Experienced grower needs help with cal mag please!

[extreegrowerrr]

So I'm new to California and the whole RO water scene cause water here is disgusting. I was a large Florida grower until my door got kicked in and I had to make a change. So I moved out to California. In Florida my water was 140-150 out of the tap I dechlorinated it and mixed my nutes as usual. Always had amazing buds and plants with zero deficiencies. When I came here I setup a 16 light sealed flower room with co2 gen and 5 ton ac.

Calmag with RO was very new to me. My tap water is 550 out of the tap. So here my problem lays I have done 5 grows all complete failures. I have supplemented with Calmag every watering and like every hydro store and grower said I should. I have done countless research on this topic. The first grow my plants were beautiful nice and healthy and happy, buds were huge, but never tightened up had terrible smell no frost and were very hairy. So everyone I knew said I over did calmag. So I reduced my dosages the next grow to every couple waterings and got blossom end rot so those plants came out like shit. The next grow I did the same thing just adding a little more same thing happened with this grow as the first grow...shit. So backed off Cal mag in veg let the plants eat off the soil and first week of flower I got a terrible mag deficiency I tried fixing it by giving them cal mag and that was terrible as well. The buds gave out a tremendous amount of white hairs stayed super green and never finished no frost no nothing. So I switched to super soil with roots organic they said I didn't need cal mag I was stoked just plain RO water. So thats what i did plants were beautiful through veg first week of flower severe mag deficiency. So switched all plants back to veg since I learned there's no chasing a mag problem in flower. So with all being said how the fuck do I add this cal mag with out fucking shit up????? My overhead is 5000 a month for power and rent if I don't figure this out. I'm doomed! Please help

 

[OhighO]

Sounds like you have other problems man. Have you checked for soil pest? Root health?

 

[extreegrowerrr]

Yea no bugs I routinely check for all that. Roots look amazing. How are you guys feeding calmag? It's def a magnesium deficiency. I'm gonna switch to organic camg+ from GH has no nitrogen as all. I'll post pic of some of the flower plants last round. Magnesium is clearly the issue.

 

[Gelado`]

I'd leave the CalMag alone and just use epsom salts.

 

[extreegrowerrr]

It's asking me to enter a URL? My pictures don't have one

 

[extreegrowerrr]

Yea I fed Epsom salts at 1tsp a gallon but I fed it after calmag. Knowing now that I probably blocked the magnesium all together from the excess calcium.

 

[DabSnob]

in my 5 years of growing ive never added calmag every watering, normally once a week. also adding epsom salt after the calmag will only cause lockout be cautious of that.

i had your exact problem a few months back when i had ROOT APHIDS. these fuckers are almost impossible to spot with the naked eye. my plants showed extreme Mg deficiency week 1,2 of flower but were always beautiful in veg. i spent 2 crops "chasing" the deficiency before i finally ripped a rootball apart and found HUNDREDS at the base of the main stem. all other roots looked perfect and healthy.
they live in only the wettest areas of the pots so you more then likely wont see them on the outer rootmass. Root aphids are a HUGE problem in oregon and cali so i wouldnt be suprised if you contracted them somehow.

 

[extreegrowerrr]

I'm going to order some ogbiowar and blast the roots on all my plants then... I'll do that every week. Ill attack all angles of this problem until I get it correct. I picked up some General Organics CaMg+ yesterday. I'm going to use that at 8 mils per 5 gallons every couple of waterings, if they need more, ill dose more frequently. Ill let you guys know how they look in a week. Thanks again...

 

[Mr. Krinkle]

yea i dont use calmag at all and im in the city with RO water...even tho everybody tries to tell you that you need it, i call bull

sometimes the roots organic potting soil can be a bit acidic...some add lime - im not into lime...so i just switched soils instead (that wasn't the only reason for going away from roots - sometimes too many bugs come in the bag also)

so it just sounds like a lockout of cal and/or mag that you're having


now im gonna tell you this too - you're probably using ph up to adjust - thats gonna cause you even more problems - it goes up and just keeps on going up and its worse to have too high of a ph than too low


now you shouldnt have to add more cal-mag if you're using a base nutrient - if you do have to still add more, then replace your base nute because its not doing its job - thats why you use a base nute...find a base nute that doesn't drop your ph to the floor - use one that already has you in range after adding it to your ro water (i know nutrifield base nutes will put you in range every time with RO water and they have plenty of calcium and magnesium in there base nutes) ...but stay away from adjusting ph with ph up as much as possible...

that general organics cal-mag wont do a thing..but it smells nice tho!

 

[DabSnob]

yea i dont use calmag at all and im in the city with RO water...even tho everybody tries to tell you that you need it, i call bull

sometimes the roots organic potting soil can be a bit acidic...some add lime - im not into lime...so i just switched soils instead (that wasn't the only reason for going away from roots - sometimes too many bugs come in the bag also)

so it just sounds like a lockout of cal and/or mag that you're having


now im gonna tell you this too - you're probably using ph up to adjust - thats gonna cause you even more problems - it goes up and just keeps on going up and its worse to have too high of a ph than too low


now you shouldnt have to add more cal-mag if you're using a base nutrient - if you do have to still add more, then replace your base nute because its not doing its job - thats why you use a base nute...find a base nute that doesn't drop your ph to the floor - use one that already has you in range after adding it to your ro water (i know nutrifield base nutes will put you in range every time with RO water and they have plenty of calcium and magnesium in there base nutes) ...but stay away from adjusting ph with ph up as much as possible...

that general organics cal-mag wont do a thing..but it smells nice tho!

i Run Roots soil, i have had a few issues with fungus gnats in the past, and MIGHT have gotten Root aphids aswell... but they could have came on a cutting i got from a dispensary so i cant blame it on them for sure.

also adding 1TBS of dolomite per gallon of soil is a must with Roots, they do tend to make there soil a bit too acidic.

i also agree with the PH up statement, your suppose to give the solution HOURS to adjust ph, most people keep adding more and more and more till they finally hit the ph range they want, not knowing they are really WAY over the PH they are shooting for causing even more problems.


To the OP:
I recently switched to aptus after trying about every lineup out there. let me tell you, i havent had better looking plants in all my life. they have their shit together and the research to back it up. not to mention the ease of use and bonus of not PHing my nutrient solution. i went from 1.14lbs per 1000w to 1.55lbs without a single change other then nutrients. havent had a single issue with nutrient lockout/ deficiency/ or underfeeding since the switch. its all about finding what works best for your operation. maybe its time to pull away from GH and try something else.

 

[Granger2]

Yes, use OG Biowar. First app soak plants for 30 min with soil or medium below water line. This gets it to the zone just under stem which is RA central.

For Ca and Mg the best products out their are SaferGro Biomin Ca, and Mg. Good luck. -granger

 

[rocketman420]

i mix my own soil and use rare earth from GH. it has cal/mag, silica, and all kinds of trace minerals. i got ro water and use half strength GH cal/mag first 3 weeks of flower, never have any problems. i drench my soil as a precaution with GH azamax when i mix my soil and when swapping to flower, bugs just stay away.

 

[Mr. Krinkle]

i Run Roots soil, i have had a few issues with fungus gnats in the past, and MIGHT have gotten Root aphids aswell... but they could have came on a cutting i got from a dispensary so i cant blame it on them for sure.

also adding 1TBS of dolomite per gallon of soil is a must with Roots, they do tend to make there soil a bit too acidic.

i also agree with the PH up statement, your suppose to give the solution HOURS to adjust ph, most people keep adding more and more and more till they finally hit the ph range they want, not knowing they are really WAY over the PH they are shooting for causing even more problems.

yea ive gotten apocalyptic amounts of fungus gnats from roots soil that still had zero effect on yield or overall quality - but never root aphids - ive actually never had root aphids in my extensive growing career - ive gotten thrips from them but ive gotten thrips from almost every soil and theyre the easiest thing to get rid of...

ive gotten impetigo (like a staph infection) from soil but that doesn't mean im gonna stop using it either lol

my main issue was the acidity of the soil...although i do still think its one of the best bagged soils on the market still...




another thing i might recommend is using something like steamed liquid bone meal or a phos bat and/or seabird guano - those are all loaded with calcium too

i think its irresponsible to just go and dump a household product like epsom salts into your soil but whatever thats just me....

 

[extreegrowerrr]

Thanks for the responses fellas. I'm using super soil at the bottom and roots organic on top. So no nutes. What I have done now is top dressed the plants with a layer of super soil.With the super soil mix I was just adding straight RO water. Which I think was the problem. The super soil is loaded but the roots organic is not. So with the top dress of super soil it has helped a lot to amend the roots organic. Plus I'm adding 8ml of GH organic calmag per 5 gals of RO water for a ppm reading of around 180-200ppm per watering. They have done a complete 180 in health. But the true test will be flower. Once the plants perform with no cal mag issues ill be adding hygrozyme some organic b1 and a sugar at very low strength every couple waterings to keep the beneficials pumping. Once the ogbiowar gets here ill be doing that as well. When I add the cal mag now it drops the ph to 6.3 so I rebalance it to 6.5-6.6 I let it sit there for 15 minutes to make sure it doesn't drift. But from this experience I have learned so much about cal mag and how important magnesium is. I have 4 lights out of the 16 going no need to waist power. Once I'm confident the problem is fixed ill fill the bitch up. Do a grow journal. My flower room is super sick you guys would love it. The whole room is controlled via an iponic which was worth every penny if any of you guys are on the fence about getting it. You can dial rooms to extreme perfection.
Thanks again

 

[Floridian]

With my R/O water I'll use calmag or magical 2-3 times during veg and 2-3 times during flower

 

[Highsenburg831]

I would like to tag along on this topic if that's ok

I use RO and am using the moonshine soil mix: 1 bag each ffof, ffhf, fflw plus 5 gals perlite and one cup fruit and flower. I am wondering if the fruit and flower has enough calcium and magnesium so that I can use straight RO to water. I'm attaching a pic of the fruit and flower label for reference.

 

[Mr. Krinkle]

yup looks good to me....

most nutrients have plenty - its almost always just a ph issue causing lockout...

 

[Highsenburg831]

Thanks man