Are they under fed? or is it nutrient lockout?

[Zproject]

Hey everyone. I'm new to the forums and to growing in general, and I could use some help.

First, let me cover my bases...
My medium is Hydro. Drip system fully enclosed chamber with Reverse Osmosis water, HEPA filtered ionized air in the intake, filtered air out take, and CO2 injections 3x daily for one minute at 9am, 12 noon, and 3pm.


1. Are you growing from seed or clones?
These came from clones - there are three types. 9x permafrost, 5x G-13, and 3x UWxNL.

2. How old are your plants?
They are almost six weeks in total. Still Veg. The were placed in the Hydro chamber on 3/16/2011 and they were about 10 days cloned and showing roots.

3. How tall are your plants?
It varies. The permafrost seem to all have taken off. The are tall(ish) at maybe 1.0 - 1.5 feet tall, The G-13 are all about 1 ft tall. The UWxNL were put in on 3/22 (one week late) to replace 3 of the G-13 that were looking unhealthy.These plants never grew like the others. of the 3 2 of them are 0.7 ft tall, and the other is only a couple inches tall still

4. What type of hydro system are you using?
See above but there is a pic at http://quickgrowhydroponics.com/prodBox.html

5. What brand/type of nutrients are you using?
Well... I was trying to go organic. A bold step for a new grower, I know this now. I was using Earth Juice Sugar Peak. 2tsp veg and 2 tsp flowering per 5 gal of water. Then natural PH down to stabalize. Although, it would never stabalize... 3 days ago I switched to a product suggested by my local hydro shop. It is made by a guy locally and is mostly organic, but has some PH stabalizers in it. I'm now using a 3 part formula - the grow formula which is 2% nitrogen among other things, a "boost" formula, which is basically B-12, and a few drops of coco cat (coconut milk) to help de-stress

6. What is the Ph of your nutrient solution?
Now? it's 6.2 - 6.4 - but for the past month it's been all over from as low as 4 to as high as 8.7

7. What is the PPM/EC of your tap water?
Very Low, Reverse Osmosis.

8. What is the PPM/EC of your nutrient solution?
I am not on site and did not check my nutrients directly

9. What is the temperature of your nutrient solution?
it runs in the low to mid 70's depending on the time of day and if the lights are on or off

10. Does your PPM/EC show a rise or fall when you do your daily PPM check?
I just got a PPM meter, and I tested yesterday, they lowered slightly from 460 to 420.

11. Does your pH show a rise or fall when you do your daily check?
It did for a long time while using Earth Juice. It would rise several full points in a matter of a couple hours and hover in the 8 range until daily check.

12. Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything?
no, to avoid mildew, I do not spray. The chamber keeps 47% humidity on average.

13. What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined? - I am still in veg so I am using 2 x 125 watt CFLs in an enclosed chamber lined with white aluminum.

14. How close are your lights to the plants? 6-8 inches from the top

15. What size is your grow space in square feet? I am not sure the exact square footage - http://quickgrowhydroponics.com/prodBox.html

16. What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space? 74 at night, 83-84 during the day.

17. Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space? no. The plants are inspected often and the air intake is controlled.

18. How much experience do you have growing? Noob

I have a spreadsheet of each days activity, measurments for PH, etc. here:

Besically, my problem is... my plants aren't growing much anymore. I was going to start flowering, but I'm noticing that new growth appears to be much lighter then it was before. See pics. Also I have several plants, the UW ones added later, that will not grow. I'm not sure what to do but based on what I've read it looks like my plants are needing nitrogen (red streaks in stems, some yellowing of leaves, light veg coming off stalk) but I'm just not sure if they are in need of nitrogen because of a lack of nutrients because of the high PH and swings in PH (which would limit the nitrogen intake), or of the plants are in shock at this point and need to be flushed and de-stressed. I'm in a pickle because if they need Nitrogen and I flush them, that will take all the nitrogen away, but if they are in nutrient lockout, then a flush would be the only way to go... I suppose alternatively there could be nothing wrong whatsoever and I might just need to lay off the stress weed for a while... what do you guys think? Thanks for the info!

http://img834.invalid.com/img834/4697/imag0012tw.jpg

http://img156.invalid.com/img156/8312/imag0011vv.jpg

http://img846.invalid.com/img846/9378/imag0004o.jpg

http://img863.invalid.com/img863/2713/imag0008m.jpg

http://img846.invalid.com/img846/8610/imag0013u.jpg

... and if you look at the one on the far right, top corner, that plant is a month old... but not really growing at all... I call her Danny (Devito)

http://img191.invalid.com/img191/3433/imag0007u.jpg

 

[Seamaiden]

Off the top of my head, not ever having used this growing method, it looks to me like they want to grow but don't have quite enough nitrogen. They could also use a bit more phosphorous, IMO.

When I go over the information you've provided I think that you may improve everything by simply shifting pH downward. I believe, but am not certain, that you really want to keep the solution/reservoir pH closer to the low-mid 5.0 range, 6s are a bit high and closer to what you want for soil as a medium. Having pH in better range, and you DO want it to range--but not wildly--means the plants can utilize the nutrients that are being given them. If everything is out of range they simply, by reason of the chemistry involved, cannot take up and utilize those nutrients. Get pH in range, do some more research on your style of growing and hopefully one of the other cats here who's more familiar will pop up and chime in.

By the way, organics are, in my opinion, better for beginners because they allow a HUGE buffer for making mistakes that you don't have with chemical nutrients.

The red streaks in the stalks and reddening/purpling of petioles is indicative of phosphorous. Nitrogen is the greening element.

And so the answer is, Yes. I believe they are underfed because of a nutrient lockout caused by high pH.

Oh, last, but not least, hopefully this will help you, Mulder's Interaction Chart.

 

[phenophinder]

They look pretty healthy to me, as mentioned you could just bump the N up a little, keep withing pH range and all should be well.

cheers

 

[Zproject]

... Get pH in range, do some more research on your style of growing and hopefully one of the other cats here who's more familiar will pop up and chime in.

The red streaks in the stalks and reddening/purpling of petioles is indicative of phosphorous. Nitrogen is the greening element.

And so the answer is, Yes. I believe they are underfed because of a nutrient lockout caused by high pH.

Thanks for the advice/info. Now that the nutes have been changed the PH is under control. It's been 5.7 - 6.5 for several days now. If it is nutrient lockout, would you suggest a flush at this point? Or would I be better off to feed them full nutes and see what happens? Also, it there some sort of a Phosphorous suppliment I can feed them? Thanks again for the info!

 

[Zproject]

The red streaks in the stalks and reddening/purpling of petioles is indicative of phosphorous. Nitrogen is the greening element

Also, if I'm following the info provided HEREit says Potassium deficiencies would show leaves turning yellow/brown from the edge and moving in. Mine appears lighter on new growth and the color is lightening on the inside of the leaf, not from the edges inward...

 

[Zproject]

Dude, I completely misread what you said.... sorry

I flushed today using Humboldt Nutrients Royal Flush. Flushed with the solution for 40 minutes, rinsed with pure H2O for an hour, then did a second tap water change and finally filled with 10 gal full nutes and boost juice (B12). Now I just wait and see what happens. Thanks for the help.

 

[alfonso2002]

They don't look that bad . If it was me is I would do a res change and start your nute solution again keep the ph at between 5.5-6.1 6.2 range it will range as the plant uptakes nutes and water is being used ph will rise. also Im thinking that you also need more lights on those plants as for the co2 you don't need to run with the plants at this stage. I am doing an organic ebb and flow for the first time and it is a little more tricky doing it organic.

 

[bobby-o]

they look great what you need is Iron though.

As you can see the new growth is yellowing indicating Iron defiicienc.y most likely due to your ph being too high in hydro set up your making Fe unavailable.

SUG

 

[Zproject]

Okay, so I flushed (using Royal Flush) as I stated before. I also changed nutes and ran 2 hours of tap water after the flush to ensure all traces of the flush rinse were gone, then loaded them up with full nutes for veg. It looks like the girls are back on track. Massive growth in the past 48 hours. My main consern now is that they are getting too tall, too fast. Which is a much better problem to have.

On a side note, I've tried a ton of different nutrients and I thought I'd chime in on what is working well for me.

First off - Earth Juice (Grow Juice and Bloom Juice) - These were really the cause of my problems with managing PH, ultimately causing nutrient lock-out and forcing a full flush. That's not to say that Earth Juice is horrible, it was just too difficult for me to maintain a stable PH number with it as there are no PH stabilizers in it. Some people swear by Earth Juice... but I don't think I will be using it again.

Second - I switched to NSR greenleaves grow/boost/bloom. Now, the Greenleaves grow formula is not bad at all. It helped me save my plants and they are growing like crazy. It does contain PH stabalizers, which keep my PH between 6.2 - 6.6, which is a bit high, but better then the Earth Juice. The problem is the Bloom juice is not very high quality. Been reading up on lots of folks complaining of nutrient deficiencies with the bloom juice. So, I've decided I'm NOT going to risk it during bloom.

Lastly, I've decided that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right... I'm changing to a three part Advanced Nutrients system. Using the PH Perfect Grow/Micro/Bloom with some "Bud Candy", "Big Bud", "Overdrive", and finally "Final Flush" for my last phase. It's easy to use the Nutrient Calculator at Advanced Nutrient's website, and the PH Perfect keeps my PH between 5.7 and 6.2 always. Additionally, the PH Perfect will allow nutes to be available even outside their range allowing for greater elbow room when learning. I highly suggest everyone look at Advanced Nutrients, and use the nutrient calc on their site. AN products cost more, and they lock you into buying more AN products to enhanse your yeild/quality... but in the end, it seems well worth it if you get a better batch. My opinion... Thoughts?

 

[KingOfHaze]

EJ problems

I had the same problem. Turns out it is BAD to use RO water with earth juice. The ej is more of a "tea" than a nutrient. It ABSOLOUTLY NEEDS the elements and minerals found in tap water. Bubbling the tea 24-48 hours with an airstone and pump works perfectly only if you are using tap water. NO RO with earth juice!

 

[KingOfHaze]

Read this, has a ton of info that I wish I knew before I started using EJ. Things make sense now and I use tapwater and everything is PERFECT.