Angry plants - please help!

[Robney]

Good morning!

I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!

I'm running into some issue with some new seeds I popped. I'm not quite sure exactly what is going on, but they look really, really sad.

I'm running a slightly modified moonshine mix, with RO water only, under a quantum board at 120 watts on a 135 watt model about 3 feet above the plants. The seeds affected are Karma's Sour rado (sour diesel bx x karmarado) and Chunky's Sluggo (forum x gg4).

Here's some pics:

1 - sour rado

2 - sluggo

3 - sour rado

4 - sour rado

And for comparison - here is a photo of a pot with two plants in it (by accident) a CG ECSDH (ECSD x SSSDH) on the left and a Sour rado on the right. The ECSDH seems pretty normal, but the Sour Rado is so damn sad:

So can anyone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong here? Do I need to add something to my soil? Should I add something to my RO water when I water them? Do they hate LEDs?
I'm going a little crazy having plants completely fine in the mix and then these plants just outright hate it, so any help is appreciated!

 

[GoatCheese]

The soil medium in the pots look quite dry, so you’re prolly underwatering them abit

...The led light could be also abit too much for them and plants in soil really start to look bad when they dry out and the led output is too much for them.
How high do you have the Led above the plants?

 

[Growenhaft]

do not use pure raw water. you have to harden it beforehand.
ro water has ec 0.0-0.1. you need ec 0,45. so that enough calcium and all other trace elements are contained.
They don't have calcium and magnesium. there is too little in the fertilizer. the rest must come from the water.

 

[GoatCheese]

Yea, plants in general need extra calmag under modern white leds, which will help keeping leaves in better shape

 

[Bud Green]

Looks like it's most likely a nute deficiency, as stated by the other members, but I'd also examine the underside of your leaves with a magnifying glass for spider mites and their eggs

.....

 

[Switcher56]

Looks like a Mag deficiency IAW my charts.

 

[Robney]

The soil medium in the pots look quite dry, so you’re prolly underwatering them abit

...The led light could be also abit too much for them and plants in soil really start to look bad when they dry out and the led output is too much for them.
How high do you have the Led above the plants?

From my understanding the mix I do is supposed to have a clear wet/dry cycle, and to overwater would lead to nutrient issues, so I kinda run things on the dryer side. Doesn't seem to affect other plants negatively, especially looking at the last picture where the ecsdh and sour rado are in the same container and look completely different.

The LED is about 2-3 feet above the plants. Interestingly enough I have one sour melon from Karma that grew above the light, and the section above the light looks much better than below - maybe these LED lights are just too much for these plants. But it's weird as I have other things that are alright. My ogkb 2.0 is looking great under the lights and a couple of BOG seeds and Chimera stuff looked fine.

do not use pure raw water. you have to harden it beforehand.
ro water has ec 0.0-0.1. you need ec 0,45. so that enough calcium and all other trace elements are contained.
They don't have calcium and magnesium. there is too little in the fertilizer. the rest must come from the water.

I've been using pure RO water for quite a bit now and things haven't seemed to be really off in any way. It's really only these new seed pops that are showing some weird stuff, and only this stuff really. I had a couple of BOG seeds that looked great and healthy, a few sour melon seemed to be doing pretty well, and all my clones are pretty happy as is. So what do you think I should supplement the water or the soil with for these plants? Some sort of Calmag supplement? Any recommendation for an application rate?

Yea, plants in general need extra calmag under modern white leds, which will help keeping leaves in better shape

Sounds like a second vote for calmag. Any recommendation for an application rate?

Looks like it's most likely a nute deficiency, as stated by the other members, but I'd also examine the underside of your leaves with a magnifying glass for spider mites and their eggs

.....

I looked at the undersides and I didn't see any spider mites. I've had them before and I didn't see any, nor is this spreading to other plants. Normally plants seem to do pretty well in this mix, it's just a few of these new ones. And especially so with the last picture where two plants are in the same pot and one looks pretty normal.

Looks like a Mag deficiency IAW my charts.

Any recommendations for a supplement to either the soil mix or the water?


Thank you everyone for the help

 

[Growenhaft]

Also, was denkst du, sollte ich das Wasser oder den Boden für diese Pflanzen ergänzen? ​

Eine Art Calmag-Ergänzung? ​

Irgendeine Empfehlung für eine Bewerbungsrate?​

I would only use ro water to reduce the ec value of your water to 0.4-0.5.

if you have chlorine in the tap water, it should stand for 24 hours at room temperature. then chlorine evaporates.

cannabis loves calcium and needs it in enormous quantities. to withdraw it completely from the water is harmful. that's what i see in the picture.

you don't need any additional products. with cal / mag you only feed your water with these two nutrients. all other trace elements that are otherwise in tap water, but not.

 

[GoatCheese]

Some plants don’t like to dry out at all, like UK Cheese genetics, some don’t like too moist soil like Haze genetics. Same goes for feed levels, so it would be better to have them in separate pots so you could dial in the watering and nutrients for each plant according to their needs.
.
.
The distance to canopy is quite important with modern leds.
Esp. in soil growing cause there is less moisture in the plants system than in coco/hydro growing. Some plants handle led radiation better than others. MY CBD Critical Cure keeper handles leds noticeably better than many others.

I’d dim the lights down abit and water the plants a bit more.
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Calmag.. i use normal tap water, we have pretty good and stable water here, and i put 0.5ml/litre of Canna calmag in my nute solution.

 

[Creeperpark]

If you use RO or Rain you need to fortify the water with Cal-mag, unless you are running organic.

 

[Robney]

Major thank you to everyone here, especially Goatcheese! It never would have occurred to me that the Quantum board was too intense for those plants.

I reduced the wattage of my quantum board from 120ish to 100 and the new growth is looking good! To think it's only been a few days and they are already looking happier! I decided to lower it down to 90 just to baby them for a while and make sure they can take the light. If the new growth starts to show the same issues, I'll start adding some calmag in there too.

Thanks everybody for the help!

 

[f-e]

Plants do like a rest when they are not happy. Lowering demands placed upon them gives them an easier time of things. Do they sleep? That can be a great help.

Your main problem, by a country mile, was Mg. People often turn to calmag to get their Mg and you rarely over-do calcium in soil. RO shouldn't be used, especially on dry soil. If such clean water gets to the root it's a solvent. Stripping the well balanced area.

You should get your EC to about 0.4 to mimic tap water with a decent Mg quota. Then you will be able to grow with a higher light intensity.

At this point, a good dose of Epson salts is needed really. Then you can probably use calmag as maintenance. Or just Epson as soil generally has lots of calcium. Tons of it. So more isn't likely to be helpful. Only that people have calmag to hand and your grow shop isn't likely to sell you just Mg. Though any chemist or big supermarket will, as Epson (mag sulphate) and your water is too soft

How is the tap? You might it's of great use to you. Offering calmag so you can just use Epson for sure

 

[Robney]

I don't usually let them sleep. I might need to switch over to 18/6 and see if that makes a difference.

I should specify, I've been using this mix (basically Moonshine's mix with ratios slightly modified) with RO water only for a good bit, and I've had good results. Never really seen plants do this before, and these are new genetics, so I'm assuming something about these genetics does not work with my soil mix. And while I hear what you're saying about RO, it seems contradictory to my experience as my plants seem generally happy with the soil mix and RO only. Like in this photo:

The plant with the regular green leaves on the left is in the same pot as the one the sad, drooping leaves on the right. It's only some of these new genetics that seem to take an issue with my set up and procedure, but I do want to learn to be a better grower so I greatly appreciate your advice.

So if I generally just do plain water only, would adding epson salt to the water be a good way to do combat this problem? I'd have to ph balance after adding the epson salt, right? As you can tell I'm not well versed in nutrient mixes. How much would I add to a gallon of water? A tablespoon?

To be frank, my plants didn't like the tap at my old place, and I just moved into an apartment building, so I'm not sure if the tap is good or not. Besides checking/adjusting the ph, is there anything I should do to make the tap water viable for the plants? Do I need to test it somewhere?

 

[jackspratt61]

I don't usually let them sleep. I might need to switch over to 18/6 and see if that makes a difference.

I should specify, I've been using this mix (basically Moonshine's mix with ratios slightly modified) with RO water only for a good bit, and I've had good results. Never really seen plants do this before, and these are new genetics, so I'm assuming something about these genetics does not work with my soil mix. And while I hear what you're saying about RO, it seems contradictory to my experience as my plants seem generally happy with the soil mix and RO only. Like in this photo:


The plant with the regular green leaves on the left is in the same pot as the one the sad, drooping leaves on the right. It's only some of these new genetics that seem to take an issue with my set up and procedure, but I do want to learn to be a better grower so I greatly appreciate your advice.

So if I generally just do plain water only, would adding epson salt to the water be a good way to do combat this problem? I'd have to ph balance after adding the epson salt, right? As you can tell I'm not well versed in nutrient mixes. How much would I add to a gallon of water? A tablespoon?

To be frank, my plants didn't like the tap at my old place, and I just moved into an apartment building, so I'm not sure if the tap is good or not. Besides checking/adjusting the ph, is there anything I should do to make the tap water viable for the plants? Do I need to test it somewhere?

That's P guy..

 

[TanzanianMagic]

I don't usually let them sleep. I might need to switch over to 18/6 and see if that makes a difference.

I should specify, I've been using this mix (basically Moonshine's mix with ratios slightly modified) with RO water only for a good bit, and I've had good results. Never really seen plants do this before, and these are new genetics, so I'm assuming something about these genetics does not work with my soil mix. And while I hear what you're saying about RO, it seems contradictory to my experience as my plants seem generally happy with the soil mix and RO only. Like in this photo:


The plant with the regular green leaves on the left is in the same pot as the one the sad, drooping leaves on the right. It's only some of these new genetics that seem to take an issue with my set up and procedure, but I do want to learn to be a better grower so I greatly appreciate your advice.

So if I generally just do plain water only, would adding epson salt to the water be a good way to do combat this problem? I'd have to ph balance after adding the epson salt, right? As you can tell I'm not well versed in nutrient mixes. How much would I add to a gallon of water? A tablespoon?

To be frank, my plants didn't like the tap at my old place, and I just moved into an apartment building, so I'm not sure if the tap is good or not. Besides checking/adjusting the ph, is there anything I should do to make the tap water viable for the plants? Do I need to test it somewhere?

That looks like magnesium, especially the yellowing of the tips of the leaves. It is mobile because the tops of the plants are healthy, limiting the options to NPK and Mg.

They also get locked out when the pH is too low. If adjustments are made, go for 7.0 pH in organics. The higher pH is for the benefit of the soil microbes too.

 

[f-e]

A good way of looking at the Mg idea is a foliar feed with it. Results come in hours and it does no real harm trying. Most things can be sprayed on to just check, but Mg is readily available as Epsom salts so is a reasonable starting point. Beware that the act of spraying can be beneficial so it's not conclusive without a control plant.

I can't remember what I spray with.. 30ppm is a typical response to an Mg problem.
What a gram a liter, it's getting late here. 10% so 100. No, that's to much. It's just 0.3g per liter. If you just have gram scales, you might have to start making lines 20% either way isn't going to matter at all.

I wouldn't rule out P or K and you perhaps have PK to mix up a half dose. I would start with Mg though.

Looking at your healthy plants, not just the stripes, P is looking likely. I may of been quick to the draw with Mg. You could be looking at both.

edit: lower down the page, I get the Mg spray right. About 10g per liter on many gardening sites. I tried 5g

 

[Robney]

What a gram a liter, it's getting late here. 10% so 100. No, that's to much. It's just 0.3g per liter. If you just have gram scales, you might have to start making lines .

hahahahaha I did have to break out the scale for this one!

I tried spraying a couple of plants with a 3g of epsom salt to 1 gallon of RO water. I didn't really see a ton of improvement (compared to another sprayed with just plain water), but I thought there was some improvement, so I'll probably continue intermittently as things hopefully get better.

I got some ph testing supplies last week and started testing my R.O. water and holy shit I've been using acidic water ever since I moved into this new spot, and I think that's when things took a turn for the worse. My ph was usually 6-5.5, so it's no real surprise I'm getting Mg and P issues.

I also watered all the plants with some water that was adjusted to a ph of 7.0. A little higher than what's recommending, but I figured some higher ph water would help bring the soil ph up if I went a little higher. The next day I started to see praying hands and things seem to look healthier with the praying hands.

My plan is to from here on it ph water to 6.7 as that seems to be recommended for water only soil mixes. Hopefully, my plants recover quickly as I have to put them into flowering.

I have a question for everyone here: should I brew some guano tea to help supplement P? Or, since everything has just been locked out, will my water-only soil mix still have plenty of P still available? Could I run into issues from excess P if I decide to try and help via guano tea?

 

[f-e]

Oh I didn't take in the fact you are using RO. I have never got on with it until hardening it up a bit. Rain is certainly soft, but pots are not like the ground. In pH terms, it has no buffering. It may look like 6.5? on your meter but the moment it hits the soil, it's soil pH. The soil is much more controlling than water without any buffering. RO is technically a solvent. It will take on soil pH. It will also leach things. I don't know enough to say, but wonder if moving P about is effecting it's form.

The die back from the tips is very P like. The green fading back. I wish I had not said Mg before, as the more I learn, the more I realise half our problems cause stripes and everyone always says Mg. Tainting my understanding. Stripes are moving way down my list as signs as they are just so common. To common to draw any conclusion from them alone. My Bad...

 

[Robney]

Oh I didn't take in the fact you are using RO. I have never got on with it until hardening it up a bit. Rain is certainly soft, but pots are not like the ground. In pH terms, it has no buffering. It may look like 6.5? on your meter but the moment it hits the soil, it's soil pH. The soil is much more controlling than water without any buffering. RO is technically a solvent. It will take on soil pH. It will also leach things. I don't know enough to say, but wonder if moving P about is effecting it's form.

The die back from the tips is very P like. The green fading back. I wish I had not said Mg before, as the more I learn, the more I realise half our problems cause stripes and everyone always says Mg. Tainting my understanding. Stripes are moving way down my list as signs as they are just so common. To common to draw any conclusion from them alone. My Bad...

F-e, thank you so much for helping me through this. It turned out to be pH issue, and after a while of watering with properly pH'd water, the plants look happy again.

Thanks to everyone for the help!

 

[Creeperpark]

You can't fucking test RO with a pocket pen because theirs nothing in it for conductivity. Your problem is from not fortifying your RO with cal-mag. When you add cal-mag to the water, it stabilizes the water. Always use a little cal mag when using RO or Rain water with soil-less mixes.. However pure water with total organics.