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Is there a table you can recommend that would tell me what my run off should be? I'm wondering if I should add some cal/mag etc. during my next watering. Though I do have 4-4-4 in my weird mixture....And run off is key to keeping salts down as well
I don't have a light meter, I just go by their response and the guide that came with my LEDs. Too much light and they start to curl upward right?I made fancy soil like that once and it didn't go so well. I bet you will be able to keep them alive until you can get them in the ground. You might want to look into how much light you are hitting them with too.
With new LED light my plants were drooping considerably long before lights out looking like they were hungry--I was learning to use it. A little before they sleep is normal but not five hours. They do also curl and claw but mine didn't do it after the drooping. Thought I had a watering issueI don't have a light meter, I just go by their response and the guide that came with my LEDs. Too much light and they start to curl upward right?
What light and how far away? I threw that in there because it looked familiar to me. I do think your issue is watering/soil. I would keep a cup of dry soil in my tent when I had a ton of plants like you do because my mind would play tricks with my when I would be feeling them my weight--not that I was smoking and growing at the same time. I wouldn't let your soil mixture dry out ever because of your ratio and it will be a learning curve on how much they drink. I would also recommend getting a good pH pen---I feel this is an essential tool for learning and not causing problems. I quit fooling with runoff pH and ppm a long time ago. I don't see how you can get accurate readings on runoff unless your drain trays are constantly cleaned and dry. It seemed I would be chasing my tail when looking at runoff but that could just be me. I like the wire cage you built for yours.I don't have a light meter, I just go by their response and the guide that came with my LEDs. Too much light and they start to curl upward right?
I have a bluelab pH pen for water, I don't have the soil pH meter, and can't afford it right now. The lights I have on them are a Viviosun VS 1000, and a Famurs TF1000. I have them set between 18 and 21 inches away, setting at 50%-75%.With new LED light my plants were drooping considerably long before lights out looking like they were hungry--I was learning to use it. A little before they sleep is normal but not five hours. They do also curl and claw but mine didn't do it after the drooping. Thought I had a watering issue
What light and how far away? I threw that in there because it looked familiar to me. I do think your issue is watering/soil. I would keep a cup of dry soil in my tent when I had a ton of plants like you do because my mind would play tricks with my when I would be feeling them my weight--not that I was smoking and growing at the same time. I wouldn't let your soil mixture dry out ever because of your ratio and it will be a learning curve on how much they drink. I would also recommend getting a good pH pen---I feel this is an essential tool for learning and not causing problems. I quit fooling with runoff pH and ppm a long time ago. I don't see how you can get accurate readings on runoff unless your drain trays are constantly cleaned and dry. It seemed I would be chasing my tail when looking at runoff but that could just be me. I like the wire cage you built for yours.
If those were mine I would do nothing but pH's water for a few days--make sure they are drinking and responding. With the ocean forest, 4-4-4, castings, and recharge at their age and size they can go a few days without anything.
Did you mean to say I shouldn't stick my pH probe in Distilled water rather than RO water? I thought RO water is what everyone uses ideally.You don't pH distilled because there is nothing with which the acid could react with. RO has around a "natural" pH of slightly acidic due to atmospheric CO2 that makes it into until a certain equillibrium is reached... but it doesn't push your medium up or down it's basically neutral.
You shouldn't stick your pH probe in RO as this will force some of the inner electrolytes out and make it harder in the future to get a proper reading.
You gotta watch drain pH to get some idea of what your media pH is - this is important for proper nutrient absorption. IMO you should aim for 6,2, usually cocos would be handled a bit more acidic, and soil can go up to 6,5, even 6,8. Roots of plants, microbes and N-metabolizing can still alter substrate pH, usually drag it down acidically.
You can see how much N a plant has by the greeness of its leaves. In abundancy they will get darkgreen, then start to claw downwards beginning with the topleaves. In deficiency, the plant will first generally brighten up a bit, later the lower leaves will turn yellow and fall off. The availability of nitrogen has the greatest impact on the overall growth of a plant, so this decides if, and when, you should start adding extra liquid fertilizer.
The water you stick your pH pen in should have some ions in it - I'd recommend you to read the instructions of the manufacturer for this. If you put it in any kind of nutrient solution it's fine no damage occurs. Then, there are storage solutions which are RO + KCl to give equillibrium to osmotic effects so your probe stays how it is. It is still not wrong to periodically calibrate it as when pH pens malfunction and you still work with it your plants will go really sick!Did you mean to say I shouldn't stick my pH probe in Distilled water rather than RO water? I thought RO water is what everyone uses ideally.
Judging from his pics he has a drain and no trays, and just needs to put a clean tray under the pot and that shouldn't impose too much work. You also only need to do this with a few select cultivars to know what's going on. I agree it's not needed and there's hurdles that can lead one offtrack, but to my experience whenever something happens unexpected, best to first take as much measurements as possible, to get info how to draw corrections.I quit fooling with runoff pH and ppm a long time ago. I don't see how you can get accurate readings on runoff unless your drain trays are constantly cleaned and dry.
So using RO water to water plants is ok? Just not distilled because there's nothing in it to be able to measure an accurate pH? Am I getting this right? I have storage solution for my pH pen and I do calibrate it regularly. I can't put trays under my plants because there's no room under the cheap screen I used to increase air flow. I can, however, take the plants out easily and place them over something in order to collect and then measure run off. That isn't a problem. I guess my question for that is, what are the numbers/ranges I am looking for?The water you stick your pH pen in should have some ions in it - I'd recommend you to read the instructions of the manufacturer for this. If you put it in any kind of nutrient solution it's fine no damage occurs. Then, there are storage solutions which are RO + KCl to give equillibrium to osmotic effects so your probe stays how it is. It is still not wrong to periodically calibrate it as when pH pens malfunction and you still work with it your plants will go really sick!
Judging from his pics he has a drain and no trays, and just needs to put a clean tray under the pot and that shouldn't impose too much work. You also only need to do this with a few select cultivars to know what's going on. I agree it's not needed and there's hurdles that can lead one offtrack, but to my experience whenever something happens unexpected, best to first take as much measurements as possible, to get info how to draw corrections.
Distilled and RO is almost, or actually, the same. It should read like 0,01mS it depends a bit on your RO hardware. Even rainwater, there's almost no ions or nutrients in it. Just pure water. This makes actually good plant water as there is 0 bicarbonates or natrium chloride in it but it'll lack the calcium and magnesium of regualr tapwater, so that is where Cal Mag comes into play. Some tapwater is ok if it's soft, and even medium hard tap works in some setups, like organic soil. Hard tap water needs to be dilluted down and pH to, at least, neutral, to be of any use longterm.So using RO water to water plants is ok? Just not distilled because there's nothing in it to be able to measure an accurate pH? Am I getting this right? I have storage solution for my pH pen and I do calibrate it regularly. I can't put trays under my plants because there's no room under the cheap screen I used to increase air flow. I can, however, take the plants out easily and place them over something in order to collect and then measure run off. That isn't a problem. I guess my question for that is, what are the numbers/ranges I am looking for?
Heh posted while I was typing… much better explanationDistilled and RO is almost, or actually, the same. It should read like 0,01mS it depends a bit on your RO hardware. Even rainwater, there's almost no ions or nutrients in it. Just pure water. This makes actually good plant water as there is 0 bicarbonates or natrium chloride in it but it'll lack the calcium and magnesium of regualr tapwater, so that is where Cal Mag comes into play. Some tapwater is ok if it's soft, and even medium hard tap works in some setups, like organic soil. Hard tap water needs to be dilluted down and pH to, at least, neutral, to be of any use longterm.
What I ment is you shouldn't stick your pH pen in distilled/RO/deminerlized or pure rainwater. Use your EC meter beforeahead, if water reads at least 0,2 EC then the pH probe will not suffer.
RO is ok for plants if you have these types of "supersoils" which already contain all plant essentials including Calcium and Magnesium. It remains to be seen if your mix actually fullfills this.
Once water hits your substrate, it will dissolve some salts and these will make it also into the drain. The bacterias in wormcastings also work on this. It's helpful if the water is at roomtemperature and not cool. My drain EC reads about 1,2 mS and can go up to over 3 in fresh organic soil. That's some false reading due to organic molecules therein. I've had readings with some fresh potting mixes at EC 8 then, plants wouldnt grow much and even showed deficiencies (!). Cannabis can adapt to anything in between EC 1-2.5, above that be weary. Correct pH is way more important, 6-6.5 in your case - but it's also important which pH goes in. Your substrate pH is usually in between these 2 measured numbers. I usually (organic soil, Biobizz) irrigate pH 6,5-7, and get 6,2-6,5 drain reading, and then it's good.
The general problem with lacheate probing is the actual amount of water used can dillute your numbers measured. So you need to stick to a somewhat reasonable volume used and keep that routine. Like, first slowly saturate the medium, then drain out like 20-30% of potvolume. That's why I like slurry shakeprobes as these can be set more accurately. But they require more time and preparation. Drain is quick to do just for controlling here and then.
This is very helpful yet overwhelming. I have a PPM meter not an EC meter. But it looks like I convert EC to PPM. 0.2EC seems to be 100PM. Not sure what you mean by saturate then drain out 20-30%. Saturate as in wait for it to run out the bottom? Then fill the pot again and measure that? Thanks for the help, but I am blown away at how complicated this is. The more years I try to grow, the less I feel like I know. It's kind of insane. Can't wait to move them outside. They all look perfect and beautiful once they go outside. It's about 100 times easier for me than growing indoors.Distilled and RO is almost, or actually, the same. It should read like 0,01mS it depends a bit on your RO hardware. Even rainwater, there's almost no ions or nutrients in it. Just pure water. This makes actually good plant water as there is 0 bicarbonates or natrium chloride in it but it'll lack the calcium and magnesium of regualr tapwater, so that is where Cal Mag comes into play. Some tapwater is ok if it's soft, and even medium hard tap works in some setups, like organic soil. Hard tap water needs to be dilluted down and pH to, at least, neutral, to be of any use longterm.
What I ment is you shouldn't stick your pH pen in distilled/RO/deminerlized or pure rainwater. Use your EC meter beforeahead, if water reads at least 0,2 EC then the pH probe will not suffer.
RO is ok for plants if you have these types of "supersoils" which already contain all plant essentials including Calcium and Magnesium. It remains to be seen if your mix actually fullfills this.
Once water hits your substrate, it will dissolve some salts and these will make it also into the drain. The bacterias in wormcastings also work on this. It's helpful if the water is at roomtemperature and not cool. My drain EC reads about 1,2 mS and can go up to over 3 in fresh organic soil. That's some false reading due to organic molecules therein. I've had readings with some fresh potting mixes at EC 8 then, plants wouldnt grow much and even showed deficiencies (!). Cannabis can adapt to anything in between EC 1-2.5, above that be weary. Correct pH is way more important, 6-6.5 in your case - but it's also important which pH goes in. Your substrate pH is usually in between these 2 measured numbers. I usually (organic soil, Biobizz) irrigate pH 6,5-7, and get 6,2-6,5 drain reading, and then it's good.
The general problem with lacheate probing is the actual amount of water used can dillute your numbers measured. So you need to stick to a somewhat reasonable volume used and keep that routine. Like, first slowly saturate the medium, then drain out like 20-30% of potvolume. That's why I like slurry shakeprobes as these can be set more accurately. But they require more time and preparation. Drain is quick to do just for controlling here and then.
Grew outdoors for years then the 1st year indoors was extremely rough first harvest around 7/10 grams so been there !Outdoor grower here also. Just thinking about the complexity, and the cost of growing indoors gives me a headache!
Sorry I just saw you using strips. As much as you are ingesting knowledge I am not going to suggest for you to read your light manuals.I have a bluelab pH pen for water, I don't have the soil pH meter, and can't afford it right now. The lights I have on them are a Viviosun VS 1000, and a Famurs TF1000. I have them set between 18 and 21 inches away, setting at 50%-75%.
Not knocking what all said about soil and runoff pH but I think you are probably complicating a little with trying to find what kind of micronutrient will fix your drooping/lockupThanks for the help, but I am blown away at how complicated this is.
I think this your best advice anyone has given. You will know what your soil is. With everything in your soil now you will probably never know what caused your problem or how you fixed it.If none of this other stuff works, and they were mine, I would transplant three of them into straight FFOF with some perlite and see if you get a positive response. Maybe into 1 gallon cloth pots. If you’d like the results, you could transplant the rest of them in a couple of hours and enjoy some smooth sailing till they go outdoors. Fear not, the transplant! Good luck.
Here's an example:This is very helpful yet overwhelming. I have a PPM meter not an EC meter. But it looks like I convert EC to PPM. 0.2EC seems to be 100PM. Not sure what you mean by saturate then drain out 20-30%. Saturate as in wait for it to run out the bottom? Then fill the pot again and measure that? Thanks for the help, but I am blown away at how complicated this is. The more years I try to grow, the less I feel like I know. It's kind of insane. Can't wait to move them outside. They all look perfect and beautiful once they go outside. It's about 100 times easier for me than growing indoors.
Its suppose to be high the plants will get used to it don't sweat it.I just ran some 6.0 water through one of them and measured the PPM run off. It is 1200+. Is that bad? Normal?
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