New Deficiency...

Well, as you can tell by my sigline thread, my stance is that there *is* no such thing as a "cal-mag" deficiency. It's just not possible.

What you have going on there is an advanced and rapidly advancing case of Ca-. What the plants need, from the beginning, is Ca, and in the correct ratio with Mg. What's the ratio of Ca:Mg in your regimen? If it's less than 4:1 I guarantee that's part of the problem.

Increase the Ca, not the "cal-mag." I don't care what the label says.

@Seamaiden what do you use for calcium?

I'm literally running their chart to the t with 1ml calimagic on top. Ph/ppm are in range and stable.

This is prompting me to try another nutrient line asap since when I emailed them with pics that just said ppm is too high.... I've maxed out at 690 on this light showing these deficiencies.

Confided and frusterated, like I said it seems like the issue is new, only difference is now I'm running a little less uc roots and ro water (ppm was only 30 before)

What exactly should I add and how much?

Or in general what nutrients are you guys using?

Like I said I'm running the chart to the t, and all numbers are stable. Not sure what to do!

I have a buddy trying to get me using canna a/b, boost, pk13/14

I've got some elite clones on the way and want to get things perfect!

Better pic of the chart and pic shoeing progression. Pic with hand was taken on the 6th, other pic was taken today on the 10th (40 days old/36 days with hand)

Same bud... you see its progressing...

Is it possible I should be closer to the 400/500 ppm max?

Would I still want to start with 100 ppm of calimagic?

Cut your feed in half and bump up the calmagic to 2ml.
I'm not a hydro guy, but this might help your case. And addresses both possible issues at same time. Even my expensive Heavy16 line shows ca- sometimes.
Best of luck.
Peace

Rootbound said:

@Seamaiden what do you use for calcium?

Click to expand...

My preferred product is BioLink 6% Ca, it's organic and at 6% it's one of the higher Ca products I've found. I also will use things like gypsum, since it doesn't affect pH and is relatively soluble.

slimjimham said:

I'm literally running their chart to the t with 1ml calimagic on top. Ph/ppm are in range and stable.

Click to expand...

The charts these companies provide, in my opinion, should be considered guidelines.

The best you can hope for is stopping progression. You can certainly bump up the 'cal-mag' here, but keep in mind that the Mg ratios in relation to everything else will be off. But if it's all you've got, it's all you've got. That said, give it via foliar application to double up on the rates. That's my best advice.

Then next time, get separate Ca and Mg products (I use Epsom salt for the Mg, but I also get a good shot of S in the deal, more S than Mg). Feed those separately, alternating feeds with the Ca and the Mg. You want the ratio of Ca:Mg to be at least 4:1, I have found that 6:1 is better for most strains I've run (not saying I've run so many, just trying to qualify my answers here). By separating the Ca and the Mg, you can push more of each without going the foliar route. If you're very concerned about laying down Ca, then give it every feed and give the Mg via foliars or just a few feedings. Mg is highly mobile and super easy to diagnose, so if you end up with a Mg- it's too easy to correct with no big hiccups caused.

Does this make sense?

Well just heard back from the cch2o guys and they said

"
Air is literally the one thing that changes everything about the way you grow in our system.


I'm asking you to bring your air to 0.75 lpm/gal if you are going to try to follow our High Yield feed chart.


Otherwise you will have to drastically reduce your nutrient levels.


You are running at least 2.0 lpm/gal right now.


At 1.5lpm/gal (or super charged/hyper aerated) we are asking people to start at 50 PPM's.


At 2lpm/gal... there will be very little that you can do to avoid plants burning.


Cut your PPM's at least in half to save this one.


And/Or drop 1 of 2 air pumps on each system while running the High Yield chart with a 25% reduction in PPM's."

So I just pulled one of the ecoplus commercial air 1's per system, so I'm only using one now.... seems crazy but maybe this will be the magic bullet. Each pump is rated at 38 lpm so I was running 76 lpm for each uc4xl system (about 30 gallons)

I'll keep ya posted but what do you think?

Anyone else have experience with nutrient uptake changing drastically with change in air input?

I've heard for so long that the more air the better, I did follow their instructors so we'll see but it seems like pulling an air pump is wrong ha

I'm sorry, but that is speaking to a growing method I have no familiarity with, so I can't say whether or not, let alone what experience. This serves as bumpage.

I used to run my UC with misters hitting the sides of the net pots that were not submerged. This caused explosive growth with a lower PPM solution. Its possible your air stones are creating a similar misting effect(thats actually how I made my DIY areo cloner). With my UC(DIY) i need to run the ppms lower than normal. I ran RO(partner at the time insisted on it) at one of my places a while back and had nothing but problems. We slowly started diluting it with regular tap and eventually used only tap and never looked back. The bottle of calmag hasn’t been touched since. I keep my ppms around 600-700 and they drink about 5 gallons+ of water a day with 2 ladies. Your burnt tips do look similar to nute burn, so its possible. If your area has shitty tap water and you need to use R.O. I would try and cut back on the nutes. If your tap is fine ditch the RO, its just an unnecessary pain in the ass if your tap is ok. You are using an undercurrent setup correct? When you see your water levels dropping rapidly, you know you have hit the sweet spot :)

Yeah, I am using under current and will say it seems they don't drink as much as they do when ppm's are closer to 500 or lower, I'll have to keep an eye on this.

I'm leaning towards Nute burn due to too much air, cut it in half but don't want to just sit back if this doesn't fix it...

I need ro, roots have never looked better since switching...

It would be ideal if someone experienced in current culture could tell me their cal mag usage/ if air has drastically changed nutrient uptake/necessary ppm levels...

yeah, I cant help you there. I was using H&G aqua flakes, multiZen and bigbud, MOAB and hammerhead for boosters. Now I am using jacks and trying to dial in the boosters to get the 2 litre pepsi bottle sized colas I used to get :)
Until someone does chime in id deff drop your ppms back down and keep the air. The more water they crush the bigger they get ;)

From far back they do look really good though :cool:
From the close up shots it does look like they are finishing up, which sucks if your looking for more size. How far into flower are they?

They only have 2 weeks and a day left till wk9, I know I can do better!

I really hope it's just nutrient burn because as current culture says "at over 2lpm of air there's little you can do to stop plants from burning....

So my air level is cut in half, and I'm going to be doing some res changes with a bit more cal-mag, 120-150 ppm starting on 500 scale

Hope that with a little lower ppm will give me some plants that produce the way I'm looking for! I've learned a lot about running these systems but obviously have a ways to go. Frustrating when I do so well in soil but i know these systems can crush it when done right

Yeah, id do a nice flush, maybe with just tap, im not sure how fast your RO setup is. I usually drop my ppm meter in and flush while adding fresh water until PPMs reach what my tap is. Let that run sometimes over night with no nutrients. Do one more flush just to make sure its clean. Then add your RO, Keep your ppms low for the rest of the run, especially if they are chugging water again. You could have burned them causing a nute lockout, which will cause deficiencys. If you have two weeks left and you correct the problem, sometimes they pick up where they left off. You will see new white hairs, possibly some foxtailing but larger buds. I have had this happen and a strain that normally finished in 70 days ended up finishing in 80. Its worth it in my opinion for the extra couple or possibly several ounces.
Did they take into account the different conversion scales for different meters when talking to them? Its good practice to speak in terms of EC when talking about nutes. Different meters use different conversion scales to get ppm.

Yeah we were talking ppm 500, I'm just about to do a res change tomorrow with lower ppm nutes instead of the ro like you suggest. I don't like changing too much at once for fear of freaking them out ha

slimjimham said:

Yeah we were talking ppm 500, I'm just about to do a res change tomorrow with lower ppm nutes instead of the ro like you suggest. I don't like changing too much at once for fear of freaking them out ha

Click to expand...

Less is better in most cases. The more shit you throw at them, the better chance they get all pissy and freeze up on ya. Then your scratching your head wondering what caused the problem. Keep it simple.
Except for lighting, if you can squeeze some side lighting in there. especially if they start fattening up again, you want to try and get light to every bud site. CFLS make great side lighting if vertical HPS's are not feasible. Try and hit as many bud sites as possible with light. If this is your first run with this type of setup your in for a treat when you finally get everything dialled in properly.
Also look into pruning(little late for these ladys). Soon as the vertical and horizontal growth stops in bloom and bud sites start to appear(usually around day 21ish, no earlier or youll end up with more thin shitty growth), I go in with the sizzors and strip all thin and thin/overly stretched branches out of there, especially in the center of the plant. This lets her focus on really beefing up what can hold the weight and even then ideally you want them to be too big and have to string them up anyway,lol.This also makes it waaaay easier and less time consuming when it comes time to trim and it can only positively effect your yield. Screw wasting time on 100 little popcorn buds. If your doing trees, which it looks like thats where your going ;)

2.o lpm/g is way way too high. You will never be able to control the nutrient uptake in in any way with that much air(I konw I've tried). The plants certainly can not be started with that much air because you will burn your plants even at 0.01 ec with that much air becuase of how available the nutrients become with all the oxygen(btw, anyone have any science based knowledge as to why nutrients are more available with more oxygen, it's making me curious, maybe @squiggly?).

And the smaller the plants the lower your ec will need to remain. My main thing is make sure the ec is lower every evening than what is was that morning, I find this typically means the ec is set correctly. After the 5th week really cut back hard on the nutes, in half, I'd bet money your buds would swell up some more if you did.

Lower your air input and like @ShroomKing said cut your cutes in half, easily. @Seamaiden is right, the feeding charts are a guideline more than an exact schedule, and unless your running your system exactly like cc instructs, your results will definitely vary.