Help: First Time Growers Running Into Issues!

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

1. Are you growing from seed or clones?
Seeds
2. How old are your plants?
8 Weeks
3. How tall are your plants?
A little over 3 feet
4. What type of hydro system are you using?
DWC
5. What brand/type of nutrients are you using?
Fox Farm
6. What is the Ph of your nutrient solution?
5.5-5.8
7. What is the PPM/EC of your tap water?
.4
8. What is the PPM/EC of your nutrient solution?
2-2.2
9. What is the temperature of your nutrient solution?
79-84
10. Does your PPM/EC show a rise or fall when you do your daily PPM check?
no
11. Does your pH show a rise or fall when you do your daily check?
no
12. Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything?
no
13. What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined? (HPS, MH, fluorescent, halogen, incandescent "plant lights")
Fluorescent: 4X6 foot tube T12
14. How close are your lights to the plants?
About 5 Inches. We're attempting to stop them from getting too tall
15. What size is your grow space in square feet?
Approx 3ft by 5foot and prob 6 feet tall. its a small crawl space in the room.
16. What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space?
75-85F
17. Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space?
Not since one moth ate a leaf.
18. How much experience do you have growing?
THIS IS OR FIRST TIME!!

They are getting worse as we go on.. we assumed this was a CA/MG deficiency and started added a CA/MG solution to our feeding regimen...BUT IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE.

 

[416T.O]

Why didn't you use soil if it's your first time.?

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

Why didn't you use soil if it's your first time.?

Looking back now, we should of used soil... hindsight is clear 150%

 

[tobh]

Your reservoir temps are way too high. From what I have read, they need to be down around 68, not in the high 70's and low 80's. Check your roots for root rot at this point if they've been there consistently. That high is just inviting anaerobic bacteria to come and mess you all up.

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

That's a pretty high EC for floro's mabe lockout? I'd flush them and start over with a lower ec. I would look into zone or h2o2 as well unless your supprting a living system.

-lurkin

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

Thanks for the info I was wondering if the water temp was to high but I don't believe it is root rot because they are nice and white and don't look all brown and nasty like I have seen some others with root rot problems and the EC level has been at 1.6 since I switched it to 12/12 not 2 or 2.2 like said earlier. Any other suggestions or questions about what I have done would be great because I would really like it get this under control. Oh and I had added H2O2 in 3 days ago but my big plant just wilted and came back to health a hour later or so but have seen no change in the plant besides it getting worse.

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

When was the last time you flushed the plants? How are you doing your add back? Is this rdwc or just bubble buckets? More info on your nutes would be nice.

-lurkin

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

They get flushed every thursday so hasn't been a week yet and once its flushed I fill it with PH adjusted water then add roughly half the amount of nutes that should be and make sure the PH doesn't go above 6 but try to keep it between 5.5 and 5.8 then after a half day maybe even a day later ill add the rest of the nutes to obtain the EC that I want which right now I'm aiming for 1.6 to 1.8.. Yes this is a rdwc...Right now I'm using all fox farm products which are the Big Bloom, Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, Open Sesame, Kangaroots and Macro Brew..I have been following the feeding schedule that fox farm gives you with the nutrients so I have not been using all the nutes each time just the once that they call for for that week.
Also started adding a cal/mag supplement to the water 2 weeks ago but iv been using the amount it calls for on the bottle which is 1ml per liter of water but idk how often this should be added or anything

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

Do the ppms drop in the middle of the week or just stay put?

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

I haven't really been keeping an eye on the PPMs only the EC levels..My probe has 3 options one reads PPM 500,PPM 700 and EC but no the EC really doesn't change much thought the week unless I add water which then I add a lil more nutes...should I be checking the PPMs as well? And if so which one should I use the 500 or 700?

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

Ppms, ec it's all the same. The ec will drop as the plants eat, if the plant uses more water the ec will rise. You want to find a balance without overfeeding them

-lurkin

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

Ok I had thought that the EC and PPM was the same but since I am new to this I thought maybe there was a difference and I would ask.. The EC does stay pretty consistant normally won't jump up and down, it does go down tho as the water level goes down but when I add new water I also add more nutes to keep EC levels high enough. Right now in the last 24 hrs the EC and PH has not changed which is 1.6 for EC and 5.9 for PH with a water temp of 72...I did add some frozen bottles to bring the temp of the water down a few hours ago which it was at 80 degrees.

 

[Seamaiden]

I feel you have misdiagnosed the original problem. I also feel that you're working with a pH slightly out of range, I think you'll do better if you keep it between 5.2-5.5 or so (this has been my experience running perlite hempy tubs, which perform pretty much the same way as straight hydro). I also feel that you're running a rather high EC there, pegging 2-2.2 is high to me. They generally look pretty happy, though, but I'm thinking you may have caused a lockout.

I think you've got a P- going on, not Ca, and not Mg. And remember, there is no such thing as a Cal-Mag deficiency.

PPM is a derivation from EC. If you learn to go with EC you won't have the mistakes made during conversion.

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

I think it's a over fert issue causing lockout,
he is only using flouro's but I've been wrong before =)

-lurkin

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

Ok thanks for any suggestions you guys have I will work on keeping the pH lower then what I have had it before... Now for my EC levels. My girlfriend actually made this post and said that the Ec levels were at 2.0 to 2.2 but that's actually wrong.. For the last 3 weeks going on 4 I have not had the levels above 1.8 while they are flowering but I did have the EC levels at 2.0 in the end of the veg stage. Is 2.0 to high near the end of veg and then dropping it to 1.6 to 1.8 in flower? Also is keeping the PH lower to 5.2 to 5.5 going to help with the P problem like you thought my plants had or what's the best way to correct that?

 

[MGRox]

+1 for the things pointed out so far; temp, pH, possible past fert+ issue.

I don't have calc profiles for the fox farm line to know your npk, but as Sea pointed out; they overall aren't too bad. Your system provides a high "physical" availability of nutes in your medium, relative to what your adding (I.E. nutes in rhizome should approximate npk of solution.) I'm mentioning this irrespective of "plant" availability. Though I cannot imagine a case where the "physical" level of P should be low.

I agree with Sea that they're showing a P- though; which makes me lean towards a lowered availability from poor root "hair" development. Also, you are adding a myco product; though I don't know how good it is, but a good myco product could help for sure here. If you had too high of EC in the past, you prolly fried some hairs. If you are too hot in the medium; you prolly fired some hairs. If you are missing a good myco product; your not getting optimal microbial help with plant availability.

Last....I cannot help but to comment, but I got a kick out of seeing a P- without purple petioles (;):D@Seamaiden ).

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

:dead:

+1 for the things pointed out so far; temp, pH, possible past fert+ issue.

I don't have calc profiles for the fox farm line to know your npk, but as Sea pointed out; they overall aren't too bad. Your system provides a high "physical" availability of nutes in your medium, relative to what your adding (I.E. nutes in rhizome should approximate npk of solution.) I'm mentioning this irrespective of "plant" availability. Though I cannot imagine a case where the "physical" level of P should be low.

I agree with Sea that they're showing a P- though; which makes me lean towards a lowered availability from poor root "hair" development. Also, you are adding a myco product; though I don't know how good it is, but a good myco product could help for sure here. If you had too high of EC in the past, you prolly fried some hairs. If you are too hot in the medium; you prolly fired some hairs. If you are missing a good myco product; your not getting optimal microbial help with plant availability.

Last....I cannot help but to comment, but I got a kick out of seeing a P- without purple petioles (;):D@Seamaiden ).

Yes I will admit that in the beginning I was not 100% sure what I was doing and there was a few mistakes made when they were younger with the EC levels being way to high for how old they were so I'm assuming maybe this problem had started when they were young and just wasn't corrected early enough or when the levels were to high it damaged the roots a lil like you had mentioned and with the water temps and PH levels higher then should be didn't help anything either..

 

[MGRox]

You will get it all down in no time, so don't worry too much. You can't learn anything without making mistakes and more importantly; getting to see what happens when you do. The threads, posters and knowledge on this forum are invaluable and is that way from good peeps and hundreds of thousands of mistakes.

 

[ALEXCHASINMJ]

You will get it all down in no time, so don't worry too much. You can't learn anything without making mistakes and more importantly; getting to see what happens when you do. The threads, posters and knowledge on this forum are invaluable and is that way from good peeps and hundreds of thousands of mistakes.

Yea I do agree with you there I knew this being my first grow I was going to make mistakes and unfortunately they finally showed signs of sex a few days ago and turned out to be males so now I'm just experimenting with a few things before they get thrown out.. But thanks for all the advice.

 

[Lurkin4yrs]

Bummer