Uh-oh! Lockout? Overfert? Ph Issues? HALP!

[SensiBC]

I'm gonna grab some PH strips from the pet store at the mall today and see what's what. Hopefully it's just some bunk calibration solution causing all of this and I'm able to get the PH in line and everything back on track.

I've heard overwatering, high ph, low ph, lack of micros, and in the end I'm kinda at a loss. I've got another plant in a hydroton drip bucket suffering the same problems. In that one I droped the ph to around 5 as indicated on my meter. In the aero table, I ph'd to an indicated 6.3. We'll see which one improves I guess. Hopefully something does, lmao.

If anyone has any additional suggestions or advice I'm all ears.

 

[SensiBC]

Dropped the watering time to 15 on 30 off. I'll grab a thermostat with a wired outdoor sensor and drop it in the table today to keep an eye on the temps in there. Don't want it heating up too much during that half hour dry time. DO levels and all. I'll also make sure they're not wilting too much during the off time (any more than they are already anyway).

I'll report back with the results from the PH strips once I get back from Christmas shopping at the mall. I'll need every gram of the killer Bubba I've got to get through it, lol.

Thanks everybody, wish me luck!

 

[Leroy Brown]

Here's a question for you, since I've done it myself and it causes MG def symptoms according to the sick plants sticky & from what I personally saw.

You say you're using tap water, as in city water right? Are you letting it sit out for 24hr's to dissipate the chlorine, bromine, etc? Maybe they put a lot in your water & 24 hr's isn't enough, I would go somewhere that sells aquarium supplies & get the stuff that neutralizes all of that.

 

[BrainSellz]

thanks for the response on the bleach Sensi....very interesting what can be done...hope you get this all fig'd out....

 

[SensiBC]

Leroy, the only time I've ever let my water sit out was when running bennies. Aside from that, I never have. Perhaps I should start, but unless the water in Vancouver has recently changed I'm not sure if it's causing the problem I'm facing. Might be worth giving a try though. Then again, if it was the chlorine in the city water I'd figure they'd get worse immediately after res changes or addbacks, then start to improve a few days after. Then there's the whole bleach containing chlorine thing. Pretty sure it's not the bleach though, as I hadn't added any in a couple weeks before things started to go south.

In any event I got a PH test kit for aquariums a few minutes ago, the drops and vial. The lowest it reads is 6.0, but from what I can tell my meter is pretty much accurate. Guess I'll keep an eye on things and see which of the systems shows improvement, if either.

 

[darrmann]

thanks for the response on the bleach Sensi....very interesting what can be done...hope you get this all fig'd out....

I dont beleive that is the right amount of bleach ,in fact i think it it alot less then that. I have a 45 gallon rez and from what I read was only supposed to put 5 mls. Now I beleive it disipates like chlorine so You have to keep adding it I beleive every day. thats the thing about it. you have to keep up way more on it then mycros

 

[!!!]

Messed up leaves is usually related to pH. Either pH is off or it's swinging up too quickly.

Root symptoms including rot manifest themselves in the plant much like overwatering or underwatering early on as the roots struggle to breathe.

Check the roots. Take pics. Any smells? colors?

You said you added bleach early on. Why? Did you have a problem with contamination/algae?

Add calmag at 10ml/gal. It's not necessarily the calcium (maybe Zn like Chimera said) but these products contain many other essentiel trace elements.

I personally have switched from maxibloom alone to maxigrow in veg, grow/bloom in early flower, and bloom in late flower, with excellent results. BUT I didn't really have a problem with maxibloom alone in veg. I just felt my leaves were't green enough.

You're running a CGE which I have no experience with. Perhaps there's offgassing issues? I would try getting fresh air in and turning off the CO2 gen to rule that out. I always thought CO2 was to help the plant handle higher temps, and the higher temps result in much faster growth, so turning it off might not result in any negative impact on your plants.

 

[SensiBC]

Messed up leaves is usually related to pH. Either pH is off or it's swinging up too quickly.

Root symptoms including rot manifest themselves in the plant much like overwatering or underwatering early on as the roots struggle to breathe.

Check the roots. Take pics. Any smells? colors?

You said you added bleach early on. Why? Did you have a problem with contamination/algae?

Add calmag at 10ml/gal. It's not necessarily the calcium (maybe Zn like Chimera said) but these products contain many other essentiel trace elements.

I personally have switched from maxibloom alone to maxigrow in veg, grow/bloom in early flower, and bloom in late flower, with excellent results. BUT I didn't really have a problem with maxibloom alone in veg. I just felt my leaves were't green enough.

You're running a CGE which I have no experience with. Perhaps there's offgassing issues? I would try getting fresh air in and turning off the CO2 gen to rule that out. I always thought CO2 was to help the plant handle higher temps, and the higher temps result in much faster growth, so turning it off might not result in any negative impact on your plants.

Took a closer look at the roots. They are mostly white with a slightly tanish tinge. No slime to speak of, no odd smells, and considering my res temps I wouldn't expect rot, but what do I know. lol

I was using the bleach as preventative maintenance, not as a resolution to any issues. Before today it was a few weeks since I used any, and I've done a few res changes since then. I don't suspect there has been any in the system for quite some time before today.

As far as offgassing, I was one of the original Hyrdrohut victims. They made it right by refunding my money and sending me a silver series tent for free. I've had a few successful grows in it, using most all of the equipment that's in there with no problems. The symptoms shown by the plants now are nothing like the offgassing problem I experienced in the past... totally different leaf damage. That doesn't mean it's not the problem this time around once again though I guess, with something else as the cause. They were healthy though, and I hadn't added anything new to the room that I can think of when they started going south.

FWIW, when I first started having these random issues it was with an active vented room. CGE came later in an attempt to control the environment and make it as close to "perfect" as possible. I guess I could revamp the room though if it came down to it.

 

[Leroy Brown]

You would think, but who knows, a little more e. coli or whatever showing up in the water & BAM, they up the chlorine like that. Also, I guess a lot of places are using chloramine now, which will not dissipate like chlorine. It's cheap enough for the aquarium neutralizer stuff, like $3 (US) to treat 250 gallons. You would think if it kills fish it wouldn't be good for plants, but most of this is based off of what I have been told, my 1st indoor crop was suffering a def and also some other leaf issues in the first 2 weeks from the chlorine etc & RH below 15%, upped the humidity & treated the water and new growth is looking great.

Treat the water on one & see if it makes a difference. Also, I wonder if off-gassing chemicals in the rootzone have a different effect?

 

[SensiBC]

Good point leroy, I'll give that a go. Couldn't hurt, as they're looking worse than ever right now.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

 

[Leroy Brown]

Merry christmas to you as well, please keep us posted with whatever happens.

I'm still curious if off-gassing issues in the rootzone shows the same effects as what I've seen from the tents if anyone knows that one.

 

[SensiBC]

Roots, no slime at all:

 

[BrainSellz]

def keep us posted...looks good under there^....anyhow happy holla dayz to all as well.....and thanks darrman...

 

[SensiBC]

Things keep getting worse. No idea what the problem could be at this point.

Foilar fed with cal mag and pureblend. Mixed a fresh res with 5ml cal mag per gallon plus Maxibloom, total ppm is in the 900's at the moment, ph in the mid 5's. Flipped the watering back to 15 on/15 off since earlier adjustments to watering times had no visible effect.

Grabbed a 70pt dehuey from Sears last night, gotta source an RO system from elsewhere as they only had one model and it got horrible reviews online.

If things don't improve within the next few days I'm not sure what I'll do. Nothing I've done so far has gotten them to improve and if anything they're looking worse than before.

Depressing isn't even the word for it. Half of me wants to take a bat to everything in the room, the other half wants to take the bat to myself for being an idiot who can't get even the simplest shit to work properly. When you can't even keep a weed happy in veg maybe it's time to reconsider gardening as a hobby. Maybe a nice rock collection instead, lol.

*sigh*

 

[BrainSellz]

bro can you drop the ppms and then adjust a few things....bringing the ppm down would just seem to slow down the damage until fingered out.....ro water is gunna be a thing of beauty and will certainly help with some issues..mo
positive vibes your way....

 

[SensiBC]

Thanks for the encouragement. I dumped the res for the hydroton bucket, filled it with approx half the contents of the aero res, and filled both with fresh water. Hydroton system is sitting around 500 ppm, aero table is around 600. One res is lightly larger than the other, which is why one is stronger.

Think I should go even lighter on the nutes?

Howabout the HID's? Kill em and leave a flouro on while they recover or leave the room running and the environment as is?

 

[danks]

hydroton is a magnet for salts, maxibloom is high in salts. maybe try replacing the hydroton and not reusing it. i like h&g drip clean around week 4 to 7 to keep things in check.

 

[SensiBC]

Hi Danks,

That might explain the problems in the hydroton bucket, but the table is aero with no media so I'm guessing that's probably not the root cause of my issues.

Anyway, it's been a couple of days and the aero systems ppm hadn't dropped at all leading me to believe they're still locked out and not eating. Pulled a couple of gallons from the res and added back fresh water bringing the ppm's down to 500. Ph'd at 5.5, and it's slowly climbing as time passes. Garden still looks like dogshit though, unfortunately.

Guess we'll see.

 

[BrainSellz]

Think I should go even lighter on the nutes?

Howabout the HID's? Kill em and leave a flouro on while they recover or leave the room running and the environment as is?

would def go lighter on the nutes...350-400ppm/.8... and yes i would turn HID's off and flouro on along with getting the ph up a lil....rootin for ya over here....
oh yeah and what about dumping whats in the res and replacing it with new nutes and RO so its "fresh and clean"....

 

[SensiBC]

Came home from work today and noticed a couple things. First of all, most of the plants looked a bit better, and were showing new growth. I did notice some tip burn though, something I'd really never seen with just the Maxibloom alone. I pulled a couple more gallons from both res' and brought the ppms to 400. (420 actually, coincidentally).

Also, I had been screwing with the water feed to my water cooling gear and had backed off on it a bit causing my room and res temps to go higher than I would normally let them. Room temp was 84, res temps were 73. I've since increased the flow to the cooling loops in my res' to bring the res temps down a bit, but I'm going to try running the room on the warmer side since I'm still running the CGE with co2.

I'll keep an eye on things but at the moment I'm beginning to think that either my tap is too clean and the Maxibloom didn't have quite enough MG to satisfy my strain, or perhaps I just hit them way too hard with the Maxibloom, pissed em off, and they locked out causing the myriad of problems I encountered. I'm sure swinging the ph (and every other variable) all over the place thinking my meter was on the fritz didn't help either. Hell, maybe the room was just too cool for them. I'm still not sure, but I think I may be getting closer to a resolution. If I do, I'll be sure to let everyone know. If not, well, I'm sure I'll let you all know that too. lol

Thanks again everyone.