Run-of-the-mill pH problem? Or worse?

[Sammet]

SOIL:
What STRAIN are you growing? BB Cheese
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) Seed
What is the age of your plants? Almost a month since germination
How Tall are the plants? 12" ish
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? Veg
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) none at the moment
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 7LWhat substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?) Plagron Light-Mix with 20% fytocell added
What Nutrient's are you using?How much of each with how much water? How Often? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* Earth Juice Grow - 1ml/L every other watering
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used? N/A
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? N/A
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen? N/A
How often are you watering? Every two days (using the lift method), each plant gets approx 500ml
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? two days ago, and every other watering
What size bulb are you using? 600W HPS and 200W blue envirolight
What is the distance to the canopy? 14"

What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) 40% ish
What is the canopy temperature? 78f + or - 2f.

What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range) Ambient air temperatures are low 80s during the day, low 70s to high 60s during the night. About 10-15f fluctuation
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) Approx 400cfm (6" ruck fan sucking through cooltube, oscillating fan in the corner blowing over the the tops of the plants
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? Yes but it is oscillating back and forth and is raised to just above the canopy
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? No, it dries out between watering
Is your water HARD or SOFT? Hard - approx 15d kH and 15d GH
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? Drinking water from the tap but it is a private source and contains no chlorine or additives.
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched? Nope
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when? Nope
Are plant's infected with pest's? Nope


The standard pH of my tap water is 7.5 - when I add my Earth Juice I normally bubble it for 48 hours to make a tea and reduce the acidity. My soil mix has dolomite lime added (tablespoon per gallon of soil) and usually I don't have any problems with pH. However, I recently had to swap my air pump to my aquarium (as a backup for a broken one) and haven't been able to aerate my tea. I know EJ is very acidic and 3 other cheese plants have some pH spots. (the BB Cheese is pretty sensitive to nute burn too)

This one appears slightly different from your usual pH spotting and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas? I thought it might be a fungus of some sort.

(a new pump is on the way and so my pHs should be back to normal soon)





Any comments would be appreciated (the photos of the other cheese plants can be found in my thread - click on the signature link)

 

[Brother_Monk]

Yes. This looks like the start of a Ph problem. You stated that your tea mix is not being aerated? This causes the mix to get acidic? I'm not familiar with using teas, so I will leave that, to someone more educated on the subject. But I will say, if your nutes are acidic, then the Ph needs to be raised. Or diluted with water.

Anyone touching this one, will be giving you an educated guess, without knowing the actual Ph readings. This is very important, either hydro, soil/less...any medium. It cannot be stressed enough to use a calibrated instrunment for taking readings. It can still be done, but you are just reading the plants...basically reacting to their needs. Knowing what you are putting in, in advance, cuts out the guess work. So...I guess...get your teas aerated, and at least get some Ph test strips at the aquarium store. Good luck bro!

 

[Sammet]

Sorry if I didn't make it clear enough. I know that some of my plants have a pH problem due to the nutes not being aerated, and I'm holding off on the tea until I get it and was wondering if this is just the same pH problem as it looks slightly different to the other plants that are subjected to the exact same conditions.

My pH of my tap water is 7.5, and usually with the Tea the run off is 6.4 but I haven't been able to measure the pH of the unaerated tea as I stopped making it when I saw the spotting.

So all I really want is confirmation that this is a pH problem and nothing more sinister.

 

[Core]

sammet i'm using the same medium as you ..did you know you are growing in organic soil?...soiless with other words.

 

[Sammet]

Yep - I'm using organic ferts only too, Earth Juice. (sorry sometimes I forget it's not actually soil and I should say soil less)

So you guys reckon it's just regular pH spotting then?

 

[MynameStitch]

I think it's a combination of over fert, the plant is too dark green, 1 ml every 2 days will build up if it's not eating a lot and there are still some nutrients left in the soil, I would feed every 5 to 7 days and I would use plain water for now, earthjuice products are acidic and with you using them every 2 days, it will cause a change in the mixture.

So I would stop using it that often and use it more spaced out until the plant gets bigger.

You need to test the pH of this, because when earthjuice is mixed without letting it set out for 24 hours, the mixture is acidic.

It does become more alkaline when the mixture is let set out.

I think this problem is caused by 2 things, the main thing with you giving them ferts every 2 days, even if it's the light doses, with as smal as some of them are they don't feed off that quickly enough and it's built up causig the soil to become a little more alkaline I think.

So get some strips, do not flush her, just give her some plain waterings and feed her every 5 to 7 days, I would say 7 days for now and move it back to 5 days when they get bigger and have been in the mixture for a longer period of time.

get some strips and when you water collect the run off and give us the readings.

 

[Kr@kEn]

Well it sounds like you eliminated PH as being the issue. So you can move on from there, 6.5 runoff is perfect.
Normally in good soils you only need to feed something like calmag or magical once at week 2-3 and then maybe one 1/4 dose of veg fert at about a month of age. In flower you should only need to fert a few times throughout flowering. And watering every two days sounds excessive unless there is something I missed about your soil mix. In mid flower you might have to water that often but during veg it's probably excessive.

 

[MynameStitch]

How is his pH not being the cause when he is using a soiless mixture and his pH is reading 6.4? That is the incorrect pH range for soiless mediums, his range needs to be 5,5 to 6.3

Even though it's the .1 out of range, the optimum range for soiless is 5,5 to 5.8
The only way he would have to use cal mag is if he was using RO water source, so unless he is not using one, he would not have to use cal mag on such a young plant right now.

Flowering you would not have to water every 2 days unless your plant is rootbound and or the plant is big.