G
Gherb
- 43
- 18
Let me start by saying that I have spent about a day looking for specific info on my situation. There is a lot out there about runoff but I'm still confused so I figured I just ask.
The background:
I am running multiple strains (from seed) in 7 gallon smart pots in Roots Organics Formula 707. My plants are on their 6 week of veg and have been doing great up until now. I am using a Kind LED L600. I didn't feed until the 3rd week and I water every 5 days. I haven't had any overwatering problems because I let them dry out real good in between.
At week 3, I gave them tap water that had sat for 48 hours. I do not have an RO system yet. My tap water has a 115 ppm and a pH of 7.5. I added 1 tsp of GH CaliMagic and a 1/2 tsp of GH FloraNova. All plants responded great.
5 days later (2nd feeding) I gave them the same thing but I upped the FloraNova to 3/4 of tsp. They responded great.
5 days later (3rd feeding) I gave them some compost tea from my local hydro store. They responded great.
5 days later (4th feeding - week 5) I gave them RO from the hydro store with 1 tsp of CalMag and 2 tsp of FloraNova. Some droplets got on the leafs. This time I got burnt spots on several leafs. The spots are in near the center of the leaf and look like acid burns. I thought that maybe the droplets magnified the light and caused burns.
I just did a flush using de-chlorinated tap water and 1 tsp CalMag with a 1/2 tsp of Subculture M and a 1/2 tsp of Subculture B. Both of those are root inoculants. ppm was 400 and pH was 6.5.
I decided to test my runoff on all plants. With 20% runoff, the pH was 5.5 and the ppm was between 1800 and 2000. I'm a little freaked out by the high runoff.
I mixed up a gallon of nutes to see what the ppm of my last feed was and it was around 1900.
So my questions are:
1. If my water going in has a pH of 6.5 but the runoff is 5.5, is that normal? Should I adjust up closer to 7.0 so my runoff is closer to 6.0? Everything I have read says that the incoming and outgoing should be close to the same pH. Any suggestions?
2. Is my runoff ppm so high because I haven't been flushing in between? I know my last feeding was quite a bit too high. Not all plants have the burns.
Should I flush them more until they get down to 500 ppm? Or should I wait 5 days and flush again to see if the runoff is lower?
I feel like if I flush next time and the runoff is reasonable, then I can switch to my bloom nutes and flush more regularly. It's time for my to go into flower mode with these ladies.
I can post pictures if anyone wants to see the burn spots.
Thanks in advance for any sage advice.
Gherb
The background:
I am running multiple strains (from seed) in 7 gallon smart pots in Roots Organics Formula 707. My plants are on their 6 week of veg and have been doing great up until now. I am using a Kind LED L600. I didn't feed until the 3rd week and I water every 5 days. I haven't had any overwatering problems because I let them dry out real good in between.
At week 3, I gave them tap water that had sat for 48 hours. I do not have an RO system yet. My tap water has a 115 ppm and a pH of 7.5. I added 1 tsp of GH CaliMagic and a 1/2 tsp of GH FloraNova. All plants responded great.
5 days later (2nd feeding) I gave them the same thing but I upped the FloraNova to 3/4 of tsp. They responded great.
5 days later (3rd feeding) I gave them some compost tea from my local hydro store. They responded great.
5 days later (4th feeding - week 5) I gave them RO from the hydro store with 1 tsp of CalMag and 2 tsp of FloraNova. Some droplets got on the leafs. This time I got burnt spots on several leafs. The spots are in near the center of the leaf and look like acid burns. I thought that maybe the droplets magnified the light and caused burns.
I just did a flush using de-chlorinated tap water and 1 tsp CalMag with a 1/2 tsp of Subculture M and a 1/2 tsp of Subculture B. Both of those are root inoculants. ppm was 400 and pH was 6.5.
I decided to test my runoff on all plants. With 20% runoff, the pH was 5.5 and the ppm was between 1800 and 2000. I'm a little freaked out by the high runoff.
I mixed up a gallon of nutes to see what the ppm of my last feed was and it was around 1900.
So my questions are:
1. If my water going in has a pH of 6.5 but the runoff is 5.5, is that normal? Should I adjust up closer to 7.0 so my runoff is closer to 6.0? Everything I have read says that the incoming and outgoing should be close to the same pH. Any suggestions?
2. Is my runoff ppm so high because I haven't been flushing in between? I know my last feeding was quite a bit too high. Not all plants have the burns.
Should I flush them more until they get down to 500 ppm? Or should I wait 5 days and flush again to see if the runoff is lower?
I feel like if I flush next time and the runoff is reasonable, then I can switch to my bloom nutes and flush more regularly. It's time for my to go into flower mode with these ladies.
I can post pictures if anyone wants to see the burn spots.
Thanks in advance for any sage advice.
Gherb