes this and that. You can read about how a strain is and such, but that does not mean you are going to get the same pheno type as the other person and the one you got may be a little more picky..... even if you grow the same strain, no 2 plants are alike unless they are clones of each other.

You are supposed to count everything when you add to the res, this takes in account for tap water ppm if using it.
Same goes for your RO water your using.

THat ppm of cal mag is nuts not all strains can take lucas formula....


With his PPM's going DOWN 10-20ppm every few days this SHOULD mean the plants are eating more nutes than water, and the PPM's COULD/SHOULD be increased....in this case, when they are, burn!

The size they look like should be taking more out of there, if they are taking that small amount, then the amount in the res is too much or the pH is incorrect.

I was under the impression that if your water level is dropping, and the PPM level is staying the same, that means the plant is eating and drinking equal amounts of food and water, therefore the more stable the PPM's the better. You are now saying that the PPM's should be constantly dropping? I thought that meant they are drinking more than eating, and you should raise the PPM's. Also, if your PPM's are going UP constantly, that means the plants are drinking water and leaving nutes in the solution, meaning you need to lower it....your are saying this is not true?

Have you used lucas formula with this strain before? Your plants are showing multiple problems, not just micronutes, you also got a phosphorous/nitrogen problem it looks like.
I have burned my eyes with hours and hours of searching for "brown spot leaves" and "nute ppm" etc...and have found that the general best way to do nute strength, is to not listen to anyones ml/g references, rather pick a starting point, watch your ppm's, and go from there, since every plant is different and every stage of each plant is different... I can understand this concept.

Perfect!!! That is exactly what needs to be done!
When you put high ppms on small plant you cause them to grow slow and they show these problems.....

you need to start over and go by the size of your plant/ppm ratio. If you want to use lucas formula, you need to cut the dosage, cause these plants can't take it.
Your pH is also not solid, there is pH problems and I am sure they are cause by the high nutes.

I was kind of confused about the stable pH also as usually peoples pH drifts up .1 or .2 over a week, but the meter is calibrated every week and is accurate to .02 pH and always reads 5.87-5.93 every time the solution is checked (once a day) If you look at the chart you will see every plot has a date under it showing every day it is checked and the PPM's going down slowly.

Now with the problem before you added more nutes, this could be caused by either pH going up and down, or the amount you gave them was too much.

The first sign of this spotting happened during veg when the PPMs were very low, around 300ppm for 10" plants, but pH was still stable at 5.7-5.8. The problem actually went away during week 2 flower when the nutes were upped to 800ppm and calmag was added,the lower leaves did not recover as you said, but the new growth was nice and green, but now 2 weeks later on the same nute schedule the problem is back, all the large fan leaves are spotting and the new growth is starting to do the same. Confusing!

How often does he test his ppms?
pH and ppms are tested once a day at the same time of day.

 

[Guest 18340]

I don't know how your friend gets 1200 ppm from 7/14. I just mixed a batch of 8/16 and I got 1300ppm. And thats with 300 ppm water.
Did I miss something?

 

[Hydrolized]

I don't know how your friend gets 1200 ppm from 7/14. I just mixed a batch of 8/16 and I got 1300ppm. And thats with 300 ppm water.
Did I miss something?

7/14 =900ppm
5ml CM+ =250ppm (equiv of your tap water)

Gets around 1150...with lucas every 1:2 ml increase should yield another 150ppm, so that sounds about right to me...

Thanks for bringing that up though, evlme.

Don't know how to post pics to show up in the thread instead of just links (without hosting them on another site), but I got some updates today at various parts of the plants for people to see...

 

[Hydrolized]

and some more..

 

[Hydrolized]

andddd some more.

Sorry about the multiple posts, not sure how to 1. post more than 4 links per post and/or 2. post the pics directly into the thread without hosting on another site.

As I'm just getting to see these pics as I'm posting them, I just noticed all the branch growth and/or smaller leaves look pretty good, if not a little too dark..not sure if this helps the diagnosis?

Also that last one of the top of the second plant, looks to be growing new bigger wierd looking leaves instead of a fat hairy bud on top as I see in most of the pics on here? Is this a sign of overfeeding also? yikes.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Hydrolized]

Bump...

Newest info is the res is now at 1000ppm, down from 1020 two days ago when it was mixed, 5.9pH

Breakdown on new res mixture per gallon:

5ml CalMag+ brought it up to 200ppm
5/10 Micro/Bloom took it to 900ppm
5ml Liquid Koolbloom took it to 1000ppm or 2.0 EC.

Still is dropping 10-20ppm per day.

I have noticed through the pics that this is affecting the lower fan leaves first and moving UP..I thought Ca deficiency started with the newest growth? Even after the res being mixed as above, the top most fans are still starting to get spots/tip burn.

I noticed something else in the newest pics, all the branch growth and branch leaves are VERY dark green, kind of like the picture of N overdose plants.

This is leading me to believe it IS really overfeeding regardless of the signs showing its a Ca or Mg deficiency....it seems that a Ca/Mg deficiency is very similar to Overfeeding signs...confusing!

About the Cal-Mag issue and how much to use, the "average" numbers for Ca and Mg needed according the listings around IC, is 70ppm Ca and 50ppm Mg. Mixing the CM+ at 5ml/gallon gives you 42ppm Ca, and 16ppm Mg. The rest comes from the Micro and Bloom, so I'm thinking its definitely NOT a lockout due to TO MUCH Cal-Mag +. Even the flora Hardwater Micro that contains less Ca and Mg says to only use it if your tap water has above 70ppm Ca, this guys starting water with the Cal-Mag only has 42ppm Ca, sounds about perfect to me.

A few of your said burn, a few said Deficiency.

Any old timers that have dealt with this before have any input? (didn't forget about you Stitch, your help is appreciated very much, just waiting on your response to my reply above )

This is really pissing me off. If it wasn't for all you IC'ers input I would be pacing circles. I've read hours and hours of posts from various sites and still can't pinpoint what's up! Add to that having to go only by pictures, arg.

Summary:

Lower fans rust spotting/yellowing/brittling/cracking up
moving up the plant to the newest fan leaves
week 4 flower
ppms going DOWN regardless of burned look.
When tried to INCREASE ppm's to combat "Ca def" look, tips curled down and burnt.
Lowered PPM's, straightened out, but spotting reappeared.
New res at 2.0 EC, uppermost leaves still getting worse
pH 5.8-6.0 at all times
All lower branch growth dark dark green, N overdose looking.


Multiple, opposite, conflicting symptoms. At least it looks that way to me.

Pic 1. Set of two of the middle fan leaves recently taken off
Pic 2. Pic of the uppermost (newest) fan leaves, beginning to show the spots
Pic 3. Pic showing the very dark lower growth (N overdose or normal color?)
Pic 4. Overall plant pic, Bud Development look normal for 4.5 weeks, or stunted from this problem?

If anyone can confirm with good data that this is clearly a deficieny and the tip curling he saw when he upped the PPM's to 1200 was because of something else, I'll gladly give him my "ok" to try the full 8:16 Lucas like evlme2 suggested, just with the huge tip curl he got with the 1200ppm I was holding off....

If anyone can confirm its clearly OVERfeeding, I guess I'll tell him to try dropping it to say 750ppm or 1.5 EC and see what that does?


Can't convey how much I appreciate the time and help from you guys.

-Hydrolized-

 

[ItsGrowTime]

Something about the ppm doesn't sound right to me. Im trying to put my finger on it but blazed at the moment so... I use Floranova Bloom at lucas 8ml/gal and am around 950ppm (.5 conversion) without much else in the res and good (50ppm) tap water. Your friend is adding a lot of extra Cal-mag when lucas 8/16 should be providing enough nutes without burning, esp under 1000w. Im not clear why he's using 6:12? I think there's some nutrient imbalance there that needs to be addressed but I don't know exactly what. It just doesn't sound right.

Btw, plants take longer than a day or two to recover from imbalances and it seems like your friend is making too many changes too quickly (add this, subtract that, etc) and making the problem worse.

I think your friend should dump the entire res contents, flush THOROUGHLY with a flush agent, and mix a fresh res with just lucas 8/16 full strength and give the plants a chance to recover. All the quick changes being made to address one problem tend to cause other problems. Give the plants a chance to recover under known acceptable conditions (proper balanced ppm and proper ph). I know that can be hard sometimes to wait for results but the problems don't show up overnight so they can't be fixed overnight. And I don't think a damaged plant can be restored to full greatness either if the problems arise in flower.

Just my thoughts. Good luck to him.

 

[Hydrolized]

Something about the ppm doesn't sound right to me. Im trying to put my finger on it but blazed at the moment so... I use Floranova Bloom at lucas 8ml/gal and am around 950ppm (.5 conversion) without much else in the res and good (50ppm) tap water. Your friend is adding a lot of extra Cal-mag when lucas 8/16 should be providing enough nutes without burning, esp under 1000w. Im not clear why he's using 6:12? I think there's some nutrient imbalance there that needs to be addressed but I don't know exactly what. It just doesn't sound right.

Btw, plants take longer than a day or two to recover from imbalances and it seems like your friend is making too many changes too quickly (add this, subtract that, etc) and making the problem worse.

I think your friend should dump the entire res contents, flush THOROUGHLY with a flush agent, and mix a fresh res with just lucas 8/16 full strength and give the plants a chance to recover. All the quick changes being made to address one problem tend to cause other problems. Give the plants a chance to recover under known acceptable conditions (proper balanced ppm and proper ph). I know that can be hard sometimes to wait for results but the problems don't show up overnight so they can't be fixed overnight. And I don't think a damaged plant can be restored to full greatness either if the problems arise in flower.

Just my thoughts. Good luck to him.

Thanks a lot for your time. I agree, I guess he should be waiting more like a week before deciding something is or is not working.

The CalMag was going in because it's R.O.D.I. water <5ppm, and a lot of the people around here say even with lucas if your using R.O. water you should be using a Ca/Mg suppliment. Maybe not though? The rest of the PPM's come from the LKB which is only P and K.

What I'm beggining to think happened was he underfed them in Veg (400ppm), they started developing a Ca deficiency from a general underfeeding from the Flora M/B, then he added the CalMag to try and compensate when all he should have done was add more M/B, like the lucas 5:10 he recommends for veg which is around 650ppm.

The only thing really ircking me is when I look at the pictures I'm seeing tip curl down and burning, and really dark green lower growth, pointing to overfeeding, then seeing rust spots and what looks like deficiencies on all the fan leaves. The 4 pics I just posted show all the different symptoms the best.

When SEARCHING like every noob should, I have seen posts where people get burn at anything above 700ppm in DWC, then I saw one guy posting on anther forum running SS White Russian saying he was up to 2.5 EC and using 10ml/gal CalMag because they "needed it". So now I have the BREEDER Simon saying he uses 1.9EC (Around 900ppm on my buds meter, right around where he's at now), then another guy saying nothing over 1.7EC or burn, then another saying he's running 2.5EC (1500ppm) and running 500ppm of calmag cuz they needed it......yikes!

Thanks again for your help.

 

[stoney917]

if ur using ro you prob need some cal mag as the ro filter takes it out