30 days in flowering & same problem over and over.....HELP!

[Maxyeild]

Ok heres my story, every time I get to mid flowering my plants take a turn for the worse. They look perfect up until this point. All the information and pics is below. It happens will all the different strains I have used, the buds end up beautiful but I am losing yield do to some sort of problem...................


How long has this problem been going on?
Starts mid flowering every time

Are you growing in a PVC grow tent? (example: Hydrohut or any other non brand tents)
No

What system are you running? (DWC? Ebb flow? Aero? Water Farm? Flood Tables? and so on...)
Ebb & Flow 2 3x3 tables with 1000watt Hps over each

What STRAIN are you growing?
Dynamite by Next Generation

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

What is the age of your plants?
Vegged for 10 days or so 40 days total

How long have they been in there mixture they are in now?(coco,soiless etc..)
Since Clone

How tall are the plants?
2ft

What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
Flower

What Technique are you using?
I usuall use SOG but this run is a bush. Problem happens with both

What substrate/medium are you using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc.)
Hydroton

What is the Water temperature?
68-70f

What color are your roots? White? Brown? Are your roots slimy?
white with a hint of brown, no slime

What Nutrient's are you using?(If growing soiless)
Advanced Nutes 3 part with Big Bud*B52 & Carboload

How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful*
I follow the light feeding schedule by AN also mix half strength due to hard water 440ppm out of tap

How often are you feeding? (If using soiless)
15min every 2 hrs

How often are you giving nutrients? (If using soiless)
every feeding

If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
follow the schedule

What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
Micro*Grow*Bloom*B52*Carboload*Bigbud

What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using?
right now my PPM is 1050ppm @ 30 days in flower

What is the pH of the "Tank"?
5.6-5.8

Are you sure your calibration is correct on your equiptment?
yes

When was your last watering?
when light come on

What is your water temps?
68-70f

When was your last feeding change? (ie. grow-bloom-micro-additional)
2 days ago

How often do you clean your system: example: Flush out water replace with clean water and nutrients?
Every 7 days

What size bulb are you using?
1kw over each table

What is the distance to the canopy?
18"

What is your RH Factor(Relative Humidity)?
50%

What is the canopy temperature?
78-80f

What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include flucutaion range)
Day 78-80 Night 65-70
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)
Plenty

Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?
Constant ventilation

Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
Yes over the top of them

Is your water HARD or SOFT?
Hard

What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?
Tap

Are you using water from a water softener?
No

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

 

[Weedninja]

I think your problem lies in the fact that you are slashing nutes to keep your ppms down. 200 ppm is considered "the bubble" between hard and normal tap water, so if your ppm is 440, your actual nute ppm is 610 when your meter says 1050.

Another problem is that when your pH dips to the low end of your range, you are decreasing the availability of P, which is the worst nute to lock out in flower.

If you can take a closer pic under normal light, I can probably tell you exactly which nutes you need more of.

 

[MynameStitch]

Agree with weed ninja there. got some heat stress to the upper plants, move the light up

you always go by the size of your plant and don't listen to the directions on the bottle/nutes..... AN even sometimes gives crazy mixtures that burn the plants..... raise it too 700 ppm. Also with you using hard water your ppms are going to be higher, have you tested your water out of the tap?

 

[Maxyeild]

yes I have tested it out of the tap, that is where I get 440ppms from. So Ninja says to up the nutes and stitch says to lower, Im not sure what to do here.........

 

[MynameStitch]

For one thing your water is way too hard to use for hydro let alone soil grows...... you should be using other water or your meter is not calibrated properly? how often do you calibrate it?

My bad, I mean up it too 700, but it's not going to do much good, cause your hard water is hurting your plants the most, high levels of micronutrients are not allowing other elements to get absorbed.

You need to get nutes that is for hard water or get some kind of RO filter or distilled. If you do that route you will need to get a micronutrient supplement or add some tap water mixed with your other water source.

70/30 mixture ratio.

I would first try to get different water source and then up the ppms to 700.

 

[Maxyeild]

alternate water source is not a option, a RO filter wastes a ton of water and is VERY slow. I have to fill up 2 35 gallon rez'z. What makes no sense to me is the plants look PERFECT up to 4 weeks into flowering?? I really don't think it's the hard water..........I check my tester all the time, it's spot on

 

[Weedninja]

It's possible that your water is locking up P and K but not N, which is why the problems didn't show until 4 wks into flower.

I think Stitch's first option, hard water nutes, may be the way to go. GH makes hardwater micro and then you could use whichever flower and veg nutes and supplements you want.

 

[Purple_trees]

looks like mag deficiency. get an RO and run 50/50 RO water/Tap with 3 part gmb or lucas

 

[maryj315]

This all happens in the window of the transpiration cycle btw. This cycle is the time to take advantage of the plants own natural high rate of processing and feed heavy to reach the plants full potential, even without Co2. BC

I posted this because i deal with the same problem look up some more post by BC i have been getting a lot of info on this same issue

Mj

 

[MynameStitch]

Reason why it happens at a certain time, they change what amount of nutes they need at certain times, not to mention depending on how much nutes you use, you could use more of a certasin kind of nute that causes issues with other nutes absorbtion.
In this case your water, it could just end up taking it's toll and cause issues.
It does look like magneisum problem but your water is so hard should not have it.
Can you take some better and more clear pictures without the hps on?

 

[Maxyeild]

hey stitch and everyone thanks for the reply's. I will have some better pic"s tomorrow, maybe we can figure this out!!

 

[knna]

I think those plants suffer from heat shock. High temps with low humidity, probably. What is clear for me is they are having a tough work trying to transpire enough. If roots are fine, then its probably temp/TH related. And thinking you are using more than 100w/sq ft it should not surprise.

There is too a Mg deff, caused by continuous low ph. Let ph goes a little over 5.8 too: instead of 5.6-5.8, 5.6-6.

On a side note, i have no clear at all the use of Carboload on hydro: if they feed the beneficial microherd, i believe they offer little advantage on a res. Sometimes the more complicated the feeding, the more difficult to identify a problem. Anyway, as it is not esential, i would try to stop using it for a while, and see how plants react.

The hard water issue is problematic. 400ppm is generally too much as starting point on hydro. If there are much Ca and Na, they tend to accumulate in the res and in the hydroton, raising the osmotic pressure of the media and difficulting progressively water uptake (aswell as K+, which is esential regulating leave's transpiration). That, and combined with the increased water needs after the preflowering stretching may explain why plants always shows the synthoms after 1 month after flipping to flower.

 

[R4st4]

hey, ive used ghe 3 part.... want to happy with it.... really low on magnesium looks much like problem i got with ghe... wasnt a prob b4 later in flowering

 

[Maxyeild]

Ok here are some pics with the lights off. I have moved my lights up to 20"s about the plants. Also I did have my RH a bit low for awhile, 30% but now it's 50%. Also I got to thinking and this keeps happening around the time I add the Big Bud do you think that may be burning them up?

 

[knna]

Yes, the Big Bud may agravate the problem. But i doubt it causes it: its just you add it when plants are at their limit.

RH, temps and CO2 levels arnt independent parameters: they are interlinked, and all must be according to the light density you use.

At very high light densities as you use, using supplemental CO2 is almost a must: not only because its the way to use more of the light avalaible, but to avoid excess light increases too much leave's internal temperature, that obligues plants to transpire a lot in order to keep themselves cool enough.

At those light densities, you need to use lower temps than a grow using 50 watts/sq ft, and higher RH. And of course, provide enough water potential, by watering more often and avoiding salt's build up in the media.

Raising the light is going to help, reducing slighty light intensity. But 1000w at 20" for a 3*3 table is still very strong. I would raise it more yet.

Try to keep TDS levels on the lower ppms at what your plants thrive, to help increasing water potential (the higher the TDS, the harder work uptaking water). Using RO water, at least partially (50% tap, 50% RO, for example) would help you in that task.

Of course, reducing light density on the grow would help you greatly avoiding this problem. At lower light densities, plants can transpire enough with higher temps and lower RH, while can manage higher TDS levels.

I believe you wont get less yield using lower light intensities. Without increased CO2 levels, there is little improvement over aprox 75 watts/sq ft. And those high light levels are creating enviromental problems that in fact are reducing actual yield. So probably reducing light density wont reduce yield but help things going smootly.

Peace,
knna

 

[Greyskull]

Hey Maxyeild I cannot offer you any information on what is causing your issue, though I can say I have a friend who is using AN's Connisuer program and his plants have that same burnt look, starting at week 4. My friend uses RO water and the nutes at full strength dtw... he's been told to lower rh, move more air, chill the rez, add more CO2...

When he tried a crop with canna coco his shit was nice and green but he wanted to go back to AN "because I know the schedule is bomb" and AGAIN he's got exactly what you got - burnt up fans. Crispy. Argh...

If I was you, and the environment is good, I would give up on those nutes and try something else, pronto. Someone mentioned the GH 3 part - thats getting really good results. I like Canna Coco myself... House & Garden is very good stuff.

BTW my water from the hose is ppm 385. I do have a filter on the end (the kind that filters water for ice makers on refridgerators) to clean it up some. I run my nutes at about 50-60% strength and my shit kicks ass - no problems at all. Just big beautiful healthy harvests. I really like Canna Coco.

seriously drop the AN stuff its not working optimally for you and find yourself something that will do what you need it to do.

good luck

 

[Maxyeild]

Thanks for the information. I think next go around I am going to change my setup to soil and use the "Sealed room" method with Co2. I have a Blu Ox burner with the monitor and all. So it sounds like with all the light Im using that may be the route. Gonna do a 3ft x 6ft soil bed with 5"s of soil. For the remainder of this grow I think Im just gonna use GH 3 part.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Thanks for the information. I think next go around I am going to change my setup to soil and use the "Sealed room" method with Co2. I have a Blu Ox burner with the monitor and all. So it sounds like with all the light Im using that may be the route. Gonna do a 3ft x 6ft soil bed with 5"s of soil. For the remainder of this grow I think Im just gonna use GH 3 part.

Hey Max

Do yourself a favor and pick up the FloraNova line of nutes from GH instead of the 3part.

Tip: You CANNOT properly HAND-SHAKE the nutrients. They will NOT get properly mixed that way. Using floranova nutes that have been hand shaken will lead to nutrient deficiencies later on as you use more and more of the bottle.

Get a 16oz bottle of the Grow and mix it 1:1 with distilled or RO water. You'll be able to hand shake it until even the crystals rattling around are dissolved into the solution(Around 75F temp helps). I use about 10ml per gallon when diluted like that. (your plants will tell you more or less)

Get a Quart of the Bloom and mix it with 2 other quarts of RO or Distilled water. I use a 1 gallon jug with a handle on it. By only having 3 quarts of liquid in it, you can shake it back and forth really well. Again, it will take quite some time until the crystals have dissolved back into the solution but you CAN do it.

Once the bloom solution is mixed up 1:2, mix it at 24ml/gal of RO water and you've mixed the perfect Lucas Formula. (look it up if you haven't heard of it before)

It WON'T burn your ladies at that str, no worries. Cannabis LOVES this formula

Have fun


They sell a paint mixer drill-bit for this. ($10)

 

[Maxyeild]

thanks for the input......i think my new way is going to be way more productive. I just could not figure out what the hell was going on, and really still don't know....lol

 

[RockyMountainHi]

I'd ask about your hood, is it an open and un-cooled type?
Stationary, correct?

20 inches is what I concider "close" - especially with a stationary light; few plants can take that without a gradual break-in and adjustment term.

And don't forget - they are spending 12 solid hours under the light - it can get a little warmer than what the thernmometer on the wall says

With an open reflector - and especially with less than thriving plants,,, or new plants moving in from veg area and lower light lumes,, - I start at 36-42 inches. and then lower a few inches at a time and see what the response is.
And I use a light rail so the light covers a 5-foot swath, and I have been learnig how much I can lower the light.



Yeah I'd raise the light and get them healthy.

This gets easier.

Honest,

Addd-

In the above referenced post about mixing nutes,, you probably know this but just in case, do not mix a+b and pour that into the rez. instead, measure part a, add to rez, measure part b, add that to rez; something that simple will cause problems. I add nutes, let that run adjust pH and let that run for a bit, then test one mo time.