Cal/Mag def? pH? help!

[KMK0420]

Okay, so the issue is i'm having brown spots on 1 particular plant (which has not been treated any different than the others) along with discoloration of the leaves. the leaves have a dark/light green mixture like they are stressed...

I began LST'ing them, but the issue was very very miniscule at that time. now its becoming more prominent (primarily on 1 plant). i figured it may be a def., so i fed them. 5 weeks and i only fed them once since the soil itself has many nutes. after feeding (2 days) it got worse from the looks of it.

another plant has extremely yellow tips - runoff ph ranges 6-7 last test. ph of tap water is 7-8, and i'll knock it down a few to 6-7ish with ph down.

How long has this problem been going on? 1-3 weeks
What STRAIN are you growing? white rhino/widow
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) seed
What is the age of your plants? 5 weeks
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now? 1-2 weeks
How Tall are the plants? 15"
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? veg
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) LST
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 3gal
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?) (FFOF straight)
What Nutrient's are you using? floranova grow/bloom
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* Only used once; roughly a tsp to 1 gal
How often are you feeding? only once
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used? No idea
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? 6-7
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen? strips & dye test
How often are you watering? once every other day
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? last watering
What size bulb are you using? 400w cmh
What is the distance to the canopy? 12" or more
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) 35-40%
What is the canopy temperature? 70-75
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)5 deg flux
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) 275cfm
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ? fan+carbon filter+light cooled
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? no
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? no, allowing for dry periods
Is your water HARD or SOFT? no idea
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? pH corrected tap
Are you using water from a water softener? no
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched? no
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when? no
Are plant's infected with pest's? no

 

[oregon bob]

I'm only responding as no one else did... truly not for sure on your issue & certainly not in FF soil, so...

It appears to be pH related spotting...? The only comparable issue I've had is when i let my coir dry out by accident... rather one of the feeder lines clogged & didn't realize this til started to wilt. By then, the ppm's in the coir shot up & the pH plummeted. That baby had odd spotting similar to yours. That's the only thing I can reference from personal experience. Hope this at least starts some responses for you. best regards brah.

 

[nomaad]

is the plant root bound?

 

[KMK0420]

it -could- be rootbound. i just transplanted it to a 3 gal about 2 weeks ago. under the CMH, i wouldnt doubt its already rootbound. i guess transplant again? i'll be switching to 12/12 next week probably. end of this week is 6 weeks from seed, i planned on a 2 week seedling stage, 4-6 week veg, and then however long flowering takes.

i plan on roughly guessing 5 week veg, so at the end of this week i wanted to transplant the final mothers to their final pots. thats a solution in the future, but i'm kind of concerned as this is the ONLY plant that's showing this, was healthy as a horse up until about a week ago...i saw the spotting...figured a def of some sort, fed it floranova grow (along with 4 other plants) - all other plants are fine. there is SOME spotting on other plants, and it could be PH related.

i'm going to walmart this weekend to buy a couple gal's of spring water - ph balanced pure good water to flush them all out with. give them a nice watering.

i'm just kinda concerned it may be cal/mag related...but if that was the case...wouldn't feeding the plant a veg nutrient (such as FN grow) wouldnt that help it rather than make it worse? the only thing other i can think of is pH issues, but why all of a sudden and other plants aren't really reacting any different to the water?

 

[TheMintMan]

another plant has extremely yellow tips - runoff ph ranges 6-7 last test. ph of tap water is 7-8, and i'll knock it down a few to 6-7ish with ph down.

6-7 is a pretty wide range. Nutrient availability can change quite a bit with a shift of just a few tenths of a point. Try to stabilize it between 6.2-6.5.

i'm just kinda concerned it may be cal/mag related...but if that was the case...wouldn't feeding the plant a veg nutrient (such as FN grow) wouldnt that help it rather than make it worse? the only thing other i can think of is pH issues, but why all of a sudden and other plants aren't really reacting any different to the water?

Not sure as I haven't used the FN line, but I know they make a FN micro so the grow/bloom may not contain enough micronutrients on their own.

Re: plants reacting differently. Since you are growing from seed chances are you will get different phenotypes, that will often times have slightly different nutrient requirments.

 

[KMK0420]

well at this point, what i plan on doing is flushing it with a few gallons of spring water then transplanting to a 5gal by the end of the week. its growing massively compared to the other plants, it takes up double the amount of space as the others...crazy...

other plants show very very VERY slight signs of the same thing (spotting) so it may be pH related. best thing to do is flush with pH balanced (spring) water i guess, then transplant that way if its rootbound, that helps that too...

what is the PRIME pH of the water you want to use? 7?

also, what should the run-off water pH be?

 

[KMK0420]

Update

Here are some more pics of the issues

 

[hazy]

that brown spotting is a calcium def.

hit it up with some cal mag. you use RO water, so are pulling calcium out of your water that needs to be replaced.

You pH of 6-7 is not out of line for soil.

 

[KMK0420]

that brown spotting is a calcium def.

hit it up with some cal mag. you use RO water, so are pulling calcium out of your water that needs to be replaced.

You pH of 6-7 is not out of line for soil.

RO water? nah. tap water.

but either way, is that a cal def?

 

[Citizen024]

Definately nutrient as opposed to ph- in my observation. Know why I say so? Think . . . it's the biggest plant you got right? Like twice as big you say? Of course it hit it first, cause it ate everything up fast. The others are starting to show now, cause they are smaller and ate slower. If it had been ph you more then likely would have seen them all do it simultaneously.

Could also be it sucking out water faster, and shifting the soil ph, and building up your hard water mineral too .. there by causing lockout- deficentcy.

But I am sticking to nutrient- and your probably not far off from general lack if you have only fed once.

Am I correct in logic here? Please confirm.

Anyhow, yes- calcium for you my friend. Actually your covering cal, mag, iron, and even some N (which you need too). Cal-mag or Magical (my preference) about 120-150ppm. Which equals about 2-3ml/gal usually. The bottles are overdosed directions. Start light. You could foliar too for fast feed. Don't go to heavy. Tap water's calcium/mag is generally considered not to available to the plants. I don't have enough info to correctly justify that belief- other then, yes, you can get cal deficient in tap water- with or without soil. RO needs proper amounts obviously.

Your soil is quality- though it doesn't have all that much feed in it unless you add a dry fert to it- you'd be surprised how fast they chow it down. I would use light feedings of your Flora, you've reached that stage. Go light (1/4strg is a good starting place), add 10-20% per watering since your in soil till you see them nice and busting out. You can also figure it out dosing up till you see the slightest sign of nutrient stress. Run a good flush through, then back the feed down 10-20% your next watering, and your cool. Now you will know your nutrient level and can just hold it there. May need to flush every now and then. Water till you get a good 20-30% run off with ph correct solution. Wait like 5 minutes, shake enough water out of your soil to test your tds and ph run off and it will help you know approx whats in the soil. I find soil tends to add ppm's just in and of itself, so your measure will be very approx. And ph will tend to drift in whatever direction the soil is set at eventually. Start lower (this case 5.8-6.0 since calcium and mag are most available in that range) and it will generally drift up, as most organic reaction with nutrient drive towards 8.0

Last bit- when flushing, just hit em heavy with your hose. Save your cash on bottled water, and just run a lot through. A rule of thumb I heard is 2 gallons of water for every gallon of soil- thats to really clean it out. Theres obvisously degrees.
Have you ever ppm'd your run off to see how much water it takes to really get nutri's out of it, or down to safe levels in overfeeding? A **** load. So save it, run it heavy, then water one last time with your new feed. Try to not do it too often in soil, can cause root rot if they are soaked all the time.

"Spring Water" is usually about 120-150ppm (check it out if you doubt) sometimes more. It's not all that better then your tap for your needs. When you need clean stuff, get a couple 5 gal containers and go to the store/vending machine and fill them with RO water. Use RO for sure when you clone and for foliar sprays.

 

[KMK0420]

Sound reasoning. Sounds like what i'm going to do is just continue using tap water, but begin feeding then...should i just continue with FN grow lightly AND add cal-mag too? Or should i separate them, IE feed with FN once, then in a few days with cal mag?

 

[Citizen024]

Hmmmm- think you need to judge how these nutrients cause your plant to respond, so seperated is probably better for you.

In addition- I am not sure how Flora Nova responds ph wise, but I do know that Cal-Mag or Magical are both acidic. It will help bring down your hard water ph. Once your comfy with your nutri's I would use cal-mag every watering or every other with the dosages I gave you. Read your Flora Nova bottles first to see if they contain cal (you need like 5%) or mag (1.6%). If its not there, you could benefit from cal-mag being a regular part of your diet.

Another great amendment to help your ph with tap water is Earth Juice Catalyst (2-5ml/gal with your ferts, all waterings etc.). You can go heavier too, much heavier. A nice fun organic booster I have used for a long long time. Very acidic- but will slowly drift up somewhat, much faster if you need to if you oxygenate it. Use it right and you can ph balance solutions- especially if you just want ph'd plain water. So mild you can use it all the time without effecting much. So cheap you won't even trip- $20 a gallon. It's got good stuff in it too, I really feels it a winner. Could all be in my head. Old school as **** product

 

[KMK0420]

well i mixed up a solution of FN grow, ph was close to 5.5-6 per the liquid test, ph up'd it to 6.5ish. fed the plants it, esp the biggie. will respond back tmr to see how they like it...if no response, ill grab some cal mag at HTGS when i go on fri

PS:

can fan leaves repair themselfs from the damage or nah?

 

[10k]

can fan leaves repair themselves from the damage or nah?

Mostly NOT. When a plant pulls mobile nutes from a source, it takes them from the oldest and/or biggest leaves.
The plant has no need or desire to try to mobilize any of the 'mobile' nutes back to those old stores.
Whats still alive might green up a bit, but other than that, no repairs are going to happen.

Add to that or said another way, necrotic tissue just don't have a viable pathway anymore for anything to return to the necrotic spots.

 

[Citizen024]

well i mixed up a solution of FN grow, ph was close to 5.5-6 per the liquid test, ph up'd it to 6.5ish. fed the plants it, esp the biggie. will respond back tmr to see how they like it...if no response, ill grab some cal mag at HTGS when i go on fri

You did just fine!! Give it some time . .

In my opinion: Keep your ph a bit lower when you make solution for now. 6.5 is the high end of the ph range, and once your soil meets it, it will go up shortly there after. Check your runoff ph after they sit for a bit, especially 24 hours. You'll see, it climbs. I would start it more like 5.7-6.0 tops. You totally FINE at that ph. AND cal/mag are MOST available at that range. They become LESS available a the higher end of the ph range.

You gotta make your calls based on what you see not what I say, please just take this as info you can investigate further.