1st Grow - Kovenant's story

[kovenant]

Mid Town -> well, i havent got rid of it yet

im still a bit worried. had to pull off yellow leaves again this morning. not sure if they were damaged leaves from the burn before and just now finished dying or what - but definately more yellow leaves... that either fall off or pull off freely when barely touched. like 2 of the plants are getting very 'stemmy' due to the leaves they've lost.

here's a pic of one of the ladies with many lost leaves...



the yellow leaf that seemed to be getting green in the center still ended up coming off this morning. came off to the touch, as many leaves have - or have fallen off on their own.

pretty much all the yellow leaves were thinned this morning - if it continues does that mean there is another problem?

is there perhaps a nute lock? the new flower solution was mixed in about 3 days ago... and still sitting at 720ppm in the controller. when nutes are being used by the plant, doesnt the ppm level fall?

im leaving in 3 days for a 4 day trip. my hunny will be home the first 2 days im gone - so can check up on the ladies - but i want to correct whatever problems i can before i leave. if it sounds like a nute lock or is a nute lock - what would i do to reverse it?

if it sounds like it could be anything else... please advise. thanks again guys! here's 1 more pic of the ladies in flower




anyone use molasses in their hydro? i've heard some good things about using brer rabbit blackstrap molasses from helping supply vitamins & minerals as well as adding a sweet taste to the buds. i've heard its a great mineral cheleating agent and helps against nute-locks as well.

i've heard 1 tsp per 2 gallons in hydro (25 tsp per 50 gallon system) and working up to 2 tsp per gallon when flushing with pure RO the last two weeks in flower.

any experience?

 

[MID TOWN]

your gonna need the dehumidifier once those plants get bigger and start giving off moisture.

As for the plants I'd keep feeding them veg solution for a week or at least a combo. Those plants are looking really unhappy right now. I think advanced uses a different conversion for the ppms than other nutes so you may be burning them? Other than that I would realy sugest a easier nute to work with!! Try PBP, flora nova, or gh 3 part without any real addatives besides an enzyme And I guarantee all these problems will go away.

Even using the advanceed base nute without any addatives would probably help tremendously.

another thing I'm sure you already know but you always want to add your micro first.

 

[Guest]

I concur with Midtown.... I grow in a closet and had no idea the scope of your grow. Humidity will play a major factor in your grow due to this....especially once you're in late flowering.

 

[kovenant]

Mid Town -> actually, no. i really am not sure exactly how to add my nutes - especially in the particular setup (recirculating DWC) i am using. i definately dont want to go out and spend more cash on other nutes... i can definately use just a base nute formula but ive been told by various people to get each of the additional items, so im confused (and not people from the shops that would be making money by extra sales.)

so let me get this straight... micro nutrients are the trace-elements (Calcium, Magnesium, Sulfur, Manganese, Boron, Zinc, and Copper.) and these should be added prior to the macro nutrients (being Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.)

in veg i mixed my Sensi Grow A & B first, then the Sensi Cal Mg, then the Multi-zyme and root excellerator. obviously i should of been mixing the Sensi A&B last...

the last nute batch i mixed up (3-4 days ago) was pure flower mix (i did not mix any veg nutes in) and i did Connoiseur A & B first, then Barricade (directly into controller unmixed - which dropped my pH into the 4s... i stablized it immediately with pH Up but im unsure if even a very quick drop in pH can cause problems, shock, stress, or lock-out.) i then mixed in the fulvic acid which also caused a steep drop, same - in the 4s, which i pH Upped immediately again (im guessing i should be mixing at least these two nutes into a bucket with some fresh RO and pH them prior to mixing??)

so... that has been the status (mixing my macros first...great) and now going forward i have these questions.

you mentioned i should go into flower using veg nutes (or at least mixing veg nutes along with the new flower nutes - which makes sense.) but, because i just mixed fresh nutes 3 or 4 days ago (and they arent the cheapest) what should i do from here?? should i dump the flower nutes? should i flush with pH'ed RO water only for a few days? should i just add some Sensi A & B (veg nutes) to the current mix? im guessing the best thing to do is flush the system, run pH'ed RO water until friday night or saturday morning (i fly out saturday for 4 days) and either friday night or saturday morning before i fly out - do a weak combination of veg/flower nutes and leave them for 4 days? can someone break down exactly how i should be mixing nutes into this bucket system? ive just been measuring out and dumping into the controller, and obviously doing it wrong with macros first followed by micros and additives.

also, just for my own knowledge... what exactly does mixing the macros before the micros cause in the system and to the plants?

ive had my 600Ws sitting above the canopy at about 8". im wondering if im getting a bit of burn up top... so im guessing back this off to about 12 inches?

im going to go back and red-out the questions im really hoping to get answered - thanks alot guys. i hate the fact im having to leave town right now, but its necessary.

Klutter - no worries man, i respect everything everyone has to say but i dont make any moves based off any one opinion. thanks for clarifying though, now your advice makes sense

oh and molasses? opinions on using it as an addative?

 

[plumpm0nkey]

you got one of those laser temp guns? to see how hot the plant is.

 

[kovenant]

plumpm0nkey -> no. just a tds/pH meter (ppm's, ec's, and pH)

so here is an update:

ive only been checking the roots on the root row, to monitor growth. here's a pic of how they look. clean, white... pearly white. see!



i was pretty proud of those roots. then i pulled up the lamps to check the back. and i found root aphids!


to continue the show of burns... keep in mind i just ditched the yellowed and dried leaves this morning. 13 hours later - a yellow leaf... a couple others that arent nearly as yellow yet.


also the tops seem to be getting a bit too hot. i backed the lamps off to 12" instead of 8"



on a lighter note. my seeds came!


thats:
Mandala's Mandala #1
Mandala's KaliChakra
Nivrana's Pure Power Plant
Nirvana's ICE
Nirvana's White Widow
Nirvana's White Rhino

and Mandala threw in a freebie of Durban+Skunk#1 cross

so, my friends came by and checked out the room and the ladies. i need to go pick up a pesticide from their pad to treat these root aphids ASAP.

they werent sure if i should flush or not. if it is potassium deficiency, then the nutes they have running right now will benefit them. maybe i should hold steady with the nutes (they said ppm's shouldnt be going down, but should be going up because of the plant toxins releasing into the water) so maybe its not nute-lock. after all, the first pic of my roots up at the top of this post have grown 3x in size in the last 4 days... while all this burn has been going on. if it was in nute lock, would there still be such rapid root growth?

i dunno /shrug thats why im askin!

feedback please. i believe after using this pesticide i will have to flush the system before i leave anyways. (which should help flush some aphids too, id imagine.)

 

[MID TOWN]

I'd say your friend doesn't know what he's talking about. If leaves are dying that fast your probably burning them. make sure your using the correct ec conversion for Advanced.

If your using the 2 part nute then you dont have to worry about adding micro first but if your using any 3 part nute then it's nessecary.

I don't know how much more I cann stress that you WILL get MUCH better results if you use a simpler nute. PBP and FN are 1 part nutes, it cant get much easier than that. and they are tried and true nutes that are almoast impossible to fuck up with. GH 3 part is also a verry good easy to use nute. what's another $60 compared to a fried crop.


Anyways FLUSH for 24 hours and then add a combo of veg and flower nutes without any addatives. and get nematoads for the fungus gnats.

 

[kovenant]

Mid Town -> thnx for the reply and advice MT. last night i added einstein (neem) oil as well as the pesticide my friend had at his house to my res, and as a foliar spray. i cant think of the name of the pesticide - i just poured it into an empty water bottle to take home and use. instructions were 10 mL per gallon so i added 400 mL to the res. was in a big white jug and i believe started with a "p" (reminded me of Pyrethrum but dont think its same stuff as the fogger.) he recommended i pick up Gnatrol when i get back into town.

here's a picture of how it looks once added to water (its a clear brown liquid before hand.)


my local hydro carries alot of preditors including nematodes - here's a list of what they carry. i can and will definately pick up some of these MT!

i printed out the nute chart for connoiseur flower period - for my res size (which i estimate to be about 40gal - 2.5gal per 12 buckets & 10 gal in res) and although i went off the bottle when i added, it ended up being just over what the chart recommended for light-medium feed (and they go light, light-medium, medium, medium-heavy, heavy...) the local growers i talk to tell me they all stick to the chart and never have a problem. i think when i did my prior res mix and added the Cal Mg at the same ratio as my sensi grow a & b i may have caused MY problem... which was probably the potassium deficiency, and then possibly a nute-lock.

this evening im going to flush my system. i wanted the neem & pesticide to sit in the buckets and zap those nasty shits. i wont be able to flush for 24 hours because i fly out tomorrow at noon - but at 6pm tonight i will drain the system. add about 1/4 water. drain again. then add pure RO pH'ed water to run until 4am next morning. before work ill add in a new mix - i guess i will mix up 1/2 veg nute and 1/2 flower nute with very little else.

Mid Town -> when i get the nematodes, i will need to cease using a pesticide and neem oil? or can i use neem oil along with the preditors?

here's a couple new shots from this morning



when i get back from my trip if im still noticing burn ill get a cheaper, easier nute to use - as you recommend MT. im also going to germinate some of my seeds and see what i come up with for my next grow. about how long does it usually take to germinate seed, pre-veg, and get them ready to go into buckets? im guessing about 1 week max to crack, another 2 weeks to grow enough to pop into pre-veg, and then 1 week (or 2 max) in pre-veg? so about 1 month? if thats the case, ill wait 20-30 days to germ them.

as an afterthought - i wonder if i didnt create the deficiencies myself - when i flushed the girls for 4 days (almost 5 days) on just pH'ed RO water. think that would do it? 4 days without any nutes just prior to transplanting them into the buckets? could be it wasnt the nute solution i mixed, but id really like to hear how long you can flush in hydro with absolutely no nute before you'd notice problems... im guessing pretty quick, but at least a few days.
peace

 

[Guest]

awwww You can put neem oil in a rezz news to me?, otherwise i would use it to get rid of my root rot instead of h202 as you can see it's not working.

 

[kovenant]

i heard it from 2 people - so in it went. because oil doesnt mix well with water i just kept stirring so that it would get pumped to the buckets. when i lifted my lids up to really spray it on the roots (i used my foliar spray on the roots with a 2 gal sprayer from OSH - so that the pressure would shoot some off) i could see the golden neem oil glistening on top of the water in each bucket... right on the roots

going to drain twice tonight at 6pm and then run pH'ed RO water until 4am - then just before work, ill add in a light mix of 1/2 veg 1/2 flower nutes... give another solid spray down of the neem - pesticide foliar spray and cross my fingers until i get back.

also. going to top feed from the res after i get the half-and-half nute mix in the system... soak the rockwool with the new nutes before i leave. i did this with the pesticide/neem solution as well... top watered twice to kill anything living or hiding in the hydroton or above the roots.

slips --> how are you getting root rot with low temps? i see your chiller is @ 62F but whats the temp in your buckets? reason i ask... i keep my chiller on 67F but my bucket temps are slightly higher... they sit @ 69F

 

[Guest]

Ow the waters at 62, i put frozen water bottles in the rez also to make the chiller work less.

It's not really root rot it's the bacteria attacking my roots. It's becaus ei transplanted them from and ebb and flow table and didn't have temps controled for 2 weeks out of 5 so far, as you can see this had a determental effect.

Im looking into neeming my roots, and seeing if it kills bacteria.

 

[kovenant]

feel free to post back here on how that works for you - as id be interested to know as well.

keeping an extra finger crossed for you, as the rest of mine are crossed for me

 

[MID TOWN]

Slips- Having your res temps below 68 isn't gonna help get rid of the rot it'll just slow down your growth. Keep temps at 68, cut off the infected areas,run plain water with h202 or verry low ppms as high nute levels feed the rot, do res changes every few days and pray that it goes away.


Kovenant- I'd just run plain water untill you get your new nutes and nematoads. once you get that stuff use just the base nutes and nematoads for a week. the fungus gnats won't realy harm anything yet so let the nematoads do their job. the more shit you add to your res the more problems your likely to have.

 

[kovenant]

Mid Town -> got your message too late my friend. im at work and leave town from here so had to get everything dialed in. i mixed 1/2 & 1/2 (veg & flower) to 600ppm. 5.6pH. room is finally sealed... so running CO2 @ 1200-1500ppm (the range it bounces between.)

i flushed yesterday 2x and let plain RO water run through the system until 4:30am this morning, when i mixed the nutes in. came out pretty damn clean after all the golden neem oil and milky pesticide ran through the system. i towled off and wiped up any pieces of matter and dead aphids as best i could before flushing twice.



new plant growth this morning, by the way... pretty much the first time since i transplanted 1 week ago. (during running just water, of course... probably should of just kept running the RO as you suggested MT - but i never heard a response from my question asking if running just water for more than 3 days could of caused the deficiencies and or nute-lock... didnt want to cause that again.)

so anyway - im leaving in good spirits. i believe when i return i will see that growth continued and i'll have a couple more inches!! the root mass of nearly every plant had much growth last night as well (except for one which is still showing only a couple strings of roots a few inches - but finally dropping into water which i have about 1 1/2 inches below the netpot. i top fed the one very well with the new nute solution after mixing it up this morning.)

gave another foliar spray of the pesticide/neem spray.

called my local hydro last night and the nematodes will be here on wednesday when i return... so ill be adding those in then. by the way, do i just add those to res? i will ask my hydro guy too, but im just curious

heres new pics of the completed room and the lovely ladies. hope they make everyone as happy as they do me!! no more late late nights worrying about heat or open windows anyway!


the room - all sealed up. all white over the window behind the ladies now.



new growth and looking happier

 

[kovenant]

wow, no comments while i was away...

so, here's an update. had a few issues while i was gone - which my girl did what she could. first off... one of my power strips fuses tripped and had the water chiller, water pumps, and air pumps offline for a few hours. water temps got up to 79F during that time and water was stagnant with no oxygen. she got it back up and we plugged the chiller in with the lights - no problem since (hadnt had one prior either...)

current stats: pH was steady climbing while i was away. had her pH it down to 5.6 each night and it was climbing to mid 6s by the next day. i pH'ed it to 6.1 last night and it was still 6.1 this morning @ 4:30am. ppms were 610 when i left, they were at 670 last night and 680 this morning... why would ppms climb? (i did have them top water 1 plant once, and i did so again last night... only one with hardly any roots hanging from the netpot... maybe it pulled some nutes from the rockwool down into the solution - upping it.)

noticing new burns (only on lower leaves.) got more pics to maybe get a definate answer on the cause:






on a good note - the ladies grew alot while i was gone. about 3-5" for most. left with the lamp 12" above the canopy and now its about 8" for the most part. here's a couple pics to show the growth! (the yellow bug-stickies were well above the tops before - now the tops have passed them)






after work today i go pick up the nematodes and need to pick up a fresh CO2 tank - it went out while i was away as well... rooms been sitting at 400ppm for CO2.

thinking of flushing the system again... letting run for a day or two on pH'ed RO water. Then only adding 1/2 dose of flower nute (w/o any Cal Mg)

 

[kovenant]

okay, so im going to guess that my problem is Phosphorus (P) deficiency. i was just looking through the Complete Guide to Sick Plants located here on IC and the description of Phosphorus deficiency really caught my attention. then when i looked at the pictures - i felt it looked dead on to the ones i just posted this morning.

first look at this chart ive been using:



the chart shows that Phosphorus (in hydro) is absorbed in the range of 5.8 - 6.2pH

ive been pH'ing at 5.6 - so ive (more than likely) been causing the deficiency through low pH.

the Sick Guide also states that in hydro grows the best pH for absorbtion is 5.8 - 9.0 (though would not recommend above 6.5pH)... and that it gets locked-out at 2.0 - 5.7pH (where ive been.)

also, Mg cannot be absorbed below 5.8pH (by the chart) as well, which also browns on the tips and moves to the sides. also, the leaves fall off without wilting (which was happening before and may happen to the new burnt leaves.)

it all kind of pieces together...


i am experiencing... alkaline pH spikes (its been raising alot every day), its affecting the older bottom leavesand the petioles which are all dried up (not sure if the sex should still be showing... but i see none of the 2 female pistols i saw before i transplanted to the buckets.) i've been trying to stablize pH at 5.6 which - if the chart is correct - would indicate Phosphorus is NOT being absorbed as the pH would be just under where it can absorb. it also would explain the slow growth rate of the plants and roots (compared to normal growth rate in this type system.) the only thing i havent noticed is the glassy, waxy, dark green leaves with any red or purple coloring... but the burns look the same.


so, im planning on flushing the system when i get home and pH'ing RO water to run for a few days (going to 5.8pH and try to sit it between 5.8 and 6.0 through my next nute solution too.) plan on running just the RO water for 24-48 hours and then mixing only Connoisseur a & b - going to see if there is any Mg in the connoisseur, and if not i may get the Sensi Bloom Cal Mg to add in.

im finely having a feeling about what it is and how to help my little girls... so unless i hear otherwise - thats my plan!


-edit-

funny thing is... i was pH'ing at 5.8 in my veg ebb&flow tray - and the plants never had a burn. was told i should lower my pH in hydro to 5.6... did so, then got the burn. im almost certain this is the problem... also, the new growth while i was gone was probably inspired by the big spikes upward in pH... letting the plants get what they needed when in the 5.8 - mid 6s range.


please give any other input you guys!

 

[plumpm0nkey]

hey brother welcome back! i wish i could help you with your problem but im a hydro newb. Have you thought about taking your ph specs to your local hydro guy and get his opinion?

room looks so bad ass, Gives you a lil chub seeing all that equip

 

[MID TOWN]

A PH of 5.6 is well within optimal range, of course 5.8 is slightly better but that's deffinately not what's causing your problems.

As long as your keeping your res topped off then your PPM's SHOULD be dropping. mine go down anywhere from 30-80 ppms a day depending on size of plants.

I know I've said this but try some different nutes. Also if your using straight RO water you might want to try a 50/50 mix of ro and tap water so that you get some of those trace minerals and it also helps buffer your PH better.

 

[kovenant]

i actually didnt do the drain and flush last night. my pH has stablized @ 6.0 and so i wanted to see how the ladies react at that level. i also added the nematodes last night.

i checked the leaves that were burned and they do have the waxy/glassy look and feel to them. there are purplish-red veins on the main stems... just dont see it on the leaves (yet.) so im guessing it surely is the phosphorus and magnesium deficiencies.

also - noticed sexing last night. must have happened overnight too, cause i had just specifically taken some time to try to identify sexes the other night - hoping i wasnt getting any hermies caused by stress. lots of double white pistals popping all over the top 1/3 of the plants.

going to give it a few days - going to wait until monday or tuesday if i dont notice any worse conditions or reactions from the ladies. ill keep updating

 

[MID TOWN]

I'm tellin ya your PH isn't the problem but if you don't want to listen then I guess I can't help you.