Deficiency or pH problem

[Darkstarlive]

I'm in B'cuzz Hydromix, approx size of fabric grow bags are 8 gallons
I use RO water
I feed and flush at a Ph of 6.2
I'm in 3rd week of bloom and this problem showed up a week ago
It looks like some kind of micronutrient deficiency but also might be a pH issue
Only new growth is affected
I have multiple strains growing and most are experiencing this issue, a few are not.
Here's the pix.





Any ideas??

Peace...

 

[10k]

what medium are you running darkstarlive ?

 

[Darkstarlive]

I use the Atami B'cuzz Hydromix HP, Its a soilless medium that's 70% Sphagnum Peat, 30% coarse perlite, Gypsum & Dolomite Lime and wetting agent.

The plants have been in the same medium since germination, 5 week veg period in a 1 Gal fabric grow bag then transplanted into an 8 Gal Fabric grow bag Vegged one more week then flipped to flower, this issue popped up around the second week of flower.
I feed with AN 3 part and all the supplements, the third feeding was 2 days ago. The plants are drinking and drying out normally, I water every 3-4 days feeding every third watering.

Peace...

 

[Seed Buyer]

Look like Iron def to me. I would recommend going to Books-a-million and getting "Marijuana Garden Saver". It is written by a fellow icmager and Ed Rosenthal and is really good and insightful. I have been having the same exact problem but always assumed it was a light burning issue.

 

[10k]

The pictures look P def and very N tox.
I'm not totally familiar with the an 3 part, but it is a chem hydro nute mix very similar to GH Flora 3 part and you are essentially running more of an inert hydro soilless medium. With that said, P and several of the micro nute availabilities are diminished when the chem pH starts running up into the 6's.
I'd venture to say that you're seeing run-off pH above 6.4

You'd see a better uptake of P (and several of the micros too) if you went with a lower pH starting number.

But as far as the high N, you may want to lighten up on some of the supplements and/or redo your 3 part chems with a mix geared more for flowering than veg or intermediate growth.

 

[Darkstarlive]

10K,

I think that may be the way to go, I'm going to try a starting pH value of 5.8 and see if that doesn't free up some of the other nutes.

Thanks.

 

[stAx]

i have seen this. u might want to try a foliar of cal mag with a ph of 5.8 and maybe toss some fulvics in their too. after that correct your mediums ph and see if she greens up for ya.

 

[Seed Buyer]

10K - How can you tell the plants are over fert?

 

[10k]

I think that may be the way to go, I'm going to try a starting pH value of 5.8 and see if that doesn't free up some of the other nutes.

5.8 is the absolute weakest point pH value for mag availability in chem hydro. Much better off running in the range of 5.1 to 5.9, with a starting pH of 5.2. I believe you'll see huge improvements but you may have to bring down the pH gradually so as not to cause too much pH shock. I'd start with a 5.5 next feeding then 5.3'ish the following feeding. Basically just keep the run-off pH well below 6.4 and the chem package will stay fully available in the medium.

A better pH balance may sway the difference and not be so N tox as a result, but like I said I don't know what micro,grow,bloom ratio you're running with your AN 3 part chems.

10k - How can you tell the plants are over fert?

You can see in the pictures that they are very deep green with slight clawing on some of the dark leaves, indicating an N tox.
But this may just be a side effect of the P and micros going def pH wise.


disclaimer...I know this is a soilless promix medium, but it acts more like an inert hydro medium when running chem hydro nutes.
So the approach I'm advocating is to treat it like a normal chem hydro system.

hth,
10k

 

[Darkstarlive]

10K,

In refrence to your disclaimer about Soilless mixes, I have always asked if I should treat it as a straight up Hydro in regards to pHing my water/nutes or use the 6.2-6.4 ranges recommended by many Nutrient companies, so this confirms what I've been questioning. I should be using a 5.2-5.5 pH range.

btw, the AN 3-part base nute ratios are 1-1-1 but the supplement compensate for the equal amount of Nitrogen in flower.
I've been running in Soilles mix (Promix and just recently B'cuzz Hydromix HP) for years and have always used a pH range of 6.3 and have had very good results but felt I could be doing better and I think the lower pH will help with that.

10K, do you grow in soilless mix (ie. Promix etc..), have you had experience using these lower pH levels in soilless?

Thanks.
Peace...

 

[Darkstarlive]

I think I found the source of my deficiency.
I just found that my pH pen has been giving erroroneous readings even though it seemed to calibrate correctly. I'm not sure how far off my nute solution readings were but my plain water readings were probably above 8.0

I used a new pH pen and checked the plain water I thought I had pH'd to 5.8 with the old pen and it read 6.7, I was using twice the amount of pH up to get what I thought was the correct pH of my plain water with the old pen and this probably pushed the pH above 8.0 which would explain why I locked out Iron(Fe) and Sulfur(S).

Hopefully, now that I have a new pen and will be using correctly pH'd water/Nutes the plants will come around and green up and bloom as they should.

Thanks...

 

[10k]

10K, do you grow in soilless mix (ie. Promix etc..), have you had experience using these lower pH levels in soilless?

Hell yes I have Darkstarlive, with great results too, or I wouldnt have allowed this in the growfaq at overgrow. http://www.drugs-forum.com/growfaq/327.htm

Running chem hydro nutes in a soilless mix, especially when it's been amended with extra perlite for better drainage, ends up being very similar to what we'd run in hydro with these kinds of chem nutes. If you weren't running chem nutes it would buffer a lot differently, more like a high cec soil.

I think I found the source of my deficiency.
I just found that my pH pen has been giving erroroneous readings even though it seemed to calibrate correctly. I'm not sure how far off my nute solution readings were but my plain water readings were probably above 8.0

I used a new pH pen and checked the plain water I thought I had pH'd to 5.8 with the old pen and it read 6.7, I was using twice the amount of pH up to get what I thought was the correct pH of my plain water with the old pen and this probably pushed the pH above 8.0 which would explain why I locked out Iron(Fe) and Sulfur(S).

Hopefully, now that I have a new pen and will be using correctly pH'd water/Nutes the plants will come around and green up and bloom as they should.

Yes, that high if a pH would have locked out a hell of a lot more micros than just iron and sulphur, plus it locked out P for sure !

Glad you found the problematic pH meter, all should be well now, good luck

 

[stAx]

good advice here, if i could just aski real quick what you would recommend me strating the PH of coco in 3 gallon bags? i have always just used 6.0 and sometimes i do get hard stems off and on, i think my ph is raising on me, as i do not check the run-off.

anyways, i am really liking the sound of shooting a bit low and letting it naturally compensate. i do grow in all types of mediums and that just never really clicked for me. sorry to ramble off topic. good info here 10K

 

[10k]

Stax, we just went over this in great detail in this thread, you were there...
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=122819

To be brief if you are running 'multi-part chem salts' hydro gh flora series like a lucas mix in coco, run in a pH range of 5.1 to 5.9 with 5.2 being the start pH...let it drift up in the medium. Run to waste with a good 15-20% run-off. Coco feeds every day. Bonecarver_OG explained (and he's the coco expert here) that you'd be much better off running coco specific nutes like Canna coco instead of chem salts hydro nutes like GH flora series nutes. Floranova single part nutes also have their own built in 'precipitated chunks' problems imho btw. I advise listening to Bonecarver_OG's experience running coco and running the pH values he suggested IF you're running the Canna coco specific nute package.

stAx, please post further q's to that coco thread instead of this one.
tia,
10k

 

[Darkstarlive]

10K,
Thanks for all your input, it really gave me a fresh perspective on feeding/watering pH in soilless mediums with Hydro chem ferts.

It makes sense. The Atami people I spoke to said that if I watered at a pH of 5.8 that it would buffer to 6.2 in the media, so using a lower starting value will put you right in the sweet spot.

Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread. I'll post updates on my recovery, it may delay the end time for these plants but as long as I get them going again I'll be happy.

Peace...

 

[Darkstarlive]

Okay, a new wrinkle into this issue I'm having.
I took some fresh Hydromix HP from a bale and put about 3/4 of a litre hydromix hp into a 1 quart bag and ran 20 ounces of 0 ppm RO water pH'd @ 6.1 through it and what came out measured Ec 3.7 and pH 5.4.

What the hell is going on!! Its going to be a bitch and half but I'm going to have to leach the containers, 8 gallon pots are going to take about 4 gallons of water each and I have 25 to do...lol...Fuck me!!

Peace...

 

[Seed Buyer]

Do you think you got a bad batch!? Could someone with some '"pro-mix" not "hydro-mix" do the same test for us? I have been having a terrible time lately w/ Hydro Mix and am going to go back to Pro-mix.

 

[Darkstarlive]

I don't know if it is just a bad batch or if this the norm. I checked a different bale and it came out at Ec 2.96 and pH 5.5..this shit is hot!!

I'm thinking the same thing, back to Promix it is for me. I only switched to it because it had the extra perlite in it and I didn't have to add any to it.

I contacted Atami and asked what the normale Ec should be, just waitng for a reply.

Peace...

 

[Kindman69]

Yeah mate, I'm a hydro guy and used promix for the first time this grow, mine measures out even worse then yours lol, my ph measures out below 5 and ec is about the same as yours. I've been told not to worry about this (lol, hydro guy not worrieing about ph)
Then I started to have over watering issues from the constant flushing and ph adjusting lol, now I don't measure the run off and just make sure my input is according to lucas formula 1/3 strenght with each watering. Either way, I'm back to hydro after this grow.
Good luck!
BTW, don't worry about the initial ec spike, it is used up within the first week

 

[Darkstarlive]

UPDATE

UPDATE

Just to clear things up, this is/was neither a defeciency or pH problem.
I started over with new soilless media(Promix) and fresh nutes(AN) and the problem started allover again so I thought back to what was the only common thing I fed and was feeding my plants and it came down to the beneficials, Pirahna, Tarantula, Voodoo Juice and Hygrozyme so I eliminated these from my feeding regimine and the problem cleared up. The pirahna and tarantula really don't have anything in them that could cause a problem so its narrowed down to Voodoo and Hygrozyme, the Hygrozyme supposedly never goes bad but I wonder if it became concentrated and I was overdosing the plants with it, I was using it at 8ml per gallon. The Voodoo juice has microbes but who the hell knows whats in the liquid thats used as a delivery agent, maybe that went bad.

Either way I'm happy to know that everything is back on track, it was process of elimination but all's good now.

Thanks for everyone who offered help.

Peace...