Possible late stage cal-mag def?

[freespirit]

Hey guys I have a few rusty spots forming on on some leaves and some cripsy/yellowing spots as well. I started feeding with the nutes in the pics about 4 weeks into veg (minus the flower nutes til I flipped) I started with the Cal-mag approximately one week ago when I noticed the rusty spots getting more prominent(yes I know I should have earlier :banghead:). I'm probably due for a pH water ONLY feed as I think the tips crisping may be a little nute burn when I dosed up on the cal-mag. Overall they plants look great I think, but I want to make sure I get things back on track and that I'm not missing anything else. These pics are from about 4 different plants.
Link to my thread from day 1 is in my sig. Thanks!
Soil Growers:
1. Are you growing from seed or clones?seed
2. How old are your plants? 36 days flower plus 5 weeks veg
3. How tall are your plants? 40-48"
4. What size containers are they planted in? 5 gall fabric pots
5. What is your soil mix? Pro mix BX
6. How often do you water and what type of water do you use? 1 gallon Tap water plus nutes 2x/week
7. What is the pH of your water? 5.5 with nutes
8. What kind of fertilizer do you use and what is its NPK ratio? see pic below, I use half strength each watering to make a full dose per week, not sure what the NPK ratio is
9. Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything? no
10. What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined? (HPS, MH, fluorescent, halogen, incandescent "plant lights") 600w HPS ushio
11. How close are your lights to the plants? 18-24"
12. What size is your grow space in square feet? 5'x5' by 8'tall
13. What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space? 78F and 50% lights on, 70 and 65% lights off
14. What is the pH of the soil? 6.5
15. Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space? couple random ants but nothing recently
16. How much experience do you have growing? this is my first proper indoor grow

 

[Tnelz]

5.5 is to low for promix. I've only used hp but u should be up around six. Looks like calcium but also resembles burn as well. Good luck bro. I'd start by raising ur pH. I'm sure more peeps will chime in.

 

[Natural]

Satties can be sensitive plants to over feed..but doesn't look or sound like that's it. You're locking out the Nitrogen and Cal-Mag with such low PH. It's showing as N and Mag deficiency from what I see..but the PH is the problem. Adding more Cal-Mag on top of tap with a low PH is exacerbating the problem. It's been a long time since I've used FF..but with tap water I would think you would be PH'ing up not down..which I don't see in your arsenal. Bring it up 6-6.5 and you'll be ok. Flush with PH'd tap, then go for it again. Could always do some foliar with GB and CalMag at 25% strength..might help...I wouldn't risk it past 5 weeks though.

 

[freespirit]

Cool thanks guys, I'll get on it asap. Thanks!

 

[sixstring]

Yeah im with the first 2 posters, ph is too low for promix.try 6.2 in veg and 6.0 in flower and you will be happy with the plants.could be some extra minerals in your tap water as well.im running a coco/promix combo right now and the sweet spot is 5.8 to 6.0 good luck with the finish, peace.

 

[Tnelz]

Satties can be sensitive plants to over feed..but doesn't look or sound like that's it. You're locking out the Nitrogen and Cal-Mag with such low PH. It's showing as N and Mag deficiency from what I see..but the PH is the problem. Adding more Cal-Mag on top of tap with a low PH is exacerbating the problem. It's been a long time since I've used FF..but with tap water I would think you would be PH'ing up not down..which I don't see in your arsenal. Bring it up 6-6.5 and you'll be ok. Flush with PH'd tap, then go for it again. Could always do some foliar with GB and CalMag at 25% strength..might help...I wouldn't risk it past 5 weeks though.

Always on point bro!

 

[freespirit]

Should I just leave the affected leaves? I think they will be OK. I'm going to just give them tap water for a week or so, have a new meter coming in a couple days (dogs ate mine a couple days ago). My tap water is about 7.8

 

[Tnelz]

Should I just leave the affected leaves? I think they will be OK. I'm going to just give them tap water for a week or so, have a new meter coming in a couple days (dogs ate mine a couple days ago). My tap water is about 7.8

Wouldn't worry about the leaves to much. Pretty sure they won't recover though. But do not absolutely do not give them 7.8 water bro. Gotta be between imo 5.9 6.2 if u give them 7.8 ur going to continue to have problems. Gotta be in the correct range every single water or things will continue to go south. And once they do go south things can get bad in a hurry. Ph isn't something to mess with. Of course it's beneficial to ride the pH range but to leave said range isn't OK. I think u would be headed for disaster bro. Unless of course u mean ph'd tap water and then u would be fine. Gotta get those girls in proper range my brother can't stress it enough.

 

[symbiote420]

Since I've started pHing my water I've noticed my city tap which is always around 7.8 to 8.3 pH, when I add my pH down crystals to my water to set it between 6.0 to 6.8 pH after a few hours it's climbing back up to 7.8+, wth? My bud that's a fish tank wiz told me sometimes the water's alkalinity is so high (hard water) that you'll have to add more pH down to it to stabilize it ......so take it to 5.5 pH or a little lower to offset the prob! Hard water or high alkaline water raises the pH of the mix over time locking out essential micronutrients and can fry your plants!

 

[Tnelz]

Yeah im with the first 2 posters, ph is too low for promix.try 6.2 in veg and 6.0 in flower and you will be happy with the plants.could be some extra minerals in your tap water as well.im running a coco/promix combo right now and the sweet spot is 5.8 to 6.0 good luck with the finish, peace.

Hey six! Can't pm u so I'm gonna just ask here. I have a ton of pro mix laying around. About 2.5 cf. Since moving to Coco I don't need it. However I c ur mixing. First question is why. Just curious on the benefit. (water retention?). Second what are your ratios in ur mix. I'd like to give it a whirl if ur answer is a good one anyway. Lol.

 

[Tnelz]

Since I've started pHing my water I've noticed my city tap which is always around 7.8 to 8.3 pH, when I add my pH down crystals to my water to set it between 6.0 to 6.8 pH after a few hours it's climbing back up to 7.8+, wth? My bud that's a fish tank wiz told me sometimes the water's alkalinity is so high (hard water) that you'll have to add more pH down to it to stabilize it ......so take it to 5.5 pH or a little lower to offset the prob! Hard water or high alkaline water raises the pH of the mix over time locking out essential micronutrients.

I don't necessarily disagree with u bro but I don't think his water is the same as yours. He has been phing to 5.5 and that's his problem. To low and apparently it isn't rising.

 

[symbiote420]

I was only saying that if he has hard water pHing his water that low shouldn't be a problem at all. My municipal supply is highly alkaline and hard as nails ....I'm wiping calcium and lime deposits off the shower head periodically to keep the build up off of it!! Look how dolomite lime buffers & keeps things set to a certain pH level, the same with hard/high alkaline water too ...that's why my pH rises back up slowly to where it was before I adjusted it!

 

[Tnelz]

I was only saying that if he has hard water pHing his water that low shouldn't be a problem at all. My municipal supply is highly alkaline and hard as nails ....I'm wiping calcium and lime deposits off the shower head periodically to keep the build up off of it!! Look how dolomite lime buffers & keeps things set to a certain pH level, the same with hard/high alkaline water too ...that's why my pH rises back up slowly to where it was before I adjusted it!

I get ur point all day bro. His earlier post said he's been giving his girls 5.5ph.thats his problem. As for ur water I totally understand ur logic.

 

[freespirit]

New meter comes tomorrow, I hit them w tap water today because they were dry. I'll do another gallon of pH water tomorrow.

 

[Natural]

Symbiote makes some really valid points about tap water to think about. I used to grow in tap. The main thing to remember is that you have a certain amount of ppm's already in tap water..so low feeding is key..like you have been doing, but also the alkalinity in tap can be a nuisance. Municipalities deal with it by adding a PH buffer...that's why rez growing is near impossible with tap..cause invariably the PH will keep rising.
If you wanna kill it..eventually you'll want an RO filter.

 

[freespirit]

I guess I'm lucky its only affecting a few out of 12.

 

[sixstring]

Hey six! Can't pm u so I'm gonna just ask here. I have a ton of pro mix laying around. About 2.5 cf. Since moving to Coco I don't need it. However I c ur mixing. First question is why. Just curious on the benefit. (water retention?). Second what are your ratios in ur mix. I'd like to give it a whirl if ur answer is a good one anyway. Lol.

first reason i started mixing the coco/promix @ 50/50% was to be able to use jacks classics and not worry about my ph so much because i use r/o water and the jacks is always coming out around 5.8ph after mixing.i ran my girls in 100% promix for years @ 6.0 to 6.2 ph but that was cause the ionic i used always ph.d my water to those numbers lol.but i have found my plants really like the new mix and yields are up and they still have the frost and flavor i got from promix.i also ran straight coco for a few cycles and the plants were decent just not as nice as i like em so i started mixing those 2 andi really like it now.you dont need to keep shit wet like this,i treat it like dirt and let my girls get pretty dry but my stuff does drink at least a gallon a day per plant.i dont use anything special like drip clean and i never water to runoff,plain water for the last 7-10 days.hope that helps bro,peace

 

[Tnelz]

first reason i started mixing the coco/promix @ 50/50% was to be able to use jacks classics and not worry about my ph so much because i use r/o water and the jacks is always coming out around 5.8ph after mixing.i ran my girls in 100% promix for years @ 6.0 to 6.2 ph but that was cause the ionic i used always ph.d my water to those numbers lol.but i have found my plants really like the new mix and yields are up and they still have the frost and flavor i got from promix.i also ran straight coco for a few cycles and the plants were decent just not as nice as i like em so i started mixing those 2 andi really like it now.you dont need to keep shit wet like this,i treat it like dirt and let my girls get pretty dry but my stuff does drink at least a gallon a day per plant.i dont use anything special like drip clean and i never water to runoff,plain water for the last 7-10 days.hope that helps bro,peace

It does. And thanks for the wisdom brother! Gonna mix up a batch and give it a try!

 

[freespirit]

OK my Hannah instruments multimeter came in today and I got it figured so that 1/8th teaspoon of my pH down brings 2 gallons of my water to 6.2-6.4 so everyone got a gallon of that today. Should I do a few more doses of ph'd water or just wait for my ppms to come down ? My tap water is 85,ppm and my soil runoff is a little under 300 ppm

 

[Natural]

I'd say resume feeding..for only having a couple show bad. They should improve..might have to pick some bad leaves and a week to see the improvements.