woodsmaneh
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Well I have been at this for a while now and the only part I hated was moving my veg plants into the UC. As soon as I did that I got zero growth for weeks. Very frustrating to say the least. I use RO water and Canna nutrients with Advanced BB and OD. Just about every start was the same for me. When I first came here they put the fear of god into me about using cal-mag, to much is the kiss of death, don't use it bla bla. So after reading and re-reading this is what I came up with.
Most of the better nutrients are buffered to help maintain Ph in water. The buffering does not work in RO water you need to mix 1/2 and 1/2 as per manufacturer instruction. Canna recommends .2 to .4 ppm in your water to work right. So because there is nothing in the RO water Ph is hard to manage and there is also zero value in your RO water. So this time around I added 2ml per L of cal-mag and both of my stalled systems have taken off big time. In fact this is the first time I have had to worry about roots plugging my system. Very big difference. So now I do use Cal-mag and my plants are not stalling. I use the cal mag with my regular nutrients. Boy it is amazing what a little cal-mag can do.
IMVHO, stalling is more often a result of one of 3 things:
1) Plants being moved from lower light concentrations into high light levels abruptly. This move not only spikes light levels, it increases plant transpiration necessity which necessitates increased water uptake.Often, lower RH is also associated with this move into higher light concentrations, exasperating the issue.
2) Nute concentration being too high. Where this really gets compounded is when the conditions stated in (#1), which necessitate more water uptake occur. EC/TDS being too high hinders water uptake which can cripple a plant during this transition. This is typically what causes the lag as the plants struggle to rehydrate, which rehabilitates the plants disabled vascular system (which typically collapses during dehydration) and spurs plants to grow again.
And important side note: When plants are unable to uptake water (nute solution) they are also having access to dissolved minerals interrupted. This is what contributes to the plants exhibiting deficiencies along with the dull leaf texture associated with dehydration.
LIMITED WATER AVAILABILITY AND ACCESS TO DISSOLVED MINERALS REDUCES, IF NOT STOPS PHOTOSYNTHESIS...CAUSING THE PERCEIVED STALL.
LIGHT+WATER+MINERALS=PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
3) Simply having the water level too low. This is a more mechanical means of dehydrating the plants, but just as detrimental. This will ultimately produce the same issues as (#2) but with no hope of recovery until plants manage to eak out a root down into the solution.
Moral of the story:
Reduce your light levels and EC/TDS and increase your solution depth during transplant to ensure a well hydrated plant first. Once adapted you can begin increasing both as now plants are functioning properly and ready for blast off!
Viva la UC!
Hey greeneye4 I had the same issue and I notice also that when my RH is not above 60% they also stall and look droopy even with cal-mag and very low ppm my tap also comes out at 50-70ppm try getting your RH higher. If its even at 45-50% is still not good enoughwoodsman do u have pics of the plants before u started adding the cal mag.. im suffering from similiar issues now. I started my plants on 12/12/12. they adjusted right away and were doing great the first 10 days or so and have been stalled out since.. ive ran calmag from .5 ml to 2ml per gallon. also using ionic grow and uc roots...ro water.. just did another change out with tap water @70 ppm ,.5 ml /gal cal mag and 2 ml/gal ionic grow. 2ml uc roots.. comes out to 180 ppm 700 scale.. cant seem to get them to snap out of this... gonna see what that does...theyre drinking and ph has been rising since day one.. so frustrating .....also running a sealed room so all other parameters are dialed in..
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