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Cal/Mag? Just need verification. Bad browning of leaves.

H

Harabec

Member
I felt I should start a new thread as my former thread is no longer relevant. "The Complete Guide to Sick Plants, pH and Pest troubles! " seems to indicate via pictures that my new problem is in regards to a calcium or magnesium problem (seems to be they are both similiar in form). I did not see this prior to introducing 1/2 nutes about half a week ago. Additionally, my water temp is around 70.5 (up from 68 due to room temp change). I was told lockout occurs at 71 for my setup, so I thought I am in lockout.

Here are some nice high res pictures (specs of grow below).



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What STRAIN are you growing? Jack Herer, 7 Ghosts, Shark Attack

What was the establishing technique? (Were the seed or clone?) Clones

What is the age of your plants? Unknown, a friend of mine rooted clones for me and brought them over. 4 weeks I think.

What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? Veg 18/6

What Technique are you using? What substrate/medium are you using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc): UC-DWC, Growstone

What is the Nutrient temperature 68 to 70.5

What Nutrients are you using: X Nutrients

What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using? Bluelab Truncheon,HM Digital Handheld TDS Tester Model TDS-3, HM Digital Waterproof pH Meter Model PH-200.

What is the pH of the "Tank"? 5.5-5.8

Are you sure your calibration is correct on your equipment? Yes

When was your last watering? Same day as post.

When was your last feeding change? (ie. grow-bloom-micro-additional): Vegged with ph’d well water, half strength grow,micro,amino on 2/2/13

What size bulb are you using? Veg under 2x4 T5s.

What is the distance to the canopy? 3ft 1in.

What is your RH Factor? Approximately 45%, unsure of exact.

What is the canopy temperature 68-73

What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range): 68-73

What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.): Approximately 435cfm – fan activates about once every 4min. Air change in approx. 1 min.

Is the fan blowing directly at plants? 16in wall-mount fan blowing oscillating across the plants.

Is your water HARD or SOFT? Soft, 150ppm out of well.

Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched: topped for extra stems on 2/4/13.

Have any pest chemicals been used? If so, What and When? Rhiztonic added on 2/3/13

Are plant's infected with pest's: I did not see any.


So.. this problem seems to be spreading I see it appearing on other plants nearby. Is it possible to reverse this or at least save some plants?

Thanks everyone!
 
Bobbles

Bobbles

Member
Yes, this is a calcium def, adding cal/mag will fix this. The Plant will take a week to recover given the severity of the deficiency judging the leaf pictures provided.

This deficiency is very advanced, you should catch it WAY before it reaches this point... Look at the under side of leafs with the light in the background. It makes the leaf transparent and you can notice a cal deficiency because little "dots" or "holes" start appearing in the leafs.


Hope this helps!
 
H

Harabec

Member
Yes, this is a calcium def, adding cal/mag will fix this. The Plant will take a week to recover given the severity of the deficiency judging the leaf pictures provided.

This deficiency is very advanced, you should catch it WAY before it reaches this point... Look at the under side of leafs with the light in the background. It makes the leaf transparent and you can notice a cal deficiency because little "dots" or "holes" start appearing in the leafs.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

I am such an idiot sometimes, I topped the plants and when I saw the first browning leaves I thought it was plant stress and didnt check my assumption. I left for awhile and hoped it would get better.

This does help my good man, I will address it tomorrow morning.

Putting up a picture of a whole plant really helps out too.
Click to expand...

Yeah man I took some more, here they are.

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There are about 5 leaf clusters that are kinda bad, this issue is forming on others and looks like the bad ones did 4-5 days ago.
 
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S

SeaMaiden

Harabec... you have other problems going on there, not just Ca-. I see that one last lower leaf, in the last pic there.... difficult for me to Dx right now.

I do feel it's important to point out that Ca- and Mg- look nothing alike, and in fact occur on different parts of the plant, much due to each mineral's mobility, or lack thereof. Ca is relatively immobile, must be laid down in plant tissues from the get-go. Mg, however, is highly mobile, and can be given at any time and you can correct deficiencies at any time due to its mobility. Therefore, older growth, because Mg can be translocated, is where one will observe a Mg-. Alternatively, newer growth, due to its immobility, is where one will typically observe a Ca-.

Mg- begins as interveinal chlorosis (yellowing) on lower leaves, which will progress to a yellow halo with a green outer leaf margin, progressing to full necrosis.

Ca- begins and ends as necrosis, sometimes interveinally other times on the veins themselves, sometimes at leaf margins and other times out to leaf margins, very little yellowing involved.

Are the affected leaves starting out looking like the lower leaf, with that odd spotted yellowing?
 
H

Harabec

Member
~SeaMaiden

Are the affected leaves starting out looking like the lower leaf, with that odd spotted yellowing
Click to expand...

None of the leaves started out that way, all of the leaves with brown on them started out with very light brown splotches that became worse. I just looked this morning and the rest of the leaves on two of the six plants are developing brown spots. The other 3 plants in the tote are just beggining to show very lioght brown spots as well.

The only plants with this problem are Jack Herer, the other girl in there (7 Ghost) is getting better roots and growing and shows no sign of this problem. Additionally, the other tote's 6 plants are doing great with no sign of this problem. Both totes have literally the exact same setup, same water temp, same nutes, PH is dead on (like .02 off normally from each other), ppms and EC are always the same.

I hope I didnt jump the gun but I did add in cal/mag this morning at 3/4 strength, my EC jumped to 2.5 in that particular tote. Im starting to think I should mix new nutes soon instead of a week and a half from now.

Thank you for your time.
 
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S

SeaMaiden

You can give Ca and Mg via foliar applications. I would watch for pests, because that mottling/variegation could be nothing, or it could be a problem starting to show its first signs. If other plants show it, then it's time to figure out fully what's up.
 
S

sneaky_g

Member
You guys may think thats cal mag.. ( thats what i thought ) .. Root aphid damage mimicks Cal mag deficiency ...
 
4

420MAN78

Member
I'm not a hydro grower but i will try and help you out. The plants look like they are suffering from a ph problem and locking out nutrients. If only a certain strain is showing this which is what you said then i would say that strain is very sensitive and needs a little more attention then the others. You might have to tweak things for that certain strain. Also ppl have mention pests.They also can make your plants look deficient. Have you gone over the plants with a microscope? If this problem moves to other strains in different totes then i would be looking really hard at the pest possibility.
 
resinryder

resinryder

Rubbing my glands together
Veteran
If your ec jumped to 2.5 after adding cal mag, Im thinking your ec is too high to start with. What is your ec without adding the calmag? May just be burning them up. You are up around 1700ppm. They can take some food in veg but those are too small to be cooking em like that.
 
H

Harabec

Member
You guys may think thats cal mag.. ( thats what i thought ) .. Root aphid damage mimicks Cal mag deficiency ...
Click to expand...

Another hydro guy said it was Magnesium after viewing pictures. Anything I should look for in on the roots? I am going to start with draining it all out tonight and run water until tomorrow, I will take it back to 1/3 strength about this time tomorrow.

The only real thing that changed literally right before this occured was when I introduced 1/2 strength solution (up from 1/3). Everything else that I can possibly measure or see has been the same the for over 1.5 weeks.

I bought a loupe and will spend time examining for pests

What is your ec without adding the calmag?
Click to expand...

When I dumped in my 1/2 solution the EC was 1.6 - 1.8. Rhiztonic brought it to 1.8.

3/4 solution of cal/mag brought it way up to 2.5
 
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S

SeaMaiden

For the record, I do not think Mg is deficient here, I think it's Ca that's the biggest issue, but also feel that P uptake isn't happening properly. That, in combination with that leaf that's so variegated/mottled, makes me concerned that more than a simple deficiency is at work.
sneaky_g said:
You guys may think thats cal mag.. ( thats what i thought ) .. Root aphid damage mimicks Cal mag deficiency ...
Click to expand...
IME root aphid damage looks like a whole bunch of deficiencies at once, not just a "cal-mag" deficiency.

Harabec, I hope I made clear how to tell the difference(s) between Ca- and Mg-.

With RAs, you'll look for small aphid-type bugs on the roots, brown or unhealthy roots. Also, if it's bad, there will be female flyers. They look a lot like fungus gnats. Yellow sticky traps are your path to enlightenment there--use them for monitoring and scoping whatever gets stuck to them.

IF there are root aphids, then I would reconsider what's being observed, especially because they can act as such great disease vectors.
 
H

Harabec

Member
IME root aphid damage looks like a whole bunch of deficiencies at once, not just a "cal-mag" deficiency.

Harabec, I hope I made clear how to tell the difference(s) between Ca- and Mg-.

With RAs, you'll look for small aphid-type bugs on the roots, brown or unhealthy roots. Also, if it's bad, there will be female flyers. They look a lot like fungus gnats. Yellow sticky traps are your path to enlightenment there--use them for monitoring and scoping whatever gets stuck to them.

IF there are root aphids, then I would reconsider what's being observed, especially because they can act as such great disease vectors.
Click to expand...

The roots look bad, brown with black stuff on them, I do not see any pests and neither did a grow friend. Its like this damn tote is infected, done two complete nute changes and ran some additives like cannazyme and rhiz but no dice.

It could be your well water. I use to cut my well water with r/o and it helped out a lot.
Click to expand...

About 150ppm out of the faucet. What makes me doubt it is the water is that my other 30g tote is doing great. Not a single problem at all. Even the weaklings took off in that tote.

Here is a pic that shows the current state of things. I am culling the bad tote today and running half plants for this run. I want to clean it out, sanitize it and move three of the plants over to it. They are quite crowded now in the other tote as the pic shows.

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The roots look bad, brown with black stuff on them, I do not see any pests and neither did a grow friend. Its like this damn tote is infected, done two complete nute changes and ran some additives like cannazyme and rhiz but no dice.

Thanks for the help.
 
H

Harabec

Member
~SeaMaiden

Here are a few root pics. I went out there earlier and brandished a blade but I could not bring myself to chop them just yet. For the record, the roots in the other tots are white and robust. The totes have been treated exactly the same. Really confusing how this happens in one tot and not the other.

The leaf tidbits you see are the plants slowly disintegrating, the water does not have leaf matter floating in it.
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Part of the reason these roots look brown is due to the Subculture-M I ran. I ran it in the other tote too but rhiztonic cleaned the roots up. This tote never improved dispite using rhiz and cannazyme.
 
S

SeaMaiden

Wow, yeah, those roots look pretty bad. Have you read that thread, get rid of the slime forever?
 
H

Harabec

Member
~SeaMaiden
Wow, yeah, those roots look pretty bad. Have you read that thread, get rid of the slime forever?
Click to expand...

I did read a significant amount regarding this since then. Unfortunately I did have to cull six plants, they were missing over 90% of their leaves and the new growth was not enough to stay ahead.

After I cut them out I found pockets of rot hidden beneath the stem but inside the netpot.

Here are the problems I came up with.

1.) Significant light penetration into the tote due to lack of grow media. Since fixed but it went on two weeks.

2.) Lack of proper level of oxygenation. Not enough air injection into the water. I should have had more air stones, I only had two in each 30g tote. Since fixed but it went on 3 weeks.

3.) Runaway slime / rot problem. Did not address soon enough.

I believe these factors greatly amplified the propagation of slime and caused nutrient lockout. I think this is why we all saw so many deficiencies at the same time. I did not realize what was happening, partially due to using Subculture-M which stained the roots as well as modified their appearance. By the time I swapped the solution twice in the following weeks, the problem was already well manifested and the plants half dead.

Most of this is due to oversight on my part, I knew about light penetration into the water and also about properly oxygenating the nutrient solution. I should not have missed these two very important points.

Thanks everyone. For what its worth my other six plants are doing great, couldnt be happier thus far. :)
 
Hash Zeppelin

Hash Zeppelin

Ski Bum Rodeo Clown
Premium user
ICMag Donor
Veteran
keep your water at 68 degrees Fahrenheit and you will have no root slime.

Also use General hydroponics Rapid start in combination with Great white and your roots will be white!!!!!

Rapid Start
http://generalhydroponics.com/site/index.php/products/supplements/rapidstart/

Great white
http://www.plant-success.com/index.php/mycorrhizal-products/great-white-mycorrhizae.html

wanna really crazy roots then add roots excelurator
http://www.house-garden.us/products/additives/roots-excelurator/

instead of airstones get venturi water pumps. air pumps with air lines put heat into your water and air, and cause evaporation. also even the boss hog air stones that make micro bubbles dont make as small bubbles as the venturi water pump. the venturi will oxygenate the water much better. remember the more bubbles the better. there basically never to bubble much oxygenation in dwc. remember people out there grow flood drain and aeroponics

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...a=X&ei=d-4uUarsOI3PiwK6i4DgDA&ved=0CFwQ8wIwAQ
 
Hash Zeppelin

Hash Zeppelin

Ski Bum Rodeo Clown
Premium user
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Update I have replaced great white with azos, mykos, and og tea veganic special sauce.
 
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