ATTENTION NEWBIES-- Ph is Phu$%ng Important!

i have been studying up on this Hobby for about a year: Visiting here a lot: reading anything I could get my hands on; and asking the veterans how it is done.

durng this time no book, no thread, no one, not even BOG himself, told me and emphasised the importance of Ph.

It is this simple... IMPROPER PH KILLS!

Here is my story and I hope that I can help some of you learn from my mistakes.

About a year ago, I grew out some supposed White Widow Bag seed. I tossed a bit of this, a bit of that, overfertilized, underwatered and ended up with one female that yielded very little, but it was good smoke and it was mine. I knew exactly what had been used in growing and I knew that the person that grew it put a lot of love in that scrawny old thing. Me and my buddies had a great time with the fluff i harvested.

I wanted to do it better, so i started reading up, ordered up a bunch of expensive seeds and modestly tricked out a growing area. The first batch took off like rockets. DP Shaman big thick stems. scrogged up and spread out. Then the bottom leaves got spots. I thought it was mites, thrips, gnats.

I identified my problem and went after it. I bought a lot of expensive but very safe insecticide, beneficial insects, neem oil, and spent so much time hunched down in my scrog. spraying bugs and killing my back. I realeased nematodes and the beneficials.

The leaves kept yellowing and the day they were going to flower. They just looked too weak. Dried, yellow, spotchy. it only took a week to go from stellar babes to brittle, sad, dead husks of defeat.

It must have been thrips.

I germed, cleaned out the room, and started over. this series of events happened three more times. I did get rid of the scrog because it's just too much work and you can approximate the effects with LST.

I felt very negative and stupid. I had worked hard to identify and correct the problems but nothing worked. And in the process I killed some beautiful genetics. LSD, reeferman's Romulan X BB Sativa, and a few Durban Poisons.

That's when i asked some well respected folks around here for suggestions for fool proof strains as i was convinced I was dealing with a fool.

In the meantime, i had one more pack of seeds to give a go. 6 Dutch Passion Blueberry a strain labeled "not for beginners" and "fussy". They took off like Rockets. 5 germed and one was sort of sickly so it was culled. I had four going like trains. Then the yellowing happened again. I was using BOGs KISS plan with the exception of Ocean forest/perlite soil mix and i was feeding with Pure Blend and Algamic. I was using a proven system that wasnt working.

i decided to test the Ph. I bought a $50 digital pen and tested my runoff. It was 7.8 well out of range for healthy plants (6.0 - 6.6) and with blueberry it is more like 5.8- 6.2. They like acid. Eureka.

I had spent hours diagnosing and treating every problem that I could imagine: thrips, mites, gnats, ants, root rot, overfertilization, underfertilization, plague, syphilis, etc. i also spent a lot of money fixing things that weren't broken.

It is very simple, If you Ph falls or rises out of range. you will cause nutrient lockout and no matter what you do, short of correcting your Ph, your plants will die.

If you are planning a grow go buy a meter and use it. It will more than justify the expense.

I hope that someone will take this to heart.

Rabid Peach I am glad you solved your first problem. I don't know what books you were reading but everyone I've seen has a range for ph, nute ppms, temps and humidity. Many have charts showing the possible lock outs that can occur when out of range. One thing to take to heart, you "did" find out what the problem was, now on to the next one. If you would, please post the ph, ppms, temps and humidity ranges you believe to be correct so any future dilema can be averted, also state if you are in soil or.., and how frequently you change or add nutes. Now for you to say you are "one bad mo fo" you'll need to earn that now! OG Badmf!

the only book i read was ed rosenthal's and it was pretty redundant of what you can learn here.

as far as all of the other stuff you want listed its all over these pages but a general idea is: temps from 70-85, humidity 50-70 (lower when mold can be a problem) ph 6.0 to 6.6. (research your strain before you grow to see where it seems to like ph). and ppm, i don't fool with that. I just follow BOG's feeding schedule that can be found in BOGs forum it is a stickied tutorial.

yes, all of these things do mention proper Ph but i don't think they stress the importance. I know i never understood that, i thought that hydro guys were the only ones that needed a ph meter. I certainly didnt understand that Ph imbalance can kill.


you don't even know how bad a mofo can be...

I'm a water baby... sooooooo... checking PH is one of the FIRST things I do. PH is a great indicator and IF it rises or falls... it's asking you to pay attention.

I read this thread with great interest... thanks for sharing your story...

thanks maistre. at least someone enjoyed it.

i would have loved to have read this thread ten months and a couple of hundred quid ago.

I finally have things under control and my babies are coming along nicely. I should post some pics if i can figure out how to do it.

take care
rp

live and learn Rabid Peach....chalk it up to experience, you are now a richer person :smile:

ive been semming to have alot of problems, wich i am blaming on PH and have been for a while, as i have tried and corrected about every other problem

Are organics more likly to go off ph balance?

Ive thinkn of swtichn to AN and see if it goes any better.

Or maybe somone could come up with a way of watering, so to have runoff comeout, the problem is the floors are sheetrock and if watered too much (ie the proper amount as to have runoff) the floors get horrible messy.

Any suggestions on any of it?

shop,

first i test my plain water it is about 7.5. then i add ferts (fox farm) and then check runoff and it is usually about 6.3-4. so in my case it usually comes down. that could be from the peat in the pro mix too.

as far as run off, not sure what size pots you are using but home depot has these plasitc circular things for house plants to catch run off that you can get in various sizes. They are only like $1 each... they make them pretty big too

not sure if that helps

hmmm doesnt that make it overwatered? i want to run a lil extra thru then to get the ph closer to my waters ph. or how would i empty the tray...

p.s. they are 5 gallons buckets

Actually soil provides a nice buffer as long as your mix isn't too far off on ideal ph. PH is important especially if you have alkaline water. If your water is neutral in ph then just feeding keeps you in a somewhat acceptable range. Usually you will see curling up or down of the leaves when ph is off. If you have acidity build up problems a cup of dolomite lime is added but if you have alkalinity problems ferting can balance you out if you just feed weakly every watering. The ph can go up and down a little if you feed every other time or even less frequently.

A test of the ph would have saved some losses and we live and learn. Thanks for sharing your experience Rabid. BOG

none of my problems have turned into mishaps yet, more just annoying probs that stress the babies, and some upsetting looking leaves early in veg somtimes...

i think it would benefit from watering so there is a decent amount of runoff...anyone have ideas as to how to do this with a sheetrock floor. Ive thought of just putting tarp on the floor but that seems a lil messy

BOG - I do have a question that I have been debating with myself for sometime now. I am growing in a soilless medium. Fox Farms Light Warrior Soilless mix. It is a pretty acidic mix at around 4.5-5.0 I believe. If I adjust the PH of my nute mix to around 6.2-6.3, won't it end up being quite a bit lower than that in the soil because the medium is so acidic? If so, should I compensate by PH'ing my mix at around 6.8-7.0?

The other question is, if I PH the run off, is that going to give me an accurate idea of the actual PH in the soil? I mean, if the water/mix just runs right through the soil into the drip tray, has it had enough time for the medium to affect it? If not, how can I accurately test the PH of the medium to see what is actually happening at the root level? Thanks for you input.

I think we've all had our fare share, or more, of ph problems. Litmus paper or a digital ph pen are both a great investment for even the beginner first time grower. Both litmus paper, and pool ph test strips are cheap, and the same thing for the most part. Both work well enough for soil propagation use, but if you are in hydro, i would recommend getting a digital meter and watching it closely. I prefer oakton pens myself. i've used them all, and they seem to hold up the best to abuse, and have never failed me yet.

shop vac. i am following BOGs method as it is proven and simple. It is a very good way to begin removing variables and this is the name of the game:

reduction of variables = more control
more control = greater success

BOG doesnt like to use the dishes to catch run-off cause it does saturate. If you go to Home Depot you can get these 6'X6' pieces of vinyl flooring. they are about 18 bucks and you can get them in white. i just water and use a towel to stop the runoff.

small garden so no problem.

BOG- thanks for stopping in. i hope that i can start to help people now that things are under control.