FoxFarm PH Problems

[blakhash]

Did a search for Fox farm ph problems could not find anything.

If anyone had a link to fox farm ph problems please post/link

I am currently using the Fox Farm trio line up PLUS the trio supplements/additives
Strains- White Widow, Hawaiian snow, super silver haze, lemon skunk, mazar-i-sharif, and random bag seed.

i started noticing a bunch of different nutrient problems manganese lockout, phosphorous lock out, and a few others.

I use R/o water that has a perfect 7.5 PH. i added all the nutrients according to the feeding schedule week 4 at half strength. the nutrients dropped the ph below 5.0 (i say below 5.0 because my ph tester stops at 5.0.

My question is-
what is the best way to balance the PH back up to 6.5 for soil.
would added PH up to balance it to 6.5 stabilize it or would it drop right back down.

 

[slappyjack]

IMO the best way to eliminate FoxFarm problems is to stop buying FoxFarm soil and nutes.

Sorry, I don't want to sound like a dick but that's precisely how I solved my 2-year long FF problem. Since eliminating that variable everything has been perfectly healthy from day one all the way through harvest. I truly despise the stuff.

 

[MynameStitch]

Sounds like you may be frying your plants...... are you listening to the directions on the back of the bottle when feeding? For your pH to be that low, you have high levels of nutrients in your soil.... the nutrient disorder you speak of, mangenease; is rare. For your plants to have that many problems as you speak of, then the plants are being burned, not to mention the supplements and additives, chances are you will have to flush. One good rule to follow is NEVER listen to the directions on the bottle, unless it's made for cannabis.

FF products are good, but the mistake comes with grower error. Your plants don't need everything that is out there, a good NPK, micronutes and a root growth or some other booster used once in a while is all your plants need.

FF is very strong and is not new grower friendly; if you can learn how to use there products you will have good crops. It all comes down to the grower, if something is not working right when others have used the same thing with good results then one needs to step back and find out what they did wrong.

I am almost guranteeing you got a burn issue, most people who post issues with FF products have burned there plants.

I have used many of there products with excellent results, but one way to do this is, do not listen to the directions and only go by the size of your plant.
Can you fill out some of these so we can help you out better?

SOIL:

How long has this problem been going on?
What STRAIN are you growing?
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?)
What is the age of your plants?
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now?
How Tall are the plants?
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc)
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot)
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?)
What Nutrient's are you using?
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful*
How often are you feeding?
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?
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"?
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen?
How often are you watering?
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding?
What size bulb are you using?
What is the distance to the canopy?
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity)
What is the canopy temperature?
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist?
Is your water HARD or SOFT?
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?
Are you using water from a water softener?
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched?
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when?
Are plant's infected with pest's?

 

[greenhead]

Your PH drops because it is supposed to.

Fox Farms nutes like Tiger Bloom have a lower PH on purpose.

It is formulated with a low pH to maintain stability in storage and keep micro nutrients available.

Just add a pinch of PH up (Earth Juice crystals do a good job and the amount you have to use is small), to around 6.5 or whatever you feel like using for soil, and you're good to go.

 

[blakhash]

OOOok so i have decided to flush the plants because the problems got worse, i am going to flush the plants with 6.5 stable plain RO water. i always check my plants to nute burn and some have nute burn others don't. i am going to step back on the nutrients and try again with PH up.

the plants have stopped flowering or are flowering extremely slow.

How long has this problem been going on? since flowering began
What STRAIN are you growing?Super silver haze, white widow, lemon skunk, Hawaiian snow, mazar-i-sharif, bagseed
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) seed
What is the age of your plants? 5 wk veg, 4 wk flower
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now? 4 wk
How Tall are the plants? 3ft-4ft
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? flower
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) LST
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 5 liter bags
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?) foxfarm ocean forest
What Nutrient's are you using? complete foxfarm line
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* following the foxfarm guide
How often are you feeding? every other watering
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients? when pistils showed up
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect) veg, bloom then additives
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used? dont know
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? haven't checked
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen? ph water tester
How often are you watering? when the soil is less than moist and dirt feels stale and hard
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? 4 days ago. every 3 to 4 days.
What size bulb are you using? 400watt hps 55,000 lumens with added blue spectrum
What is the distance to the canopy? 1 foot
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) 25-35
What is the canopy temperature? 75-85
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)70
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) 240 cfm
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ? runs while lights are on and 2 hours when light goes off to pull the rest of the heat. there is on tube pulling heat from the hps and one hole on the side of the box to pull floating heat.
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? no
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? no
Is your water HARD or SOFT? not sure its r/o water
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? RO
Are you using water from a water softener?
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched? only pull off dead leaves
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when?
Are plant's infected with pest's? no

 

[10k]

Like earth juice, all poop soups do best if you premix it and aerate it thoroughly for a day or two before you ever feed it to the plants, to let the pH level off.
Check the pH then bubble the hell out of it a while, then pH and bubble it more, check pH adjust if need be and feed.

 

[blakhash]

Like earth juice, all poop soups do best if you premix it and aerate it thoroughly for a day or two before you ever feed it to the plants, to let the pH level off.
Check the pH then bubble the hell out of it a while, then pH and bubble it more, check pH adjust if need be and feed.

will try after i flush. i tested the water after the poop juice and the ph was stable when i added the grow big, tiger bloom, and additive each one dropped the ph lower and lower.

 

[blakhash]

is no one else having problems with fox farm?

for the people who are using fox farm what is your feeding recipe?

 

[LlamaSchool]

I use the complete FF line as well. Again, the problems you are having are most likely user error.

I haven't studied your information too carefully but I do notice you say your problems started with the flowering phase. Perhaps this was when you also began using their "Tiger Bloom" formula? Remember that Tiger Bloom is much more acidic than Grow Big (which you were likely using during the vegetative phase).

Maybe you hurt (burned/locked out) your plants when you first switched to Tiger Bloom? Maybe you didn't realize how much more acidic it was than Grow Big? In this case, existing damage will not repair itself but if you have solved your pH problems new growth should not show the same issues.

 

[unitedgrooves]

Yo, balkhash i'm having the same problem you're having.. Please check my thread it near the top "brown spots def/burn thread" I too i'm using fox farms and my PH does drop to around 5.6 when I add the nutes for flower, then I have to bump it back up with PH up.. The nutes bring the PH down especially cal mag. I'm not using any of the solubles tho, but I'm thinking I was over feeding by not letting the soil dry out all the way... Another thing I noticed is, after you mix you batch of nutes (i use a 3gal mist pump) if you let it sit over the 24hrs the PH increased to 7-7.5 within 2 3 days.. I didn't notice this before so I was just using the same mix for feeding again and thats probably another reason for my lock out.. I to did start to flush, how much water are you using to flush?

 

[VirginHarvester]

This is an interesting thread for me. Blackhash's pics remind me a lot of my plants and it starts fairly early. I have used FF two years in a row, mostly because it's all that's available in my area, and have the same problems. I thought the goal of FF as a manufacturer would be to maintain around a 6.5 ph but I have had ph issues also.

1) Is there something about FF formulation that causes it to drop "naturally" on its own or with the addition of other nutrients?

2) If I use FF again should I perhaps add no additional nutes until I'm in flower- can/should the soil itself be able to support the plants? It is after all very rich.

3) When more experienced growers say it's not noobie friendly, are you talking about how easy it might be to add nutes and throw it out of ph balance?

4) ph up and down is kind of a PITA to use. Is there any way around this?

5) Would FF soil be more noob friendly by adding an amount of dolomite to it?

FWIW, I do realize now that one of the mistakes I've made is adding too much in the way of extra nutrients during flower. I'm looking to go a lot lighter going forward and that's why I'm wondering if FF Ocean Forest and Happy Frog are strong enough on their own to get a plant a few weeks into flower before extra nutes need to be added.

 

[dr-dank]

Well, I started out with FF, to include their soild and nutes plus the trio pack.

I found their feeding schedule to be a PIA, and there is not that much difference between the soluables in the trio to make it worth while.

While I cannot blame FF, as I was starting up and think I had heat and over water issues, i can say that the switch to coco with H3ad's modified lucas, which I dropped down to 4/6 plus a bit of kool bloom powder, feed 1 x per day at ~ 500 PPM was the best thing for me.

Simplier, cheaper, easier, known to work. Right now I am perpetual and they all get the same thing, except I keep new flowering plants on veg formula for first two weeks. I may split my closet into an early and late bllom so I can loose the micro and go just bloom as I tend to finish pretty green. But I have to admit it so nice to mic a batch of flower 2 Gs at a time and let 'em all have it.

When I think back to the FF chart, and the one week out of eight that they get Beastie blooms, it makes me laugh. That 2 lb package will last be a longg time.

Now FF goes on my veggies and its GH flora with coco for me.

 

[B.C.]

Tagged

Tagged

Outta time right now, but I'll be back. BC

 

[Weedman Herb]

I use R/o water that has a perfect 7.5 PH.

7.5 is the new perfect pH? Hmmmm ... I must have missed that memo ...

 

[groady-ho]

i use ffof with age old grow and bloom..never had a problem..i throw my seedlings in it from the get go too..although i do one thing , i don't feed my plants anything the first 2 wks they are in it...

 

[Strainbrain]

There's nothing inherently wrong with FF nutes. I've used them from my first plant on, and I don't have any dramas. If you read the bottle, Tiger Bloom quite specifically mentions that you need to adjust its pH. I'm betting that's where your pH problem is.

My RO water tests out at about 6.5, and I am ~6-6.5 in all of my other FF mixes straight out of the bottle. The TB is deliberately set way low for 'shelf-stability,' they say, and indeed it tests out below my drops' range... it has to be in the 4's. I bought a $10 bottle of Earth Juice pH-UP crystals from Plant It Earth online, and I use it to bring my TB back into 6-6.5 range. (PIE ships with a discreet return address on unmarked boxes, big fan of theirs. No other reason for endorsement.)

If your RO water is really at 7.5, beware of that. I get the beginnings of lockout at 7.5+.

-s

 

[duzt]

I use FFoF as well with their nutes this time around and am having wonderful results. The problem with FF and most other nutes is people over do them. I mix my water to 100 ppm with metanaturals organic calcium, let that sit 12 hours or so and then mix the nutes to between 300 and 700 ppm depending on growth. I also only feed once a week to every 10 days at the most (around every third watering). I would say that 90% of the problems I see are from over-fert and over-watering to try to fix it. I also loosen my soil just a bit with a bit more perlite, so maybe that is cheating, but other than that I have had good results with FF, just feed at very low doses and don't overwater.

 

[groady-ho]

dutz, i agree, nuked by nutes and drowned by water..it's very hard to over-fert with organic formulas tho...i also add perlite, i don't look at as cheating but i do as improving..

 

[MynameStitch]

Groady, you can easily over fert with organics, but it takes a lot more due to the slow release time depending on what kind of organics your using.... now teas and liquid organics are more readily available and burn overtime rather than with just one dose, unless you used like tablespoons of it for first dosage or something like that.

 

[bsound]

I wouldn't say mine is much of a problem, other than that I use a ridiculous amount of PH up to get the water stable, or what seems like a ridiculous amount to me. Also, something is falling out of the solution in the water recently.

I thought about this a lot today. I think, because I'm in the transition of introducing flowering nutes, yet still feeding veg nutes, that when I mix: the Tiger Bloom first, Big Bloom next, then Grow and\or Cal-Mag last, that the PH drops significantly with the TB, then as the PH keeps dropping with the addition of more nutrients that lower PH, perhaps one of them is falling out of the solution because it won't stay in a solution below 4.5 or maybe say 4?

I'm going to try mixing 3 gallons worth of each nute into a seperate gallon container, PH the solution, and then mix each gallon into the other. That way, each solution should be at 6.5 - 6.8 and neither of them will fall out. 6.8 allows the plants to feed on the Cal-Mag as it locks out at < 6.5.

Found these charts useful for reference:

I plan to feed with 2tsp/gallon Big Bloom and 1tsp/gallon Tiger Bloom from here on out. Every 3rd watering they get regular PH'ed water, sometimes I'll give them Cal-Mag too if it looks like they could use it. I've never flushed before, as it really is just a bitch with the space I'm working with to get them all out, so I try not to go too heavy on anything.

With them being in FFOF soil right now, I should probably feed with regular water more often or use half strength of all nutes, but I'm not content with the fact that my GDP look overly fed by any means.


Blakhash, I'd say your problem is that you're feeding them too much stuff and might be experiencing a PH lockout b\c of salt buildup? There is a chart online somewhere for the Fox Farm nute schedule that severely differs from what's on the bottles, and even with the chart I mix 2/3 strength most of the time. I'm probably not qualified to give you any advice right now though haha.

As I'm fresh out of my second week of flower, I'll only be using TB and BB from here on out with the Cal-Mag and some Superthrive here and there. Not sure if I should go lighter or full strength on my nutes now or not. I feel like less is more, but I get the vibe from my plants that they can take more. I've worked them up slowly from drops of each nute to half to 3/4 strength since late veg, so I feel they sort of have an appetite.

Either way, I use teaspoons (5 ml - 8 ml !!) of PH up to balance out the bloom nutes with the veg nutes and cal mag, and this cannot be good. I only mix 2.5-3 gallons each time. What is an unreasonable amount of PH up to be using here?

With only flowering from here on out, I shouldn't be having a problem. I still feel like the amount of PH needed to raise TB is a little much.

I found the chart that I use. 2/3 strength of these dosages (I use liquids, not soluables)