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What's going wrong? 4th run in a row is scr*wed :(

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
If you blow up the big leaf photo on the 3rd row you will see the leaf is already scorched from too much salt sprayed on the leaf. 😎
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
rev you and I can disagree and still be friends. Just because we may do things differently doesn't mean we can't learn from one another. 😎
Of course mate, as I said there's nothing wrong with arguing a little bit. I have learned from reading your posts before for sure 👍
If you blow up the big leaf photo on the 3rd row you will see the leaf is already scorched from too much salt sprayed on the leaf. 😎
If you are referring to the one starting to dispose of her oldest leaves, this strain is very inbred and lacks the vigor of a hybrid. I would consider acceptable to lose a couple of old leaves after 7 weeks in the same pot, wouldn't you? At least compared to a full blown magnesium deficiency 🤷‍♂️ Tomorrow is transplant day, I bet you in 3-4 days every single leaf will be green and healthy.

By the way my plants have 2 ugly leaves which according to you is a proof of epsom salt damage, but the OP's plants have nothing wrong and are good to flip into flower?
creeperpark said:
Stop! Quit flipping because there's not anything major wrong with those plants. The damage is from struggling and trying to fix things when they are not broken yet. Take a breath and follow your fertilizer chart with 1/2 or 1/3 the manufactures recommendation. Don't add anything else or you may cause a crash. Your plants are ready to flip into flowering due to space. The plants will change during the flower so be patient go to flowering and keep us posted. . 😎
I think flipping the plants as they are would be a mistake and the OP would pay for it dearly if he did flip to flower before fixing them.
 
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smirnoff420

Well-known member
Hmm, I think it was just salt residue, just wiped it off with a wet paper towel, looks good again I think.

Edit: You mean revegeta666's leaves or mine, Creeperpark?
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
Hmm, I think it was just salt residue, just wiped it off with a wet paper towel, looks good again I think.

Edit: You mean revegeta666's leaves or mine, Creeperpark?
He means this
IMG_20221124_000056.jpg
 

interluined

New member
Striped lighting is really bad ass for vegging. A little bit more time and these girls will be ready for the flowering phase using red-spectrum LED lighting. Use lotz of plain-water for big chunks. You don't need nutes on compost; dat is why de put bat-shit and other crap in it? :love:

If you have LED equipment, please show your pics with the LED brand in action.
20221122_200145-jpg.18784425


:tree:
 
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smirnoff420

Well-known member
To give more infos and answer some questions:
Temperatures are around 29C, 84F. Humidity depends on weather outside, during daytime it's usually somewhere between 40-50%, nighttime a little higher

LED and cabinet setup:
Cabinet 1 is ~0.3m² or 3 squarefoot. LEDs are all Samsung LM281B+ PRO 3500K. ~450 LEDs at the ceiling and ~400 LEDs vertical at the four corners. Wattmeter shows 60 Watts. At 200Lm/W, that calculates to 12.000 Lumen. Minus PSU efficiency, so I guess somewhere around 10.500 Lumen output.

Cabinet 2 is around the same size. LEDs at the ceiling are ~450 LM281B+ PRO 3500K, vertical LEDs at the corners and in the middle section are ~600 Bridgelux Thrive 4000K.
Wattmeter shows 75 Watts for that cabinet. A little more because the Bridgelux Thrives are less efficient because of the higher CRI.

PSUs for the LEDs are all Meanwells.

I wanted to have a very uniform light distribution, thus the vertical LEDs as well as the reflective foil everywere (even at the bottom and around the pots). With LEDs only at the ceiling, the lower parts of the plants wouldn't get much light. I hope that it also keeps internodes shorter that way.


Regarding the airflow and venting of the cabinets: It's fine, I've had succesful grows which much worse venting and airflow.


Regarding root aphids and thrips: Didn't see any. The white spots on the leaves is residue from the epsom salt foliar spraying.
I have an occasional fungus gnat flying around, but no big deal, already added some Bacillus thuringiensis last week, that'll take care of them. No real issue I think, once had dozens of them flying around but it didn't affect the plants. But I will stay on the lookout to make sure.


Regarding root fungus: Thanks, I will read up on that. Luckily, I've pots with translucent bottoms :)


Regarding the leaf that I've cleaned from the epsom salt residue yesterday: It's weird, now that leaf has bad spots and doesn't look good anymore. But only the leaf I've cleaned. Really weird. Yesterday it still looked okay.
So I'll leave the residue there on the other leaves, looks like wiping it off didn't do any good. Anyway, lesson learned, do not foliar spray Mg twice a day, that was too much.


Regarding calcium/magnesium deficiencies:
Did some research in the meantime, from what I've read, cannabis like somewhere between 1:2 to 1:3 calcium/magnesium ratio, and minimum Magnesium is said to be at around 20mg/L.

I've checked the data from my tapwater supplier, it's got 43mg per Liter calcium and 7mg per Liter magnesium, which calculates to 1:5.4. So, not good. Guess this is why I always had to use calmag.

Now Biobizz Calmag is said to contain 32mg Ca per Liter and 12mg Mg per Liter. I always gave about 1ml per Liter calmag to the water. Means, there is now 70mg/L Ca and 19mg/L Mg in the water, which calculates to 1:3.6. Better, but not ideal.

Could it be, that on all the succesful runs, I was just right above the threshold where the plants still function with that 1:3.6 ratio and 19mg/L magnesium, and now, that there is a slightly different environment with slightly different spectrum and different strains, it happens to be just right below the threshold where problems start? I've read that 1 gram epsom salt contains around 98mg Magnesium, so I figured I'll add 0.1g of magnesium per Liter to the solution, i.e. now 70mg ca and 29mg Mg, for a ratio of 1:2.4.

I hope that'll help.


Here are pics from today:
20221124_190745.jpg 20221124_191030.jpg
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
Shiet Boi, you killed me with the LM/M2 measurements :D I am quite high so I'm having trouble following all the numbers at all hahaha. Don't trust mobile apps btw if you're using that.

Burnt spots where you sprayed the salts may have come from the droplets of water having a magnifying glass effect and burning the leaves with the light. If this is the case you can avoid this spraying just before lights out.

Don't add epsom salts to the water, if you have a lockout it will make it worse as creeperpark said.

I'm having trouble following the Ca and Mg measurements in mg. Usually one does this with an EC meter. In my opinion it's better to have cleaner tap water like yours and adjust with calmag, than having hard water.

How far are the LEDs from the plants? You forgot that I think.

Me and most of my friends who had some kind of trouble with LEDs, had more success by dimming them more. For a 1,2x1,2 tent (1,44 m2) we use 300-400w at the peak of flower. Maybe 150w in veg. How close are the vertical LEDs?

And lastly, you said you had other grows with LEDs with no issues before. Has anything changed in terms of lights since then?
 

smirnoff420

Well-known member
The Lumen were not measured, only measured Watts and calculated Lumen from it. Maybe I got too much light indeed, theory says Cannabis likes up to 30.000 Lumen per square meter during veg phase I'm at the limit with around 10.000 Lumen on 0.3 sqm. I'll dial it down a bit.

Distance to the LEDs isn't an issue as the individual stripes don't have high light intensity because it is all spread accross ~900 LEDs. Even when they are only an inch away the don't cause amy lightburn or stress. Its not like a HPS light where all the Lumens come from a small spot.

The good runs were also LEDs, one cabinet with 12 plain Phillips E27 socket LED bulbs (1500 Lumen per bulb) as well as 1600 Samsung LM301B+ ONE LEDs.

Regarding mg/L and ppm. I googled it, it turned out 1 mg/L is actually one ppm. Haha, that was an easy conversion :)
The values were not measured, just taken from my tapwater supplier, don't have an EC meter as I've read they often show bogus values when growing organic.

Forgot to mention the pot size also, they contain about 3.5L (almost a gallon) of soil. Usually, I re-pot them to 7L pots before flowering.

Regarding not giving epsom salt to the nutrient solution: Don't I have Mg deficiency, and thus need to supply more of it? If I don't change anything I'm quite sure it'll go as the other 3 times, plants slowly dying. Or shall I keep spraying them (not twice a day with 2% epsom but maybe once a week with 1% epsom)?

Regarding that leaf that I wiped off. Its really weird, right after I wiped it off, it looked fine. A day later it looks crappy. But all the other not-wiped off leaves are still fine.
 
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revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
Yes I personally am quite sure you have a magnesium deficiency, but because you are not sure if it is caused by a lockout due to buildup of salts, adding more salts to the feed is going to make things worse. But spraying them on the leaves won't have a negative effect on the roots, and they are assimilated quicker by the leaves so you csn correct it faster. The amount I use personally is half a tablespoon for half a gallon, and I spray them once every 3-4 days. If you need to add magnesium in flower, you can drench a cloth in your spraying solution, and rub it gently on the leaves instead so you dont spray it on the flowers.

As for the lights, not sure about all the units lol. In the guides you see online they often use luxes, so I have a luxometer. I have seen more than once that most plants can take up to 55,000 lumens in the peak of flower, some even 65,000. When I tried that at the beginning I had serious problems. Without bleaching in the top leaves but with an effect on the whole plant. Not far from your pictures. Usually for a 1,2 x1,2 people recommend 600w of LEDs. My friend who is a master grower in my opinion, has the lumatek Zeus 600, and he had his best results when not going upwards of 300w. That's very little for what is usually recommended.

So in my opinion you should correct the mg with salts, buy an EC meter and measure the water runoff, and depending on the result, if it is a lockout rinse the excess salts, if not I would guess it's the lights. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that.
 

smirnoff420

Well-known member
1/2 tablespoon per 1/2 gallon would mean 8.5g per 1.9L. I had 20g per 1L. Oops :D

Okay, I'll keep spraying them with 5g per Liter then, that comes close to your dosage.

Lux is basically the same as Lumen, but with the area included. I.e. 1 Lux is 1 Lumen per squaremerer. So if your tent is one sqm, conversion is 1:1.

Yeah up to 60.000 Lumen in flower and 30.000 in veg is also what've read.
 

smirnoff420

Well-known member
Here is the last bad run in cabinet 3. Will harvest today after 9 weeks flowering. As you can see not many and also quite small buds. Usually I had coke can size headbuds and much larger other buds. These were the three that survived the last bad run that started with 6 plants. During veg they basically behaved like the ones I have now in veg. Still put them in flower. Then during flower I once gave them 1/2 dosage Biobizz Grow and Bloom which was way too much. Maybe because they were already in a bad shape. They lost a lot of leaves the next two weeks after that, but survived. Usually (i.e. during the successful runs) plants could take full dosage without problems.

Cabinet 3 has 1120 Samsung LM301H ONE, 400 Bridgelux Thrive and 400 Samsung LM281B+ PRO LEDs. Size 0.5 sqm.
 

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smirnoff420

Well-known member
No, used ph strips.

But I'm not even sure if that is the issue, when I still had successful runs I never measured or adjusted ph, just used the 8ph tapwater.

Started adjusting it this run because I've read that there is the possibility that the soil loses it's ph buffering capacity over time with high ph watering and figured that my tapwater ph is quite high.
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
Lol, you should have said the pH thing earlier :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: . Trying to speculate which is the problem without being sure you are watering with the correct pH is 100% time wasted. I never used strips, but how do you know what color they are once you added the nutes? If you are not sure if your pH is in check, I'm gonna place my bet on that. 100 jiffys. Previous run picture also checks out.

Tap water with 8 pH is high and will cause issues for sure. Also keep in mind that a lot of nutrients bring pH down, including the ones by biobizz. I would recommend buying a pH and EC meter, without those we are totally blind.
 

smirnoff420

Well-known member
1ml of Biobizz Grow and Calmag don't dye the water that much, strips work fine with nutes. And it used to work just fine 2 years ago without me even knowing about my tapwaters ph.

Maybe I should measure the soils ph with distilled water to get an idea of the soil's real ph? Or just measure the drain?
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
1ml of Biobizz Grow and Calmag don't dye the water that much, strips work fine with nutes. And it used to work just fine 2 years ago without me even knowing about my tapwaters ph.

Maybe I should measure the soils ph with distilled water to get an idea of the soil's real ph? Or just measure the drain?
Yes I think that would be helpful
 

TanzanianMagic

Well-known member
Veteran
Well, I thought I knew how to grow weed.

Grew weed for the first time in late 2019. At first pretty ghetto-like in a kitchen cabinet with some e27 LED bulbs, then a little improved in a different cabinet with LM301H one stripes but still nothing fancy.

Always used BioBizz Allmix soil and Grow and Bloom fertilizer. Eventually figured out that the rust brown spots on the leaves mean I need 'CalMag' too. Since then everything went just fine, almost too easy, basically just following the nutrient schedule plus Calmag 0.5-1ml per Liter. Had four consecutive grows go great, lots of good weed.

Then I tried outdoor in 2021. Went very well also, had some big ass plants with lots of nice weed harvested.

Now in early 2022 I went back to indoor, pimped up some cabinets with LED stripes, reflective walls, extra vertical LEDs, air intake filtration, carbon filter on the air output, yada yada. Thought: Now I'm going to get even better weed.

But since then, every single grow went wrong. It's always the same, usually after 3-5 weeks, growth is stunted, leaves show light green spots between the leaf veins and the stems get purple stripes, then later turn completely purple and then its over more or less.

I'm using the same soil and fertilizer as in all the successful 2019/2020 grows and apparently havent really changed anything.

I've tried adjusting ph to 6.5 with phosporous acid, tried less and more calmag, tried different temperatures, more light, less light, bought new BioBizz bottles as well as soil (just to make sure I didnt have a bad batch or something). Also tried 'diluting' the Allmix with Plagron organic soil that contains almost no nutes because I had the feeling they were too darkly green sometimes.

But, whatever I do, it ends with purple stems and plants that don't grow anymore.

From looking at pics on the net I thought it could be not enough magnesium, so I've sprayed them with a 2% epsom salt dilution twice yesterday in hope that this will improve things.

But they dont really look better, I have the feeling it's going downhill again. Plants are about 33 days old now. I've also repotted them into larger pots 3-5 days ago, but no improvement since then.

Please help, what can I do? And why doesn't it work anymore although I didnt really change anything?


Cabinet 1:
View attachment 18784422 View attachment 18784423 View attachment 18784424


Cabinet 2:
View attachment 18784425 View attachment 18784426 View attachment 18784427

1. All the plants in post 1 have nitrogen deficiency/lockout.

Nutrients can be locked out because of insect damage, low pH, temperature, inadequate airflow.

2. Plants in cabinet 2 have scratches, which is insect damage. Most likely whitefly or leafhoppers.

3. There is a slight twisting of the leaves, which indicates that the plant had some pH issues.

Most bagged soils can do with a tablespoon of magnesium lime to both raise the pH and add magnesium. That is really all I would do to adjust the pH, before planting.

If you're growing in organics, you should aim for 7.0 pH, so you can be in the range of 6.0 to 8.0 without problems. Don't use pH down. Just ordinary, dechlorinated (by time and temperature) water. The bottled nutrients themselves will lower the pH.

I also agree that you should look at environmental factors too - airflow, potential sources of fungal/bacterial infection like wallpaper, wood, cloth/carpets/curtains, rope, etc.

Also, I would take the electrical wire off the floor. If it is damaged and there is a spill, it can shortcircuit.

UPDATE

About environmental factors - that looks like a grill that needs cleaning.

https://www.icmag.com/attachments/20221122_200145-jpg.18784425/

It could be fungal/air circulation related.
 
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Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
If you put the potato slice(s) on the soil on tuesday, today would probably show aphids if they're present. Remember to watch patiently for a while, or to take a video you can replay over and over.
 

smirnoff420

Well-known member
I think they're getting better. Sorry for the late reply, I didn't dare to come back here without potatoes on the soil, first forgot then didn't have time to buy some. Did I do it right?

The large left one as well as the two rightmost show new grown leaves pointing straight up again, in my experience a sign that they're healthy and growing fast. The other two smaller ones not so.

Here is cabinet 2:

20221128_194025.jpg


Left large one:

20221128_194120.jpg

Smaller ones in the middle:
20221128_194221.jpg


Two right ones:

20221128_194324.jpg
 
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