New grower needs help with coco grow

[minster]

Hi All,

Here is an update on where my girls are, seem to have quite a few problems that I cant get my head around. Maybe they are not as bad as I think - I wouldnt know really so any comments welcome.

I have three strains : Pinapple Chunk (Worse), Blue Cheese and a bag seed that somehow followed me back from my last Amsterdam trip:

Hydro Growers:
1. Are you growing from seed or clones? - SEED
2. How old are your plants? - 2-3 WEEKS
3. How tall are your plants? 2-3 INCHES
4. What type of hydro system are you using? - HANDWATERED CANNA COCO
5. What brand/type of nutrients are you using? - CANNA COCO, BLOOM CAL MAG
6. What is the Ph of your nutrient solution? 5.8
7. What is the PPM/EC of your tap water? RO WATER = 0.0
8. What is the PPM/EC of your nutrient solution? - SEE CHART BELOW
9. What is the temperature of your nutrient solution? - 22
10. Does your PPM/EC show a rise or fall when you do your daily PPM check? - DIFFERS, SEE CHART BELOW
11. Does your pH show a rise or fall when you do your daily check? - DIFFERS, SEE CHART BELOW
12. Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything? - CANNA MONO MAG, ONE SPRAY OF HALO
13. What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined? (HPS, MH, fluorescent, halogen, incandescent "plant lights") - 2 X 600 MH
14. How close are your lights to the plants? - 3 FEET
15. What size is your grow space in square feet? 18FT
16. What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space? 35-40%
17. Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space? - NO
18. How much experience do you have growing? - NONE


A couple of notes ; I am using RO water, humidity is hard to maintain over 40% - usually 35%. Day temps are 24-27, night 20-22. Exhaust is 250mm, inlet 150 mm. Two circulation fans (one is a bit strong)

1) Bag seed :

Approximately 1 week in front of the others, was my test subject, looks like my best lady and would love to keep her - ideally it would be a mother, fingers crossed - no idea of the strain but this one seed travelled home with me from Amsterdam, I am hopeful it something nice, looks indica to me.

Problems : Leafs are really cupping curling upwards, looks like it begging for moisture to an untrained eye like mine. Some brown spots on leafs
Schedule to date

Pictures

Any suggestions on the brown spots. Leaf curling and cupping hard to see but it can be severe - what dp you think of the general health of this one?

2) Pineapple Chunk - my problem child

I have two of these in good health - same schedule, seed batch, everything -its wierd. The others are really suffering and I dont seem to be able to help them. I have stopped feeding them as per advice given, they have slightly improved. They almost have a marble effect on them between yellow and green

Schedule to date

Here are the pics

Please help with any comments for this, my newbie ways are unable to fix and they deserve better....

3) Blue Cheese:

Hoping these are not as unhealthy as the older yellow leaves suggest...The do always have yellow tips on the lower leafs but new growth seems ok. I have one or two that are pale and look like nitrogen deficiency - thats a guess. No idea what causes the yellow tips. I am hoping that some of you can comment on their general health and if I should be worried

Feeding schedule

Here are the pics

So...if you have time to take a look and make any comments then you would really be helping me out. I realise it may all be a sorry state of affairs and as a first time grower I ask for a bit of understanding and help - would really like to see these through. So inputs, suggestions very welcome on the 1) Bag seed , 2) Pineapple chunk, 3) Blue Cheese

many thanks in advance - Minster

 

[HydroHooker]

I'm not an expert by any means, but 0.8 to 1.2 EC sounds crazy high for such small plants. I would suggest giving them a quick flush with low PH water and keep the EC around .4 for a while. I don't have much experience with coco, but that is my 2 cents. Good Luck.

 

[Seamaiden]

HydroHooker, outside of pH values and the (usually absolute) requirement for additional Ca/Mg, coco is passive hydro. I'm not sure (yet) that I agree with you on the EC, but then I have never started *seeds* in coco before, only in soil.

Ok, in a big hurry, got court this morning out in Hayward. I have never used Canna Coco or Canna nutes, so you have to remember that I've never worked with these products. But, what I see are the following issues: Ca uptake issue, one girl is "praying for magnesium", so that leads me to wondering about how well the Ca/Mg are playing together, because another girl looks like she has a phosphorous problem. Let me break down what I see.

Necrotic leaf margins, especially spotty and rust-colored (necrotic = dead), lower leaves = calcium problem.

Interveinal chlorosis (this isn't speaking to that weird yellow streaking, I can't say what that is), turned up leaf edges when temperatures are within range = magnesium problem.

Necrosis occurring from the leaf tips and working back = phosphorous problem.

So, right now I'd say that you might want to let the pH drift upward, closer to 6.0, as high as 6.2 should be ok. You could lower nutes or do a flush, but that will not bring back what's already affected. No way to bring the RH up? They'll thank you for it, but I don't believe that's what is making them look the way they do. Sorry I can't give more, gotta run!

 

[KushChemDiesel]

At that size 0.8ec is a lil high but not a lot, i'd be feeding about the same but with nutes designed for young plants like Formulex like i just posted in another thread, 0.8ec of a&b just a tad too high if ya ask me i bet in a week or so the new growth that comes out will be fine and won't show any of those symptoms.

What is the ec of your tap water, i know youre using RO water i was just curious as to why your ec must be real high or something out of the tap

 

[minster]

I'm not an expert by any means, but 0.8 to 1.2 EC sounds crazy high for such small plants. I would suggest giving them a quick flush with low PH water and keep the EC around .4 for a while. I don't have much experience with coco, but that is my 2 cents. Good Luck.

Thanks Hydro, I have the same feeling as you at 1.2. I am thinking of lowering it back down but supplementing a few of the plants with foliar feeding based on their deficiencies highlighted by Seamaiden

HydroHooker, outside of pH values and the (usually absolute) requirement for additional Ca/Mg, coco is passive hydro. I'm not sure (yet) that I agree with you on the EC, but then I have never started *seeds* in coco before, only in soil.

Ok, in a big hurry, got court this morning out in Hayward. I have never used Canna Coco or Canna nutes, so you have to remember that I've never worked with these products. But, what I see are the following issues: Ca uptake issue, one girl is "praying for magnesium", so that leads me to wondering about how well the Ca/Mg are playing together, because another girl looks like she has a phosphorous problem. Let me break down what I see.

Necrotic leaf margins, especially spotty and rust-colored (necrotic = dead), lower leaves = calcium problem.

Interveinal chlorosis (this isn't speaking to that weird yellow streaking, I can't say what that is), turned up leaf edges when temperatures are within range = magnesium problem.

Necrosis occurring from the leaf tips and working back = phosphorous problem.

So, right now I'd say that you might want to let the pH drift upward, closer to 6.0, as high as 6.2 should be ok. You could lower nutes or do a flush, but that will not bring back what's already affected. No way to bring the RH up? They'll thank you for it, but I don't believe that's what is making them look the way they do. Sorry I can't give more, gotta run!

Have to say I am chuffed with your reply and a big thank you for taking the time on what is obviously a very busy day for you - big thumbs up. I have individual cal and mag solutions to add, both from canna and suitable for foliar spray.....I also have a few that look like they need a nitrogen boost too - I have nothing for phosphorus so need to sort that out. I managed to get some complete CalMag in the UK but only found one shop that sells it - Aussie stuff called Bloom - needless to say the shop is taking liberties and selling it at approx 30 USD per litre....sounds far too high for me.

I think that considering I have some individual deficiencies in cal, mag, nitrogen and phosphorus.....you can see why they have responded to a heavy nute schedule.....my mind is fixated on the RO water that I am using....see last comment

I will let the PH drift up as recommended, thank you. As for RH, I have been trying wet towels, water on fans etc. Apart from my room looking like a laundry, it has had little effect. I am thinking that I may order a small fogger/mister from somewhere.

still deciding about the next level of nutes and some of them need repotting to 6.5l containers today...thanks so much for summarising the individual deficiences in relation to my photos, I will get on tackling those girls based on your inputs - :)

At that size 0.8ec is a lil high but not a lot, i'd be feeding about the same but with nutes designed for young plants like Formulex like i just posted in another thread, 0.8ec of a&b just a tad too high if ya ask me i bet in a week or so the new growth that comes out will be fine and won't show any of those symptoms.

What is the ec of your tap water, i know youre using RO water i was just curious as to why your ec must be real high or something out of the tap

Thanks Kush....my tap water is as hard as 'Rambo' at a whopping 0.8, 24hrs after coming out the tap - I have been drinking it for years too, I may have started to glow in the dark if I had not bought an EC tester. This is why I use RO water. I dont think Canna is well suited to RO water BUT I am a newbie and many talented people use it with RO water to great effect....its probably me. One thing that does bother me is the canna feed schedule on their web site. I have put in a base amount of three different water EC;s - 0.0, 0.4, 0.6 - each time the canna feed schedule give the exact SAME amount of feed per product but just adds the base water EC to the total , so for a feed of 0.8 on the water above it gives- 0.8,1.2, 1.4. Now my newbie brain tells me something not quite right here. The RO water is missing something that is in hard 0.6 - however, there is no increase in the amounts of canna products given to compensate for this - cal and mag for example, both of which they sell in seperate mono solutions - 'BOO' to canna from me on that.

Once I found some calmag I started to add that to my RO water to get a base value of 0.3 - 0.4 just based on average of where I thought it would be ideal for Canna - then added my nutes from there. Things have improved but still got problems. My next approach is that I have bought a 100 liter tub where I am now mixing RO with my hard tap water to get a starting EC of 0.3 - lets see how that goes. Am trying but just hoping the girls will hold out till I get it on track....

 

[krondongalong]

LOL - update on you situation please

Hi minster!

It's is you... lol

Did you get post on the other thread?

 

[minster]

Hi minster!

It's is you... lol

Did you get post on the other thread?

Hi Mate,

Yes I did get sorted thanks. Here is a pic from my blue cheese a couple of weeks ago - excuse the bath, I need a new pic. It has gone mental since this picture and is a lot bigger and bushier - I had to throw out a few for some room.

I had to come off Canna nutes - that not Canna fault, its very good but I couldnt get it to work for me , am a dumb newbie - dont want to diss canna, people have excellent grows with it. I wrote to them in Dec and they didnt come back to me till Feb. Here is there reply if it useful to you

"Thank you for your e-mail!

Yes indeed it is better to make a mix of tapwater and RO water.
Water EC of 0,4 is prefered (so a mix 1:1).
Now you have quite a clean water, but still some pH buffering component in the water.

If your water was to hard, you will see a milky/creamy fluid when you pure in the COCO A&B or the PK 13/14. Your solution should always be clear after you adjust your pH on the right level.

Hope this helps, please do not hesitate to contact us again!"

My problem was that I was using RO at an EC 0.0. I tried using some Cal Mag but the choice in the UK is limited and although things improved, it wasnt quite right.

However, I moved onto Plant Magic nutes as they a UK company and their range is made with my water in mind - I have hard water that averages about an EC of 0.7. I used thier hardwater nutes, Root stim, granules and Essence (which I think is excellent) - the plants have really improved and its been a pretty easy ride since then......am sure I will f*ck it up but fingers crossed.

good luck

Minster

 

[krondongalong]

Sweet bro,

I found some other posts of yours, been good reading. Are they the original plants Yeh. They pulled through? Very impressive if so, very healthy.

Yer I'm gonna try with canna again, but if I start getting issues again I'm gonna switch nutes also.

Will keep an I on your grow mate, similar to my own. My hit up for some advise along they way if needed.

Intact, I got 250w CFL in a air cooled hood. So temps are not an issue, what height would you personally keep em above. I got it about 5 - 6 inches. At the mo, they sprouted above coco 3 days ago?

Thanks mate

 

[minster]

Thanks mate, all original plants BUT to hold my hands up , I am a complete newbie - it's the other farmers on the forum that got me this far and back in shape :). Feel free to ask any questions, will definately help if I can - but you get far better knowledge of the other peeps here - they really are a great helping community

I used T5's for germinating and learnt I could get them really close 2-3 inches - have never used CFL but loads of people luv em. One thing I also learnt about this stage was not to stress over any stretching of seedling. The forum peeps let me know that I could bury any stretched stems and wouldn't know the difference later - tis true....I had a few that streched more than I'd like, buried em near to their leafs and now they no different from the rest.

Good luck mate....:harvest:

 

[joeca1i]

I just toss a handfull of gardenlime to the mix.I use the Espoma brand.