newbie with nutrition deficiency???

[bmvortex81]

hi all... normally it is my husband who is on this and does this thing and has "supposedly" looked up everything on this. However we've spent a bunch of money and these poor lil plants are dying right before our eyes. I'm not exactly gung hoe on the whole thing to begin with but after literally being hit by a truck not once but three and 23 surgeries later and meds just have nasty side effects and dont take the pain away anyways.. I guess Im contemplating it...

Anyways I grow a garden, I do it with dirt and water. he felt the need to go hydro. Dont ask why because I dont know.

Anyways currently the plants are 4wks old and look on deaths door... literally, he has posted pics previously.. I think I know the problem know but I will post background then appreciate any advice that can be given...

it is in an approx. 3'x2'x3' cabinet in the basement in a dwc setup with the water pump stuff inside it.

we had 7 plants originally with 3 cfls that were just above the plants that he raised as they miniscually grew... I shouldn't say that because they were growing just fine until 1 of 4 things happened he increased to 8cfls, he did a res change, added a little pc fan for circulation, and we were running a dehumidifier in our basement due to defrosting our freezer which made a huge mess which we were cleaning up.

In theory thinking the cabinet is closed and away from the dehumidifier, we didn't think that would be it but hey I grow outdoors in so I dont know where to begin with this stuff.. shut off the dehumidifier.. no change. I thought he was crazy with lights.. but who am I ...

Our PH keeps going through the roof we have a natural spring it comes out of the faucet anywhere between 7.2 - 7.9 depending upon if it rained or not so we were constantly fighting to bring the ph down whether we used chemicals or vinegar or lemon juice regardless of the additive within 24hrs it was backup in the 7+ range.

I did the res change yesterday took out 2of the dam light bulbs being we only have 4 plants Idt we need 8 bulbs as small as they are(plz tell me if Im wrong) plus it was getting hot (84) in the cabinet the water is now maintaining at 75degrees (except for the PH but the ppm are between 490 and 520 Bri had told me that the ppm always had to be at 500 so I was always worried about keeping them around their and I kept asking him how are they eating? Where are they getting their food from? If there in soil at least they're getting something from the earth, especially if you have them in good soil... he didn't know when they were no longer seedlings and when they went into veg.. to me at least from gardening when there over an inch two inches there good.. at least these ones should be way past it they're four weeks old... some strains only take 8wks... theres no way they're still babies...

SO I think the problem is is that they have basically been starving, poor things :( I feel awful.

I can't be to hard on Brian and please dont you tho either he had a ruptured Brain aneurysm in 2009 that almost killed him so he doesn't always pay attention or thoroughly comprehend... Im just wondering though.

I asked Bri before he left for his doctor appt&what we were suppose to be feeding and if the ppm were suppose to be higher (I had read on someone elses thread it should be 700-800) he said yes while their in veg... so I came down and it said I should have given them like 3T for the size of the dwc but I'm so scared of killing them completely, I started with 1T ppm at 480 and put in 2T vinegar because the PH was 7.9 the PH dropped to 6.8 I left in alone because I figured I would be putting in more nutes but wanted to give it time to adjust.

I went down 1hr later My PPM 535 PH 6.8 I gave 1/2T I went down 2hrs later 567 PH 6.5 so I reluctantly gave 1T and am praying to God I dont kill em or lock em out However... I came down and check on em now and PPM is 735 and PH 5.8 without adding anything for PH o_O odd but okay... kinda cool.....

so I really love my husband and as much as I wanted nothing to do with this apparently Im going to have to read up... if these poor lil things make it. Any advice would be much appreciate... other than making me feel any dumber than I already do... :bag: Thank you in advance for any suggestions, advice or wisdom you have... it really sucks when you broach a topic that you have no idea wtf your doing!! Thanks again!


*Edited by: Seamaiden
*Reason: Make it readable, added paragraph spacing.

 

[soserthc1]

As a first time grower I'm thinking hydro wouldn't be the way to go but i have never been anything but a soil grower myself and seemed fairly easy to me but I have always had a deep passion for any plant life... to get the answers your requiring besides the ppm and ph needs .
I would suggests a picture thou i will say that it prob it not the light intensity as cfl's are not real powerful and 84 really aint to bad not ideal but not high enough to kill plants . Sorry to hear about all your struggles and hang in there you will get the help you need here and worst comes to worst you can always pop some more seeds / clones what have you.

best of luck
SoSerThc1

 

[bmvortex81]

please i hope I didnt offend anyone with what I said in the beginning of my msg, i lead a sheltered life, ive never done it, but life sucks, shit happens and doctors arents helping at this point im up for anything. i believe everyone has their own right to choose (to bad our state&federal government didnt agree) anyways can anywho give me an idea as to where my numbers should be for them being 4weeks?? but like i said they look like 2 i will have bri post another pic he has one on the thread for using vinegar for a ph downer but ill have him put one up here too!! this wasnt supposed to be my baby it was to be his but i feel awful because i think the plants were starving and thats why everything hit the fan... like i said i grow in soil... soil water sun and shade ur good to go... this... is so out of my wheelhouse. After putting in 2.5T nutes over 6.5hrs the PPMS are 725 and PH is 5.9 so everything is holding well the Ppms went down a lil .... I figured at this point it going to cure em or kill em. they do have new lil baby leaves on each of the plants though so even though its got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel its still hanging in their!!

 

[bmvortex81]

just any ideas on where numbers should be at... or do you think i should transfer to soil?? whats anybodys suggestions/reccommendation? thanks so much for your thoughts!!! your inputs appreciated!!

 

[bmvortex81]

also were on 18/6 light schedule should we keep it their or switch it to 12/12 or ??? sorry or all the ??? but as i said i have no flippin clue what to do or not do... i just wanna help em if i can. Thanks again!

 

[sixstring]

im not to keen on dumping vinegar in the res all the time.but if you can keep those numbers between 600 and 750ppm and the ph between 5.6-5.8 your plants will have a better chance.also your res being 75f is not ideal so if you can put some frozen pop bottles or something in there to brin it down closer to 68f your plants will thank you.if you can figure a way to keep the cab around 74-76f max temps it will help keep your res colder also.and night time temps around 68f will help with that.you should try to get some decent ph down from the grow store when you go out.also don't try to keep fighting ph and ppm all day,give it a few hours to adjust after adding things or changing your res.you can buy distilled water and it is almost always ph'd around 6.0-6.2 and then when you add nutes it will come out closer to 5.6-5.8 without using ph adjusters.gl

 

[Bannacis]

Thing is with well water you ph and ppm fluctuate quite a bit, when it rains, even if it rains miles away. plus dry periods will have it change. You want to veg with 18 hours light 6 hour dark for a while. you mention a 8 week strain, that's the flowering period, (when you switch to 12/12) so don't worry about your length of veg.
With hydro, you have no room for error, when something goes wrong it is hard to fix or recover, specially a noob...lol sorry, just ribbin ya!
You said you grow in soil? what are you growing? to me that sounds like the best bet anyway.
Soil medium will act as a buffer and be more gently on your plants.
CFL's are ok for starts, but you need to up your lights (stronger) I found a 80 watt cfl on line for around $20
Not sure on the size (wattage) of you cfl's but if they just the basic ones that say equivalent of 1oo or 150 watts, that usually means around 30-40 watts actual. you need better light.
plus a computer fan is not strong enough for air exchange either.
What kind of nutrients you putting in your Res?
with hydro ph around 5.6-5.8 but with soil you can have 6.2-6.5 ph so less ph down.
Get yourself some grow books too, Barnes and noble has quite the selection in their garden section.
Good luck

 

[EveryOneSmokes]

Bmvortex81.. Don't mean to be rude in anyway.. But there's a bunch of info on styles of growing on here.. Have you tried using the search feature.. I would say read, read,and read..then it would be easier to assist you in your voyage.. I assure you it will begin to click once you gets some info to think about..

It's hard to really specifically pin point what you need to do or where you need to be, if we don't know exactly what's going on wit the grow.. Pics may help.. Wish you the best..

 

[Seamaiden]

Pix would indeed help, but I think, after adding some spacing to make your post more readable, that I have the gist of what's happening. I agree with your assessment, I think the plants may be 'starving.' However, there's a caveat with just adding more food--you'll need a good driver, aka LIGHT. If you removed some lights, and those were plain old household CFLs in the first place, you're going to have to replace it. I personally prefer fluoro tubes, I use the 48" shop lights all day long. I get the most minimal rig for about $10, then I mix the tubes, using a mix of 6,500K daylight and approximately 4,000K warm fluoros. You can really fill up a space with these and not have terrible problems with heat, though extraction would help. A computer muffin fan or three, or four, can be useful in the scenario I think you're describing. I have two muffin fans on one end of my vegging box, with passive intake on the opposite side and another fan pointed at the wall for circulation. It's in the basement, so it tends to stay cooler down there and so I also have an electric blanket underneath everything (because I'm too fucking cheap to buy seedling mats that cover a fraction of the area I've covered with an electric blanket that costs the same as ONE mat).

In the meantime, that fluctuation of pH is really also causing you big problems, what you describe sounds like rather alkaline water (alkalinity is defined as resistance to pH shift, what you're observing is the bounce back; i.e. resistance to your efforts to shift pH). If at all possible, consider getting and using a reverse osmosis filter, this eliminates entirely your source water as a source of problems. A decent 5-stage unit can be had for about a C-note from purewaterclub.com. I use a 6-stage RO/DI (reverse osmosis/deionization) unit, but I don't grow hydro (yet). Until you get that sorted you, I think you're going to continue having problems balancing pH and getting the feeding levels right.

Beyond that, follow sixstring's and Bannacis' advice on pH and feeding.