What's happening here?

[Pimp Aurora]

Hi, I searched through threads upon threads and can't pin point what the problem is so I thought i'd ask here, basically they are under 250w hps light, rvk 100 with passive inlet through light baffle in a wardrobe, I have 2 strains, aurora indica and hashberry, the aurora indica seem to be doing better than the hashberry, they are all in the same mix of compost which is natures own organic potting compost mixed with 50% coco-coir, the leaves....

I wish I had pH and CF meters



temps are around 27c lights on 23c lights off, humidity is at 60%

 

[Legit_User]

Are you in flower? What week?
If your near the end of flower it's normal (kinda)
Looks heavily N defficient.
Or the ph is whacked causing N to get locked out.
Good luck

 

[Pimp Aurora]

they are on day 14 of flower, i'll give them a feed in the morning see how they go

oh i'm using bio bizz nutes at full strength once a week

 

[Pimp Aurora]

bad update

bad update

Although this slowed down initially it's still continuing to happen, i've gradually tripled the grow feed since I last posted, i'm now using 3ml grow per 1 litre of water and it's still continuing! granted it's not so bad as before but wtf 3ml grow per 1l of water!.

I read on another forum that these hashberry are real nute piggys and the poster was having to triple dose his plants because they are so demanding

Their fan leaves are turning bright yellow and falling off daily, they look pretty shit now tbh and cloning them was a total joke, I have 2 shabby clones out of 16 cuttings, even the aurora indica are struggling a bit, I think my 'new' compost isn't helping much (natures own potting compost mixed with 50% coco-coir) but that's not the only problem here i'm sure, this compost will not be getting used by me again after these have finished!

I know I should have a pH meter and CF meter but I dont. simple fact is I can't afford them at this moment so any suggestions to make the plants a bit better would be great!

As you can see in the picture I posted, the big fan leaf still has a fair amount of green on it, mostly the leaves are pure bright yellow/lime green and have these speckly brown patches on the leaves from about the middle of the blades to the tips, the brown areas turn crispy then the whole yellow/brown leaf falls off

Humidity is at 55-65% they are being fed with bio bizz nutes with each watering, they are up to date on epsom salts, I have given them a small amount of seaweed extract too but to be honest I didn't see much improvement.

What am I to do? they are about 4 weeks into flower and starting to pack on trichs even though they are very poorly, I don't have it in my heart to cut them down and have another bash so i'd like to try nurse these into a bit better health before doing my next batch but i'm stumped now

 

[Guest]

Alrighty... first thing I'd suggest - run out to walmart and pick up some pH test strips. I know you dont have a pH meter but ya need to at least get a ballpark guess as to what your pH is.

Looking at these picks and the phase your plants are in, this is almost certainly nute lockout. If it's locking out N then your pH must be totally fucked. Test the run off with the test strips (you can also get these things from a pool store if you have one nearby).

This should give you a good first step in nursing these ladies.

 

[Pimp Aurora]

Thanks Klutter, I was just reading a coco thread and it dawned on me that it is looking like it has locked out the nitrogen, it's been like that for about 3-4 weeks now, Would you expect the pH readings to be too high or too low?

I just bottled up 15 litres of tap water incase they need a flush, afaik our tap water is meant to be pH 8.0! but I guess I should go to the petshop and buy a litmus paper test kit to at least as you say get a general idea on what the run off and the tap waters levels are.. thanks man! I don't feel so low now

 

[Pimp Aurora]

I just got back from the pet-shop, their 'pH test kits' that they told me about on the phone are out of the question, it's a sachet of some stuff that buffers the aquarium water to 7.
Am I right in guessing the pH is too low?

They had pH up and down in the shop but without even some litmus paper or a liquid test kit I still have no idea on what the readings actually are..

Should I flush and hope for the best? aparantly our tapwater is 8.0, if i'm right about the pH being too low then surely this would benefit the plants?

I think there is a Phosphorus lockout too because the pH dropped so low, would over-feeding lower the pH?

 

[Herbalistic]

Hola!!!

Where does the yellowing & dying of the leaves begin,at bottom of plant or at upper?

Dont know for sure what the problem is, but I try to help, ok?

It could be defiency or could be overwatering or lockout or PH-problem or something else... My best quess would be overwatering or PH-problem. For solution I would try: first let the growing surface dry out, then give it a good flush, then let the surface dry till you see that plant is screaming water and then water it with lots of water/food. If this helps, continue to dry the surface thorougly before watering/feeding with lots of water. Dont have experience about the nutes you are using but I think that the problem is not in the dosage.

I hope these advice´s helped you even little!

EDIT: The ph of your tapwater is way too high. Good ph is around 6. The spots on the leaves could derive because this. It is important to use ph-stabilized water when you flush those containers. After you have used those ph-up / ph-down kits and tested your ph with your petshop ph-set, do it again after an hour of the first check, because ph would propably change during this hour. After you have rechecked ph and it is ok, you can flush your plants.

Keep It Green & Growing But Don´t Forget The Smokin!
Peace Out Growers!

 

[Pimp Aurora]

Hi herbalistic the yellowing started on the main fan leaves, it worked its way from the bottom up, and almost stopped and left a healthy top 5-6" or so of the main cola, i'll post some pics of the whole plants shortly after 11pm gmt when the lights come on, hopefully it'll make it clearer!

I never bought the stuff from the pet shop as it was an aquarium pH 7 buffer, it wouldn't have told me the pH level so I left miserable as I can't afford a digital pH and or CF meter and all the chemicals to go with them just now, Flushing is really my only option for the time being, I'm pretty sure it can't get any worse! I mean, if my pH is say 4.0-5.5 which Phosphorus gets locked out at and the same for Nitrogen, then flushing with pH 8.0 water would that bring it up to somewhere around pH 6.0-6.5?

 

[Legit_User]

You want to flush to the point that runoff matches the flush water.
So, 6.5 in....6.5 out.
It may take 3-5x the amount of container volume in water to get it flushed right.
Stay peaceful

 

[Pimp Aurora]

yeah well that's the thing, ph 7 is neutral so if I flush using 2x the volume of pH 8 tapwater (what i've read on our local water companys website) that should bring it up a bit shouldn't it? hopefully back into the good zone!

They didn't even have litmus paper in the pet shop, there's no way I can accurately pH my water before flushing, assuming the water boards readings are reasonably accurate then I don't see why this shouldn't at the very least help a lot if not almost cure, my bath is full of 2 and 5 litre water bottles ready for tonight.

 

[Legit_User]

Distilled water is ph neutral.
Good luck

 

[Pimp Aurora]

I attempted to take a picture, as soon as I took one of my next batch of plants that are have not long started flowering the battery died!

ach well.. flushing now, it's taking ages!

 

[Pimp Aurora]

I'm in the uk.

 

[Herbalistic]

Hola!!!

When you posted that the yellowing / dying of the big/sunleafs starts at the bottom of the plant, it is sounding that you are overwatering + you dont let the soil dry enough before you water it again. Just try what I suggested at my previous post, ok.

You cannot stabilize your ph with the trick you proposed / it is very uncertain that it would work. Just go to an local hydrostore/growshop and buy those cheap ph-tests + ph -up´s/-down´s from there. Im sure you gonna find an growshop in UK, if you cannot find -> order!!!

I was on belief that you have confirmated that your tapwater ph was 8. Now, when I know that you have got that information from your watercompanys webpage, I must say that can be some kind of "common ph-value", there is big change in ph-rates by location -> I mean that you could have 7.8 ph and your friend who is living couple blocks from you and use the same watercompany could have ph 6. It depends on so many reasons, like what is the condition of ducts of your house and so on...

Just go and buy the test!!!!!

By the way, have you done the flush yet? If you got 10 L containers, you should flush them with at least 30 L of ph-stabilized water to get all those lock up´s & other shits go away thoroughly! <- I say this because many people just dont know that you have to use that kind of water amounts. Good memoryrule is use three times more water than the size of the container.

Succesfull grow Pimp Aurora, lets us know how the situation is developing, ok?

Keep It Green & Growing But Don´t Forget The Smokin!
Peace Out Growers!

 

[Pimp Aurora]

Ok first up, the leaves were being shed from the plant not from over watering, I think the plants realised hey wait there's no nutes left in this leaf and it's now useless so time to ditch it, if they can't absorb the N and P from the feeder roots they will take it from the leaves, well this happened because the pH went too low and both the N and P got locked out, i'm blaming the 50% coco coir in the compost mix and lack of meters, it's strange really, i've done 15 back to back grows in numerous types of composts and all of them have been great infact the best batch were from compost that cost £1 for 20 litres!, as soon as I add coco coir to the equasion there were problems, i've not worked for almost 6 years due to disabilitys, we don't have a local grow shop, and money is extremely tight, I don't grow to make money, I grow to make medicine.

I understand that the pH reading at the water board may be 8.0 and by the time it gets to your house it could be different, well to be honest that's an acceptable risk for me to take.

Sorry but I do believe you can stabilize/balance (at least a temporary measure) the pH in the pots by adding higher pH'd water, it's basic chemistry, using an alkaline to balance out the acids, use one side of the scale to neutralise the other! in this case adding high ph'd water to raise the low ph of the compost, in essence it's a freebie ph up if the tap water is high ph at my house.

I have 4x 6l pots and 6x 3.5l pots in the wardrobe, they have all been filled with the coco-coir and natures own, all of them have been affected, telling ya it's the bloody coco!, had this not happened the grow would be stunning, I still have high hopes and I intend to surprise people with what you can pull from a 250w hps after this batch! I flushed them all last night with twice their volume of water, if needed I can do them again if they don't respond to a light feed in 4-7 days when they are screaming for water/food, that way if the pH is slightly lower than 8 by the time it gets to my house, sooner or later it's going to bring the pH in the compost back up to a safe level where N and P can be absorbed again unless it's under 4.0 by the time it gets from the water board to my house which I really can't see, 4pH difference is a lot! and we have some of the best water in the world here in bonny scotland

Bottom line is, I can't afford meters at this moment in time, hey it's a weed and people were growing it a long long time before pH test kits were invented!, 15 back to back grows and minimal problems, as soon as coco coir goes in the shit hit the fan, hopefully last nights flush will help, i'll let you know if there's any difference in a few days time, Thanks for your patience

 

[Guest]

Hmmm so your pet store did not have a pH test kit...interesting. The pH buffer they are talking about is not what you want. You just want the test kit - which even Walmart sells for fish aquariums!

If your pH is 8 then flushing is probably not going to help unless your pH is still way too low. Plus, with all the flushing you are going to start seeing your plants wilt from over watering.

Gonna be tough if you have absolutely no way to tell what your pH is. I'm still shocked that a pet store, or even walmart (in the UK I forget the name of your major chain similar to walmart) would have test kits. A pool store is another place to get one, though I'm not sure how many of these would be in the UK.

I'd recommend you pick up the phone and make some calls to stores. Dont mention plants, just talk about fish and wanting to check the pH levels. You should be able to get tabs, liquid test kits, etc.... anything will help you at least identify is your pH too high or too low - and then you can look at a solution to remedy.

But without the test there's no way to tell if you're too high or low. Without doing a full transplant with new soil, and watering with nutes in distilled water, you're going ot have a rough road ahead of ya.

 

[mig]

ok..ya ready...i dont know if you knwo this..but coco immobilizes nitrogen, which means more needs to be supplemented to get the affect. At this stage I am still unsure of how fast this happens, but in a textbook of mine called " Mineral Nutrition of Plants: Principles and Perspectives" by esptien/bloom it mentions that coco as a medium immobiles N. It def sounds to me you have a nitrogen def. Considering the mature leaves are dying first and the meristems are thriving. a Ph of 5-6 is ideal. And i would most def not use a 8.0 pH to lower your solution. You need to use the target pH that you want your soil to be, that is what you flush with. If you do it your way, you will be dealing with drastic pH changes which can in themselves kill the plant. Just take it easy...dont be hastey and try and find that book i mentioned. It will be your best investment hands down. You can thank me when you read it...

 

[Herbalistic]

Hola!!!

How are you plants doing PimpAurora? When I said that you cannot stabilize ph with the trick you proposed I meaned that it is veryveryvery chancy way to "stabilize" ph if you dont have anything to check your ph after that. Not saying that it cannot work...

You really should check or call all the local petshops to find that ph-test. You mentioned that you are on tight budget, the good thing is that those testkits will cost you about 5 to 10 € and will last very long. If you find these kits from somewhere try to choose one with good ph -colormap. I mean a ph -map that have many different colors + color docilitys (<- dont know is that wroted right?)for different ph -values, not some kit with four colors like: ph 5 = red, 6 = blue, 7 = Green and so on... But if that (4 color ph-testkit) is only testkit you gonna find -> buy it, because it´s better than nothing.

I hope you dont have these problems anymore and that everything is going fine!!!

Keep It Green & Growing But Don´t Forget The Smokin!
Peace Out Growers!