LEDs causing magnesium like issues

[Tattooguy8]

"Dry backs to the point of neglect" are the kiss of death in peat. It becomes so hydrophobic it's useless. Any synthetic nutes you had in there become a toxic salt buildup as well.

I definitely don’t adopt that practice on the regular. Just been down that road for the sake of testing. I can tell the media in the pots are taking and holding water by the weight. I can also tell by how much water I have to add to the pots before anything comes out the bottom. I’ve watered by lifting pots to check weight for a very long time. For reference the picture of the pot with the roots on the outside the peat in the center was damp.

 

[Tattooguy8]

If you didn't put lime in the peat it's pH is closer to 4.5

The peat I use is pre amended with lime. I’ve also experimented with adding more at times as well. I think that with runoff some of that lime is flushed away over time leading to a ph drop but my issues happen even when playing with zero runoff.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Good morning fellow troll. Lol. I lost patience with you last night and completely gave up. I'm back to help. Maybe your light situation will fix itself if we can figure out the nutrient and root problems.

I'm interested in the pH of the peat not so much your solution being fed. Can't remember if you've mentioned runoff pH. I'll ask the question but go back and check myself too. Have you done a slurry test on your media or have a quality soil pH tester? As @Grownsince95 said and I tried saying last night peat is acidic.

Next is the RO water. First question. Have you checked the filters? Second. Could the new water need more cal-mag in your mix? Or even the opposite. The new water plus regular calmag amount is causing a weird lockout due to ratios?

I appreciate you sticking with this but being fed up with me is pretty funny thing to say. You accused me of being a troll. How am I supposed to react to that?

The brand of peat I’m using currently is fertillome ultimate potting mix. Basically sunshine #4. Amended with lime and all that jazz. I went away from sunshine 4 because I hate the big square bales and they have consistency issues.

I use an apera ph/ec meter as my main. I also have a truncheon and a blue lab ph meter. Haven’t done a slurry test in a long while. 6.5 ph in the top 6.0 ph out the bottom.

I change my ro filters roughly once a year. As of right now they are a few months old and my starting ro water has a ppm of 25 ish. I would say they are in good shape. I’ve tried no cal mag and up to 10ml per gallon. The only real difference I’ve ever noticed from the cal mag is darker green plants due to the cal nitrate that’s in the cal mag.

 

[Tattooguy8]

I don't think he regularly uses dry backs to neglect but tested it. But the way the roots are growing around the media makes me think the hydrophobic part is a possibility. I know it can happen in soil too and the fix is to water slower.

In that picture with the roots the peat in the center was damp. I would have expected dry and hydrophobic as well.

 

[GasPlease]

I appreciate you sticking with this but being fed up with me is pretty funny thing to say. You accused me of being a troll. How am I supposed to react to that?

The brand of peat I’m using currently is fertillome ultimate potting mix. Basically sunshine #4. Amended with lime and all that jazz. I went away from sunshine 4 because I hate the big square bales and they have consistency issues.

I use an apera ph/ec meter as my main. I also have a truncheon and a blue lab ph meter. Haven’t done a slurry test in a long while. 6.5 ph in the top 6.0 ph out the bottom.

I change my ro filters roughly once a year. As of right now they are a few months old and my starting ro water has a ppm of 25 ish. I would say they are in good shape. I’ve tried no cal mag and up to 10ml per gallon. The only real difference I’ve ever noticed from the cal mag is darker green plants due to the cal nitrate that’s in the cal mag.

Well I'm still in the youre a troll boat but on the small chance you aren't then I want to help.

The thing is that when something is suggested then all of a sudden you've already done that. And you say you've tried everything but if you've actually tried everything than a solution would've been found.

Is it true that the only difference between veg and flower room is the light schedule and that if you put the plants in the flower room they get better?

You grew the same way for 20 years with minimal problems?

The only thing to change was replacing hid with led and a new house?

The water is the only thing that changed with the new house?

 

[Ninjadogma]

Been lurking for years finally decided to ask some questions!

Been battling magnesium deficiency looking issues with slow growth and poor root health for a few years now and I just can’t figure it out.

Current situation
Peat with 30ish % perlite
Gh flora series at 2.0 ec. 2.5 ml of
2.5ml Cal mag included in ec
Ph 6.5
Room temp 84
Leaf temp right around 78
Rh 55-60
Ppfd between 150-200
24 hour light cycle in veg
Lights mars hydro fc4800 7’ off the
At 20ish percent
Using ro water at the moment

Been doing this since 96 under hid of course. A few years ago bought a new house and decided to go led. Problems ever since, especially in veg. Magnesium sick spindly, stretchy purple stems. I don’t flower sick plants but if I throw those same sick plants in my flower room in a week they will look so much better with no other changes. Not perfect but acceptable.

I’ve tried everything. Low ec, high ec, tons of runoff, no runoff, 50% drybacks to just at wilting drybacks. I’ve tried coco and peat. I even went back to cmh. Still had the issue but it was slight. Almost impossible for me to get above 250 ppfd in veg. The only thing that kind of remedies the issue is a super high ec. Like 2.5-3.0. I don’t know how everyone can run 1.4-1.6 ec at 400 ppfd at 78 degrees. My plants would literally be dead. I’m obviously having either a root zone issue or transpiration issue or both.

Another related issue, I sprout seed under a t5. Beautiful green growth with super stacked nodes. As soon as I move them to the LEDs the don’t grow new nodes they just stretch their asses off. I have to top them multiple times till they slow down and start to actually grow.

Having to add so much heat into my veg room and still have sup bar results is starting to get old. My plants would literally be dead if my room isnt above 80 degrees with a super high ec. I feel like I’ve read every leveant thread on the internet but there’s no solution. Everyone just disappears. I’m betting they go back to hid.

Sorry for the long post. Please help.

Howdy, grower. I decided to just read your initial thread and do my feedback on that... I'll read through but I didn't want to be influenced by the side chatter. So it sounds like you've worked on dialing a lot of things to eliminate as the culprit, but what can you tell me about your water and your watering? There's certain mag deficiency issues that come into play when the roots get cold or if they're not getting sufficient oxygen (ie too wet all the time). The other deficiency you'll see accompanying it is your phosphorus. So if you're seeing some purple blotchiness also showing up mid plant, I would look at soil moisture since the temps you're running don't support a cold roots diagnosis.

Also, what can you tell me about your tap? If it's hard water, then every time you water you're putting a little bit of EC into the dirt and even without feeding it can accumulate and cause problems if you're not working with an adequate volume of water but you'll typically see that problem appearing as magnesium and potassium issues in the mid plant.

We don't have pictures, so I just thought I'd share this info. Wishing you well with your grow and hoping we can help you get it back on track.

Edit: I just reread that you're using RO water, that's good... you don't have to worry about that background EC stacking.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Well I'm still in the youre a troll boat but on the small chance you aren't then I want to help.

The thing is that when something is suggested then all of a sudden you've already done that. And you say you've tried everything but if you've actually tried everything than a solution would've been found.

Is it true that the only difference between veg and flower room is the light schedule and that if you put the plants in the flower room they get better?

You grew the same way for 20 years with minimal problems?

The only thing to change was replacing hid with led and a new house?

The water is the only thing that changed with the new house?

Cool! I’ll play along. I’m a troll that needs help.

So what am I supposed to do when someone offers a solution and I’ve already tried it? To not hurt anyone’s egos or feeling I should just say, let me try that and I’ll get back to ya!?

I’m here because I’ve tried so many things, most of them being the standard tried and true methods for growing indoors under artificial lighting, and I still have issues. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Yes typically all the methods I’ve tried would produce a fix of some sort but they haven’t. As I’ve said, I can get them to the point that it’s almost un noticeable but it’s always there and I know it’s not right.

Yes, the environments and inputs are virtually identical in the veg and flower rooms. I keep the ratio of nutrients, the ec, the ph and watering frequency the exact same through the first three weeks of flower. The only differences are light brand, which obviously means spectrum as well and light cycle. And of course tripling or even quadrupling the ppfd/dli.

With that being said I did lower my ec to 1.4-1.5 on this table after stretch and the plants responded well. No deficiencies. It’s crazy how different the plants take up nutrients between the two rooms. Or receive light?

Yes, I grew the same way for 20 years with almost zero issues. Any issue I ever saw during that time was from laziness on my part.

Yes, I took the same methods and techniques I’ve used for 20 years into this house with me and all my plants exhibited some for of this issue. It was much worse in the beginning as I had zero experience with what was happening and dint know how to deal.

The difference was the light and coco. I have more problems in coco typically mostly because I try to treat it like peat is my guess but that’s another issue as I have close friends who treat coco like peat with three day dry backs and their plants are beautiful at normal ec levels. I’ve settled back in peat mostly because it hold a bit more water and it’s easier on me as I hand water everything. Again, similar issues in peat and coco even treating coco different and watering to running every day once plants are established.

I have gone so far as to hang all my old hid lamps and even dabble with some cmh and the issue persists although it’s much better under hid.

My uneducated troll like guesses are water, air quality or I’m vastly underestimating how cold the root ball or just the temps in my basement are in general. But none of that explains the switch to flower and how things clear up. Not perfect but pretty damn nice.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Howdy, grower. I decided to just read your initial thread and do my feedback on that... I'll read through but I didn't want to be influenced by the side chatter. So it sounds like you've worked on dialing a lot of things to eliminate as the culprit, but what can you tell me about your water and your watering? There's certain mag deficiency issues that come into play when the roots get cold or if they're not getting sufficient oxygen (ie too wet all the time). The other deficiency you'll see accompanying it is your phosphorus. So if you're seeing some purple blotchiness also showing up mid plant, I would look at soil moisture since the temps you're running don't support a cold roots diagnosis.

Also, what can you tell me about your tap? If it's hard water, then every time you water you're putting a little bit of EC into the dirt and even without feeding it can accumulate and cause problems if you're not working with an adequate volume of water but you'll typically see that problem appearing as magnesium and potassium issues in the mid plant.

We don't have pictures, so I just thought I'd share this info. Wishing you well with your grow and hoping we can help you get it back on track.

Edit: I just reread that you're using RO water, that's good... you don't have to worry about that background EC stacking.

Howdy! Thanks for chiming in!

I was doing 50/50 tap and ro for a while and it did help clear things up a tiny bit but I still had to run really high ec to make it pass. I stopped and went to straight ro because my tap water changes all year. Some times it’ll be under 200ppm on the 500 scale by the way, and sometimes it’ll test at over 600. I did t like chasing that around so I’ve settled on ro with 2.5 ml of cal mag to harden it up a bit.

When I run lower ec like 1.4-1.6 I get the magnesium deficiency type issues even though the feed is complete. When I run the higher ec which makes the mag def go away, the plants get very dark green of course and in a few weeks I get some tip and serrations burning.

I’m no expert but even though they are super green it almost seems like it’s a slight potassium issue. I think that would also explain the root issues I get. Maybe the potassium can’t compete with the salt at the higher ec levels? I’m just throwing stuff out there at this point. Just can’t find a middle ground. I always have to keep going back to my default system after a few rounds of testing just so I can keep my schedule and system moving along.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Howdy, grower. I decided to just read your initial thread and do my feedback on that... I'll read through but I didn't want to be influenced by the side chatter. So it sounds like you've worked on dialing a lot of things to eliminate as the culprit, but what can you tell me about your water and your watering? There's certain mag deficiency issues that come into play when the roots get cold or if they're not getting sufficient oxygen (ie too wet all the time). The other deficiency you'll see accompanying it is your phosphorus. So if you're seeing some purple blotchiness also showing up mid plant, I would look at soil moisture since the temps you're running don't support a cold roots diagnosis.

Also, what can you tell me about your tap? If it's hard water, then every time you water you're putting a little bit of EC into the dirt and even without feeding it can accumulate and cause problems if you're not working with an adequate volume of water but you'll typically see that problem appearing as magnesium and potassium issues in the mid plant.

We don't have pictures, so I just thought I'd share this info. Wishing you well with your grow and hoping we can help you get it back on track.

Edit: I just reread that you're using RO water, that's good... you don't have to worry about that background EC stacking.

Here’s some pics for reference. This is about as bad as it gets and they’ve greened up a bunch since going from 82-84 degrees and increasing ec from 1.6 to 2.4.

 

[GasPlease]

Cool! I’ll play along. I’m a troll that needs help.

So what am I supposed to do when someone offers a solution and I’ve already tried it? To not hurt anyone’s egos or feeling I should just say, let me try that and I’ll get back to ya!?

I’m here because I’ve tried so many things, most of them being the standard tried and true methods for growing indoors under artificial lighting, and I still have issues. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Yes typically all the methods I’ve tried would produce a fix of some sort but they haven’t. As I’ve said, I can get them to the point that it’s almost un noticeable but it’s always there and I know it’s not right.

Yes, the environments and inputs are virtually identical in the veg and flower rooms. I keep the ratio of nutrients, the ec, the ph and watering frequency the exact same through the first three weeks of flower. The only differences are light brand, which obviously means spectrum as well and light cycle. And of course tripling or even quadrupling the ppfd/dli.

With that being said I did lower my ec to 1.4-1.5 on this table after stretch and the plants responded well. No deficiencies. It’s crazy how different the plants take up nutrients between the two rooms. Or receive light?

Yes, I grew the same way for 20 years with almost zero issues. Any issue I ever saw during that time was from laziness on my part.

Yes, I took the same methods and techniques I’ve used for 20 years into this house with me and all my plants exhibited some for of this issue. It was much worse in the beginning as I had zero experience with what was happening and dint know how to deal.

The difference was the light and coco. I have more problems in coco typically mostly because I try to treat it like peat is my guess but that’s another issue as I have close friends who treat coco like peat with three day dry backs and their plants are beautiful at normal ec levels. I’ve settled back in peat mostly because it hold a bit more water and it’s easier on me as I hand water everything. Again, similar issues in peat and coco even treating coco different and watering to running every day once plants are established.

I have gone so far as to hang all my old hid lamps and even dabble with some cmh and the issue persists although it’s much better under hid.

My uneducated troll like guesses are water, air quality or I’m vastly underestimating how cold the root ball or just the temps in my basement are in general. But none of that explains the switch to flower and how things clear up. Not perfect but pretty damn nice.

Okay I'm just trying to get the facts and a fresh start.

You won't accept that the dark cycle is what's helping them in the flower room?

What are you thinking about air quality?

Would the root zone be different temps in the different rooms?

 

[Tattooguy8]

Okay I'm just trying to get the facts and a fresh start.

You won't accept that the dark cycle is what's helping them in the flower room?

What are you thinking about air quality?

Would the root zone be different temps in the different rooms?

It’s not that I won’t accept it could be the dark cycle, it’s that I’ve tried it. Like I’ve said before it did green things up a bunch but node spacing increased which I didn’t like and I felt like all I was doing was lowering the dli and putting a bandaid on the problem that still existed. Hence the stretching. You’ve talked me into trying shorter days again so I’m going to revisit 18/6 or 20/4.

With the rooms being so similar in environment I can’t imagine it’s the root ball but it’s got to be something right? Maybe it’s more a matter of root mass? I did some messing around on this last flower run and I up potted at seven days of flower. This was my attempt at trying to mitigate some of the salt buildup I get from running a high ec. To my surprise the roots have taken over the whole 2 gallon pots and I’m still watering some of the girls twice a day. Roots definitely grow during flower.

Air quality is a whole other deal in itself. When I moved into this house five years ago I got really sick. After many hospital visits and tons of testing over a six month period they figured out I had toxic mold syndrome. My best guess was that I got it from doing a tile project in the basement without a mask on. It was evident that the basement flooded a few times before my ownership and it’s possible that dangerous mold spores were living under the tile. Had experts out to test the air quality in the house and the tests were inconclusive. Either way I have or had two dangerous toxins in my blood leading to crazy symptoms. I do still get symptoms from time to time but who knows. Also there are over 100 house plants in all levels of my house and they all seem fine. Who knows. It’s easy to go down some of these outlandish type ideas and thought when all the “normal” stuff doesn’t fix a problem.

 

[Ninjadogma]

Okay I took some time to read through some of the comments and a few additional details you dropped, including pics.

Sheesh, as often as I find myself saying it, you'd think it's a template response. I think I know what's going on there. From the pictures, we see leaf margins lightened, signaling there is some limitation happening with your potassium, and we also see anthocyanins shining through more than chlorophyll in the leaves which is sometimes genetic expression but also sometimes a signal that phosphorus uptake is off.

When you see the interplay of these two in the mid plant area, it almost always signals an EC issue happening in the root zone. In one of your comments you indicated your runoff value was higher than your input. This signals a salt buildup. If it goes down with an additional volume, you are in good shape, you take it down and you're good. But if you get a runoff number higher than your input, it's really important to push some additional water through and check whether that value goes up or down because if it goes up, it means there is some salt pocketing going on that you need to get out of there.

 

[Smokey0418]

Been lurking for years finally decided to ask some questions!

Been battling magnesium deficiency looking issues with slow growth and poor root health for a few years now and I just can’t figure it out.

Current situation
Peat with 30ish % perlite
Gh flora series at 2.0 ec. 2.5 ml of
2.5ml Cal mag included in ec
Ph 6.5
Room temp 84
Leaf temp right around 78
Rh 55-60
Ppfd between 150-200
24 hour light cycle in veg
Lights mars hydro fc4800 7’ off the
At 20ish percent
Using ro water at the moment

Been doing this since 96 under hid of course. A few years ago bought a new house and decided to go led. Problems ever since, especially in veg. Magnesium sick spindly, stretchy purple stems. I don’t flower sick plants but if I throw those same sick plants in my flower room in a week they will look so much better with no other changes. Not perfect but acceptable.

I’ve tried everything. Low ec, high ec, tons of runoff, no runoff, 50% drybacks to just at wilting drybacks. I’ve tried coco and peat. I even went back to cmh. Still had the issue but it was slight. Almost impossible for me to get above 250 ppfd in veg. The only thing that kind of remedies the issue is a super high ec. Like 2.5-3.0. I don’t know how everyone can run 1.4-1.6 ec at 400 ppfd at 78 degrees. My plants would literally be dead. I’m obviously having either a root zone issue or transpiration issue or both.

Another related issue, I sprout seed under a t5. Beautiful green growth with super stacked nodes. As soon as I move them to the LEDs the don’t grow new nodes they just stretch their asses off. I have to top them multiple times till they slow down and start to actually grow.

Having to add so much heat into my veg room and still have sup bar results is starting to get old. My plants would literally be dead if my room isnt above 80 degrees with a super high ec. I feel like I’ve read every leveant thread on the internet but there’s no solution. Everyone just disappears. I’m betting they go back to hid.

Sorry for the long post. Please help.

You give ec reading and then ml amount.
How much water are we talking that this 2.5 ml of calmag goes into?

 

[TerpBeans]

Followed along....read each post. Your plants seem healthy otherwise. I wanted to ask....has this happened everytime you have switched nutrients?

I have always been a basement grower. Last house was an entire basement grow, divided into 3 rooms. Only a small exhaust fan on medium to remove some air. Other than that we ran a dehumidifier, 2 fans and air purifier.

So I neve had cold root issues as the basement always stayed warm. Plants in pots sitting on basement concrete floor. Never an issue

Moved into this house 5yrs ago. Cold cellar has been converted. Legit set up. First 3 grows were difficult, slow growing, switched to LED from HPS. Colder dark periods, warmer more humid lights on schedules

Had my electrician friend come and wire up some infloor heating!! Big differences in temp swings and my promix stays warmer. Drybacks are back to normal and so is nutrient uptake

 

[Tattooguy8]

Okay I took some time to read through some of the comments and a few additional details you dropped, including pics.

Sheesh, as often as I find myself saying it, you'd think it's a template response. I think I know what's going on there. From the pictures, we see leaf margins lightened, signaling there is some limitation happening with your potassium, and we also see anthocyanins shining through more than chlorophyll in the leaves which is sometimes genetic expression but also sometimes a signal that phosphorus uptake is off.

When you see the interplay of these two in the mid plant area, it almost always signals an EC issue happening in the root zone. In one of your comments you indicated your runoff value was higher than your input. This signals a salt buildup. If it goes down with an additional volume, you are in good shape, you take it down and you're good. But if you get a runoff number higher than your input, it's really important to push some additional water through and check whether that value goes up or down because if it goes up, it means there is some salt pocketing going on that you need to get out of there.

Right! This is the crazy part. I’ve done crazy amounts of runoff trying to mitigate the buildup. I can get it to equal input with a bunch of flushing but even at lower ec inputs it’s still builds up. The other crazy part to all this is if I take those sick plants and put them in the flower room and they’ll get better even at triple or quadruple the dli/ppfd. Same ec, same ph and same media.
This shit hurts my brain. I’ve tried jacks, canna coco general hydroponics all at varying ph levels and in four different types of coco and two different brands of peat to rule out quality of product.

 

[Tattooguy8]

You give ec reading and then ml amount.
How much water are we talking that this 2.5 ml of calmag goes into?

Sorry about that. That’s 2.5ml per gallon of cal mag. General hydroponics recommends 5ml per gallon if using ro water or coco. I know the manufacturers always suggest high amounts but I can barely tell the difference when changing the dose.

 

[Ninjadogma]

Right! This is the crazy part. I’ve done crazy amounts of runoff trying to mitigate the buildup. I can get it to equal input with a bunch of flushing but even at lower ec inputs it’s still builds up. The other crazy part to all this is if I take those sick plants and put them in the flower room and they’ll get better even at triple or quadruple the dli/ppfd. Same ec, same ph and same media.
This shit hurts my brain. I’ve tried jacks, canna coco general hydroponics all at varying ph levels and in four different types of coco and two different brands of peat to rule out quality of product.

Do you feed/water/feed or feed/feed/feed? What does your dryback cycle look like? How long does it realistically take you to water a plant? These questions almost write their own replies.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Followed along....read each post. Your plants seem healthy otherwise. I wanted to ask....has this happened everytime you have switched nutrients?

I have always been a basement grower. Last house was an entire basement grow, divided into 3 rooms. Only a small exhaust fan on medium to remove some air. Other than that we ran a dehumidifier, 2 fans and air purifier.

So I neve had cold root issues as the basement always stayed warm. Plants in pots sitting on basement concrete floor. Never an issue

Moved into this house 5yrs ago. Cold cellar has been converted. Legit set up. First 3 grows were difficult, slow growing, switched to LED from HPS. Colder dark periods, warmer more humid lights on schedules

Had my electrician friend come and wire up some infloor heating!! Big differences in temp swings and my promix stays warmer. Drybacks are back to normal and so is nutrient uptake

Yeah that’s sounding pretty familiar. I have two heaters in my veg room hooked to a controller so I have decent control over temps. Running the room at 84 degrees right now. Leaf surface at 78. My current setup is a large bedroom in the basement split down the middle with a door. One side veg the other side flower. Controllers in both rooms with ability to control air exchange, movement, temps and humidity. In the flower room I don’t need heat for whatever reason. I use the dimmers in the lights as heaters basically and hang the lights as high or low as they need to achieving proper ppfd. Veg room not so much even with heat.

Do you run your veg cycles under led? Do you use 24 hou light cycle of do you break it up? 18/6?

Changing nutrients just gives me slightly different variations of the same issue.

 

[Tattooguy8]

Do you feed/water/feed or feed/feed/feed? What does your dryback cycle look like? How long does it realistically take you to water a plant? These questions almost write their own replies.

I used to water feed with that type of cadence before moving into this place. That definitely doesn’t work here in veg anyway. I dryback to just before the point of drooping for the most part. Maybe slightly before that even. In veg I’m way more away of letting them dry back more as it seems to help. After transplant I’m watering once a week maybe. As they get more established once every few days and before I up pot it’s every day and sometimes twice a day. Really just depends on so many variables.

Sometimes I dribble the water in the areas of the pot I’m trying to wet and it takes a little bit. Other times after there are plenty of roots I’ll take the amount and put it in the pot quickly. It all just depends on how the plant is drinking and how big the root ball is I suppose.

 

[GasPlease]

Like I’ve said before it did green things up a bunch but node spacing increased which I didn’t like and I felt like all I was doing was lowering the dli

Giving them a dark cycle doesn't equal lowering the DLI. If you shorten the on time then you increase the ppfd. 18 hrs at 650 ppfd is 40 something DLI. 42 or 43 can't remember.

If the plant is getting the right DLI during lights on then it shouldn't be stretching for light during the dark?

Anyways you said you're going to try again so I don't want to beat a dead horse.