4th Crop, so frustrated. WTF

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piscesaquarist

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This is my 4th crop and I'm still scratching my head as to what is causing the problems. I'm wondering if there's something in the room off gassing. (see pic of equipment in room)

They're less than 1 week in and already showing the same signs as the previous crops. Little to no root growth and new growth starts drooping and older leaves start yellowing.

Sealed room with CO2 @ 800ppm
Consistent 69 degrees in the room
55-63% Humidity
Weekly calibrated Nutra Drip Tri Meter Reads:
PH 5.7-5.9
430ppm (using just well water reads 210ppm which comes from red clay dirt and is a little high in Fe)
Reservoir Temp at 64 degrees (I just added a heater last night and brought it up to 70degrees)
Highblo 80 is aerating the res using air from outside the sealed room

Recirculated top feeding into rockwool. I decreased from from 4min every 2hours to 1.5 minutes every 3hours when I noticed the drooping but they haven't picked back up.

5x1000 HPS water cooled lights

Just switched to General Hydroponics nutes from Sensi A&B

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Mr.GoodCat

Mr.GoodCat

693
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5000 Watts is a lot of those little ladies to handle. If it was me I would raise the lights as high as I could and run them intermite so they only get 2k at the most at one time. Looks like you have the room to have a nice little 4x8 table with some T-5 lights until they get about a foot tall then introduce too the thouies. Also seems like you watering schedule is to frequent, I would only feed them cubes one time a day for about 3 minutes. Keep your RH about 60% and do these things and i bet you turn yourself right around. I grew in rockwool for about 5 years just talking from experience here.
 
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piscesaquarist

37
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Wow one time a day? okay good good good...Nope no t5 just the HPS. Okay I'll back those off and that reminds me with the previous crops I was 18/6 and this one I've had on 24 hours. should I stay at 24 hours or go back to 18/6?
 
sky high

sky high

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Just a few observations/questions if ya don't mind. If nothing else, to "X" a few things off the list and make you think/etc.

Looks like new Hugos on old/yucky coco mat or something else that has gone brown/green? Am I seeing something there...or not? If you had trouble on previous grows did you give the room a top-to-bottom clean and disinfectant...say with Physan 20 or even a bleach solution before you booted it up this go around?

how are you prepping those Hugos before dropping the clone/cube into it? what is the pH of the runoff after passing through the cube if it starts at 5.6-5.8? What are the ppms of the runoff water??

hopefully you'll single out the problem soon. good luck!

s h
 
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piscesaquarist

37
8
Just a few observations/questions if ya don't mind. If nothing else, to "X" a few things off the list and make you think/etc.

Looks like new Hugos on old/yucky coco mat or something else that has gone brown/green? Am I seeing something there...or not? If you had trouble on previous grows did you give the room a top-to-bottom clean and disinfectant...say with Physan 20 or even a bleach solution before you booted it up this go around?

how are you prepping those Hugos before dropping the clone/cube into it? what is the pH of the runoff after passing through the cube if it starts at 5.6-5.8? What are the ppms of the runoff water??

hopefully you'll single out the problem soon. good luck!

s h

Yep same coco mat with quite a bit of algae growth. Didn't disinfect the room. Prepped by soaking in 5.5ph for 45 min.

Every morning I drop the PH to 5.6 and 14 hours later the res 70gal res is @ 5.8-6.0

I'll squeeze a cube into a cup and test tonight to get exact levels that are available to the plant.
 
Mr.GoodCat

Mr.GoodCat

693
63
Good catch SH i didn't even look at the pictures more closely. That mat definitely need to go bro. Although I don't think this is your problem because I bet the roots haven't even really grown into that thing yet you should toss that thing out with yesterdays garbage and clean out your tray very good. Disinfect with something like Physan 20 or H2o2.

Yes only top feed those cubes 1 time a day to start should be plenty. You want your cubes to dry out a bit before re-watering. To prevent algae growth cover the tops of your cubes with something as well like block covers or even panda film.
 
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lil miss lone

281
0
Are there pests in the room, particularly "fungus gnats"?
 
A

AliasAO

660
18
5000 Watts is a lot of those little ladies to handle. If it was me I would raise the lights as high as I could and run them intermite so they only get 2k at the most at one time. Looks like you have the room to have a nice little 4x8 table with some T-5 lights until they get about a foot tall then introduce too the thouies. Also seems like you watering schedule is to frequent, I would only feed them cubes one time a day for about 3 minutes. Keep your RH about 60% and do these things and i bet you turn yourself right around. I grew in rockwool for about 5 years just talking from experience here.

Id have to Agree with The GoodCat here. Im a CoCo soil man and ive seen those symptoms before when:

(1) Over watering/ or too much NEWTs too soon in the young plants life.

(2) 5000 W is ALOT of intense light for the little babies. Id say start out with MH cool blue maybe 2000 W then as plants begin to go through VEG and get larger you can incrementally increase the Watts and lower the lights.

Too much light, too soon and too close to your plants will surely burn or bleach, pair that with TOO MUCH WATERING and you have a sad droppey yellowing plant.

U also might wanna take the advice in regards to making sure you sanitize and clean your grow space to make sure any contaminants from before are eradicated.

Good luck my friend
 
sky high

sky high

4,796
313
I don't have tons of experience with RW....but I was stuck in a room once with a Grodan rep for a good 2 hours and she gave me a tip that I share whenever I can.

The key thing to understand is that when the RW is manufactured a part of the process uses limestone dust. (alkaline)

I have no idea why Grodan doesn't change their prep instructions....but the rep told me that they recommend that the grower FLUSH the RW under the tap...straight through the cube...no squeezing...for a good couple of minutes BEFORE soaking >overnight< and setting the pH @ 5.5.

If the pH rises in a RW grow...or you see lockout (might be what you are seeing over and over?), this rep told me it is because the cube has not been flushed enough and there is still limestone dust present. If you ONLY soak the cubes in 5.5 water...the limestone/alkaline properties are still there...in solution...and while you may get some of it out...without flushing the cube you can't truly rid the medium of it or set the pH.

something else to consider, IMO.

good luck figuring it out.

s h
 
DowNwithDirT

DowNwithDirT

1,468
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yea algea will suck your solution of all nitrogen and your plants will yellow off and die....straight up....

scrub up everything man
 
T

Tex

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Hey bro, why not just dump the hydro drip feed for now, and get yourself some good old sunshine mix#4 or ffof, age old organics & Magi-Cal, and superthrive.. Or use the Gh series in SS#4? That's what I do..

I mean why all the drama and failed attempts where you can be pulling bows of dank already? Once you got some medicine and fat stacks, start playing w hydro again on a small scale basis and work your way up. Unless, you already run soil/soilless and this is your experiment grow?

I for one hate RW and will never use it.. Bad shit for mother earth.. Rockwool is hard to dispose of, if buried it will last indefinitely. .02
 
cemchris

cemchris

Supporter
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Do you have a good handle on the c02? Co2 needs to be ramped up. You cant hit young clones with 800 ppms of c02 they just cant really handle it. In my prepetual room with a buner i drop the room to around 500 for a couple of days when I stick new plants in. Unless they were well established Mine would do they same thing when it was rockin 1000 ppms +
 
T

treehugger

154
18
Hey bro, why not just dump the hydro drip feed for now, and get yourself some good old sunshine mix#4 or ffof, age old organics & Magi-Cal, and superthrive.. Or use the Gh series in SS#4? That's what I do..

I mean why all the drama and failed attempts where you can be pulling bows of dank already? Once you got some medicine and fat stacks, start playing w hydro again on a small scale basis and work your way up. Unless, you already run soil/soilless and this is your experiment grow?

I for one hate RW and will never use it.. Bad shit for mother earth.. Rockwool is hard to dispose of, if buried it will last indefinitely. .02

I got to agree with this, it's much harder to fook up with dirt, and you learn so much...
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
23,596
638
Hey bro, why not just dump the hydro drip feed for now, and get yourself some good old sunshine mix#4 or ffof, age old organics & Magi-Cal, and superthrive.. Or use the Gh series in SS#4? That's what I do..

I mean why all the drama and failed attempts where you can be pulling bows of dank already? Once you got some medicine and fat stacks, start playing w hydro again on a small scale basis and work your way up. Unless, you already run soil/soilless and this is your experiment grow?

I for one hate RW and will never use it.. Bad shit for mother earth.. Rockwool is hard to dispose of, if buried it will last indefinitely. .02
Oh, this.
:harvest:
 
O

otto

23
0
is that a co2 tube on top of your cube roots dont need co2 . co2 is heavier than air equals root problem
 
soaringfast

soaringfast

195
93
Listen to Tex.
Get some experience, KISS, and remember LESS IS MORE!
 
P

piscesaquarist

37
8
Id have to Agree with The GoodCat here. Im a CoCo soil man and ive seen those symptoms before when:

(1) Over watering/ or too much NEWTs too soon in the young plants life.

(2) 5000 W is ALOT of intense light for the little babies. Id say start out with MH cool blue maybe 2000 W then as plants begin to go through VEG and get larger you can incrementally increase the Watts and lower the lights.

Too much light, too soon and too close to your plants will surely burn or bleach, pair that with TOO MUCH WATERING and you have a sad droppey yellowing plant.

U also might wanna take the advice in regards to making sure you sanitize and clean your grow space to make sure any contaminants from before are eradicated.

Good luck my friend

Okay so I've REALLY cut back on the watering, it's been 48hr and the cubes are still moist. About 25% are still drooping

I'm also put the lights as high as they'd go and dropped to 2k watts (still at 24x7)

I'm keeping the RH @60-63%

Added the heater to the res and it's consistent 73 degrees

but I'm still getting this...still too much light?

IMG_1622.JPG
 
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piscesaquarist

37
8
Do you have a good handle on the c02? Co2 needs to be ramped up. You cant hit young clones with 800 ppms of c02 they just cant really handle it. In my prepetual room with a buner i drop the room to around 500 for a couple of days when I stick new plants in. Unless they were well established Mine would do they same thing when it was rockin 1000 ppms +

got a good handle on it...I'm running a bottle and have turned it off after you said this. I'm just bringing in fresh air for right now until I get everything else figured out.
 
P

piscesaquarist

37
8
is that a co2 tube on top of your cube roots dont need co2 . co2 is heavier than air equals root problem

No that's the drip line. But you did spark something which is my res is in the room where I was running the co2 at 800ppm...but I am running a hiblo 80 (80 liters/min) air pump to oxygenate the res with outside air
 
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