Angry plants - please help!

[f-e]

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?

I made up an Mg spray since posting. Most sites suggest 42g per gallon. It was a number of spoon fulls. I worked that back to 1g per 100ml and went half strength. 2.5g in a 500ml spray bottle. It's not been poison, and I have since added a wetting agent.

 

[Robney]

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.

I'm not using a pocket pen, I'm using those water testing kits that come with the pH up/down from GH.

And I am using water-only completely organic soil mix, so yeah pure water has been fine for a while. Now that I've had my pH in check, everything looks like it is back to normal.

So I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with fortifying my water, but really it is a matter of keeping pH in check to allow for the proper nutrient availability. Plus, when I did a foliar feed of cal-mag it did nothing at all, so that seems to indicate the issues went beyond a simple cal-mag deficiency.

But all the girls, and that one dude, seem to be happy, I'm happy, so we're all one big happy family over here. Just due for some transplanting though!

 

[Robney]

I made up an Mg spray since posting. Most sites suggest 42g per gallon. It was a number of spoon fulls. I worked that back to 1g per 100ml and went half strength. 2.5g in a 500ml spray bottle. It's not been poison, and I have since added a wetting agent.

Thanks for sharing f-e. I'll keep this in mind for another time because my plants are back to being happy. It really was a pH issue, and now that I've been watering around 6.7-7.0 things are looking normal again. Good, green growth in all of them! So for me, this is a good lesson in making sure all your inputs are in check!

 

[therevverend]

You can see how plants need a specific PH to be able to absorb nutrients. The plants were showing obvious symptoms of starvation, the Mag was the most obvious but they looked hungry for cal, K, and N as well. Fix the PH and problem solved. I'd still feed them, but I always feed my plants..

 

[Chunkypigs]

how's that SLUGGO looking? I've had no luck using water only in potted plants, even outdoors. indoors it really misses the boat.

 

[Robney]

They're chillin. Both overdue for a transplant as things have been a bit hectic over here, but all good stuff so I'll be taking care of them soon. One is growing one tall pole and the other is a lil bush, so I'm hoping I see two different expressions of what's in there. Def looking for something with some nice forum effects, but I love gg4 too so I'm optimistic for whatever comes out. Did you find forum effects in the ones you ran, or did they have their own thing going on? Might pop some pimp juice beans too, I'm getting a bit curious.

OGKB 2.0 seems to like the mix too, but she's overdue for a transplant too.

I've been finding good luck with this mix indoors. Everything comes out nice and strong in terms of potency, aroma, and flavor, as long as all those things are in what you're growing. It's not gonna turn mids into fire, but if you have good genetics, this mix seems to really let it shine.