Please help ! Depressed looking plants

[jguit]

your plants are unhappy. raise the lights for starters. yes, too much light can cause all sorts of problems..

A HPS 14" away is pretty intense.. My guess would be somewhere around 800 - 900 ppfd

 

[Jonnypierce]

your plants are unhappy. raise the lights for starters. yes, too much light can cause all sorts of problems..

Cool thanks

 

[Dirtbag]

What style reflector are the lights in? If its a batwing type with horizontal lamp position, 14" is WAY too close for plants this size. I'd have it 24-36". But I'd also seriously suggest switching to MH if you can swing it. I'm not sure I would go by the light meter, at this stage I think you're better off reading the plants.

Drooping leaves if not overwatering is usually from too much light.
Praying leaves that stick almost straight up are looking for more light.
Leaves that stick straight out or pointed very slightly upward are in the money spot in terms of light intensity.

Trust me, disregard your chart and raise the light to ~30" from the canopy and feed 2 or 3 times a day. Things will get better.

 

[Jonnypierce]

What style reflector are the lights in? If its a batwing type with horizontal lamp position, 14" is WAY too close for plants this size. I'd have it 24-36". But I'd also seriously suggest switching to MH if you can swing it. I'm not sure I would go by the light meter, at this stage I think you're better off reading the plants.

Drooping leaves if not overwatering is usually from too much light.
Praying leaves that stick almost straight up are looking for more light.
Leaves that stick straight out or pointed very slightly upward are in the money spot in terms of light intensity.

Trust me, disregard your chart and raise the light to ~30" from the canopy and feed 2 or 3 times a day. Things will get better.

I'm using 2 of these

 

[Dirtbag]

I'm using 2 of these

Yeah, 14" is way too close man.

Too much light and not watering frequently enough are your main issues.

You can continue slowly closing the gap between the plants and lamps as the plants get bigger, by mid flower you could probably get away with a distance of 16-18" or so, but young vegging plants grow much faster and healthier if you start with lower light levels and increase it slowly over the course of a few weeks.

 

[Jonnypierce]

Yeah, 14" is way to close man.

Too much light and not watering frequently enough are your main issues.

You can continue slowly closing the gap between the plants and lamps as the plants get bigger, by mid flower you could probably get away with a distance of 16-18" or so, but young vegging plants grow much faster and healthier if you start with lower light levels and increase it slowly over the course of a few weeks.

Thanks man ! Much appreciated

 

[jguit]

Coincidentally, I'm using a 600W HPS in my current grow. I just took a PAR reading at 14" from the bulb and it averaged 1000 ppfd. Needless to say, that's pretty fucking intense! Ha.. This is with a fresh 600W HPS bulb.

I just flipped to 12/12 and I'm at approx 30" from the canopy averaging around 500 ppfd. Plants are lush, green and growing like crazy! I will let them grow up to towards the light and adjust the height accordingly.

 

[Jonnypierce]

Coincidentally, I'm using a 600W HPS in my current grow. I just took a PAR reading at 14" from the bulb and it averaged 1000 ppfd. Needless to say, that's pretty fucking intense! Ha.. This is with a fresh 600W HPS bulb.

I just flipped to 12/12 and I'm at approx 30" from the canopy averaging around 500 ppfd. Plants are lush, green and growing like crazy! I will let them grow up to towards the light and adjust the height accordingly.

They will be getting raised as soon as they come on, thanks

 

[Dirtbag]

They will be getting raised as soon as they come on, thanks

Those reflectors you have will accept a MH lamp.
You can keep using HPS to veg, don't get me wrong but there are a number of key benefits gained when using MH for veg and switching to hps for flower.

You get bushier more compact plants with tighter internode spacing, thicker stems and bigger leaves,.. and you can actually see your plants color properly which helps with diagnosing feed rates and looking for problems. And when you flip, the higher photon output of hps compared to MH helps to keep the daily light integral or DLI more or less balanced, so the plants don't suffer from such a drastic reduction in photon uptake when you cut the hrs of daylight by 25%. The change in spectrum also helps to steer the crop into flower production.

 

[Jonnypierce]

Right this may sound like a stupid question, I've got 1 mh bulb now could I say have 1 hps bulb and 1 mh bulb running at the same time ?

 

[Dirtbag]

Right this may sound like a stupid question, I've got 1 mh bulb now could I say have 1 hps bulb and 1 mh bulb running at the same time ?

Absolutely you can. Just know that the HPS lit plants could, or more likely will grow taller with longer internode spacing which can be a problem if you want a level canopy in flower. You can kinda scrog your way around that if you train using a net while they veg. But that's not something I do normally. Ideally both lamps being MH would be my preference for veg. Keeps everything equally bushy and maintains a level canopy.

 

[Jonnypierce]

Absolutely you can. Just know that the HPS lit plants could, or more likely will grow taller with longer internode spacing which can be a problem if you want a level canopy in flower. You can kinda scrog your way around that if you train using a net while they veg. But that's not something I do normally. Ideally both lamps being MH would be my preference for veg. Keeps everything equally bushy and maintains a level canopy.

Okay well thankyou, lights have just come on so I've raised them to like 30 inch , is that much better ? Before and after pics

 

[Dirtbag]

Much better

 

[Dirtbag]

How are you collecting runoff? Plants shouldn't really be right on the floor like that, for one it sucks heat out of the rootzone, and two, it means you need to move each pot around to collect runoff evertime you water. Which for coco, you should be watering several times a day. That will become a real pain in the ass in short order.

You can get away with handwatering if you're home everyday, but you should really come up with a more practical solution to deal with the runoff. Elevate them all on a piece of plastic roofing or something and direct all the runoff into a container at one end.
Best best would be elevate them, control the drainage, and automate the watering. In a perfect world.

 

[Jonnypierce]

Much better

Much appreciated

 

[Jonnypierce]

How are you collecting runoff? Plants shouldn't really be right on the floor like that, for one it sucks heat out of the rootzone, and two, it means you need to move each pot around to collect runoff evertime you water. Which for coco, you should be watering several times a day. That will become a real pain in the ass in short order.

You can get away with handwatering if you're home everyday, but you should really come up with a more practical solution to deal with the runoff. Elevate them all on a piece of plastic roofing or something and direct all the runoff into a container at one end.
Best best would be elevate them, control the drainage, and automate the watering. In a perfect world.

I'm currently as we are speaking elevating them off the floor using blocks of wood

 

[GreenMtnGuru]

Straight coco? No perlite?

 

[Jonnypierce]

Straight coco? No perlite?

Yeah pal straight coco

 

[ezenzyme]

Well cuz no one has mentioned the usual. What is your water source? Are you using Cal Mag? Is your coco buffered? First run in coco?

lights are easily solved with a par app downloaded for any smart phone.

have ya read this thread? it should be your bible

HOW TO WATER COCO FOR BEST RESULTS.

Ok writing this cause i see this issue often and rather have a thread to link than explain this each time. This is not my work but a collection of info from many members here and I have put into practice myself. So first off COCO is NOT soil. For best results we want to keep it saturated...

www.thcfarmer.com

heres a good thread that you should check as well;

Is this a sign of Ph problems? Or light burn?

I’m also totally against advising anything other than ro myself personally I’ve seen and had too many problems when starting with other water sources.

www.thcfarmer.com

and from what i have read right off the bat;
you need imput and out put Ph and PPM to figure out what the Rootzones approx ppm and ph are
you want to water multiple times daily with cal mag in EVERY watering

 

[4.19]

Here is my proverbial 2 cents for what its worth. I dont have much experience and I dont (wont) grow in coco. Too much work on the "PH balance side". But I have had my problems and have fixed them by trying different things.


Use soil in lieu of coco for a PH buffer. If you want to grow in coco log your PH starting at 6.2 in and see what does better. You may need to better balance PH in coco.

In veg, lights should be around 30", all full brightness 36" to be safe. If you are unsure a tad higher is better than a tad lower.

Yellowing doesn't appear to be a cal/mag defencicy. So if you arent over watering try adding some nitrogen. You still have time to try this. However, if this isnt the root then its only a band aid so try multiple things and lot how they react