Problems with Starts & Veg. PLEASE help!!

[Max Frost]

Hi Folks,


I really need your help! I've developed problems in my veg tent that I can't figure out! My starts are stunting and having the leaves turn brown. The plant stunts and stops growing. Some look almost like it's nute burn, but I haven't fed anything. They were started in Happy Frog. My temps are running around 80f, my RH is 30-40%. Photoperiod is 18/6 and they're under T-5's. When I started them, I gave the first group (the larger of the plants now) Liquid Karma, and may have over watered a tad. I stopped the Liquid Karma, and since have been very careful not to overwater. Then I started the second group of seeds, and they have been given nothing except water pH'd to a range of 6.3-6.7. Some of the new ones are developing the same issues, but some that were started at the same time seem just fine and they have gotten nothing any different from the affected plants. Here are pics...

My only thought would be a pH issue? I calibrated my meter and think it's working just fine. Also, I'm using tap water, outgassed for 2-3 days minimum prior to use. This is the same water my mature plants get and they show no ill effects. Also, this is the same water I've used from the start without problems. My water and feeds on my mature plants are pH'd with the same pH pen as well and no apparent pH effects there. I'm really stumped by this one. Your help will be GREATLY appreciated!


Best,


Max

 

[BIGDAMBUD1]

Damn Maxx...always something setting you back bro...but we can win here...is your water from a city supply or private well?....are the Temps at the plant tops or room average?...I've never seen a seed of most any strain that would not grow well from the start with no more than you are using...my first bet would be it is something simple being overlooked...you've touched on both areas...an easy test would be to start 1 bean and use bottled water only...or try it on these and see if they improve any at all....verify your temps at plant tops.....meter calibration....my use of FF products over the years have grown numerous runs with little to no issues...I also think the issue would show instantly if the soil was faulty/hot...not after germ to this size...the reason I ask about the water, is around here, the fluctuation of chlorine/ph is vast sometimes in our city water...seedlings hate that type stuff, but a more mature plant will deal with it a little better sometimes...hang in there...we'll get um green and going...B

 

[tojocam]

Holly fuck bro on some off your very young they look burnt as if your soil was to strong and on others they look like they need N.
If bb seen them he'll give you the Awnser your looking.

 

[Seamaiden]

I see on some of the plants what resembles K-/+. I'm wondering about the soil and the LK, because in years past I've seen folks really fuck up their plants with the LK. It's just been a while and I honestly don't recall if they looked like *that*, especially the fried ones.

Do you know if your tap water is being treated with chlorine or chloramine? Chlorine can be outgassed over 24hrs, chloramine cannot, it must be 'broken' chemically. I kinda doubt that's the problem, but putting it out there.

Gotta admit, I'm stumped on this one, never seen anything quite like it outside of super-hot conditions where the roots were getting cooked. July, middle of summer, black nursery pots and a woman who had no idea.

 

[ZONER]

Max,
Did you make a slurry out of the FF soil and PH the slurry then the run off ? They look just like mine at the start of my last grow ...... Had to change out the soil on mine ..... Slowed them down a bit, but they bounced back.
Just remember I don't know crap ... :confused:

 

[Max Frost]

Holly fuck bro on some off your very young they look burnt as if your soil was to strong and on others they look like they need N.
If bb seen them he'll give you the Awnser your looking.

Thanks Tojo...yeah...I've been stumped too! Big Buddy looked them over & said he feels it's pH related. I'm going to re-calibrate my meter with some fresh solution & see what I get. Thanks for your opinion! Best, -Max :wacky:

 

[Max Frost]

Damn Maxx...always something setting you back bro...but we can win here...is your water from a city supply or private well?....are the Temps at the plant tops or room average?...I've never seen a seed of most any strain that would not grow well from the start with no more than you are using...my first bet would be it is something simple being overlooked...you've touched on both areas...an easy test would be to start 1 bean and use bottled water only...or try it on these and see if they improve any at all....verify your temps at plant tops.....meter calibration....my use of FF products over the years have grown numerous runs with little to no issues...I also think the issue would show instantly if the soil was faulty/hot...not after germ to this size...the reason I ask about the water, is around here, the fluctuation of chlorine/ph is vast sometimes in our city water...seedlings hate that type stuff, but a more mature plant will deal with it a little better sometimes...hang in there...we'll get um green and going...B

Haha...thanks SO much bro! I feel better already knowing I've got such knowledgeable friends to help pull my ass out of the fire! Well...let's see...my water is city water...very low ppm (70-ish) - pH from tap around 7.5-8ish. Temps are from soil level. Re-calibrating meter with fresh solution tomorrow (as soon as I go get some). I'm not aware of big fluctuations in the water. Whenever I've checked it...it's always right around the same pH & ppm.

I'm with you bro...I'm not doing anything any differently than I always have (with the exception of the Liquid Karma...& I've stopped it). I've always had a very easy time in early veg. I normally don't feed until after they've been up-potted for a couple of weeks...so these have a ways to go before they would get ANY supplemental nutes.

Last couple of times I've started some, I've had issues of some sort! I thought (thanks to your suggestion) it might be a bag of bad soil. I mentioned it to my guy at the grow store & he said he'd had complaints on it from another customer...so they replaced it for me. I "guess" it's possible I got another bad bag...but this seems unlikely. The guy at the store said it was a different lot. That would be consistent with my luck tho! lol.

At any rate...water & pH meter are the same being used on the mature plants & I'm seeing no ill effects... :eek: WAIT A DAMN MINUTE...MAYBE I am!!! It just hit me that my bluehaze clones are showing signs of what I "thought" was burn!!!(Although I DID think it very weird they burned since I was following nute levels I gave their mom with no ill effects. Here's a pic of what's happening with them. MAYBE this is all related???!! Another piece of the puzzle??? Here's pics of the mature plants:

This plant was a mother I decided not to keep & was flowering out. It became very droopy & the bottom started yellowing rapidly. I just culled the plant and threw it in the "hash stash", but POSSIBLY all this IS connected!

Anyway...thanks so much for your help! Best Always! -Max :wacky:

 

[Max Frost]

I see on some of the plants what resembles K-/+. I'm wondering about the soil and the LK, because in years past I've seen folks really fuck up their plants with the LK. It's just been a while and I honestly don't recall if they looked like *that*, especially the fried ones.

Do you know if your tap water is being treated with chlorine or chloramine? Chlorine can be outgassed over 24hrs, chloramine cannot, it must be 'broken' chemically. I kinda doubt that's the problem, but putting it out there.

Gotta admit, I'm stumped on this one, never seen anything quite like it outside of super-hot conditions where the roots were getting cooked. July, middle of summer, black nursery pots and a woman who had no idea.

Hi Sea! Thanks for dropping in & lending a hand!

It's my understanding that the water is just treated with Chlorine & not chloramine. (At least this is what I was told when I checked last year). I've always just out-gassed for 2-3 days prior to use & hadn't been having issues (OR so I thought -- see post above). I guess I should check with the water dept. to see if anything has changed recently. The ppm of the water right out of the tap (after out-gassing) is usually right around 70 or so & the pH is around 7.5 to 8-ish. It's had me stumped too! Thanks again, Sea! Best, -Max :wacky:

 

[Max Frost]

Max,
Did you make a slurry out of the FF soil and PH the slurry then the run off ? They look just like mine at the start of my last grow ...... Had to change out the soil on mine ..... Slowed them down a bit, but they bounced back.
Just remember I don't know crap ... :confused:

Hey bro! Welcome Z. Good to see ya, pal! No, I haven't checked that yet, but plan to when the lights come on next. Big Buddy is suspecting pH issues too, & has advised me to check that. I'll post up my findings from that. Thanks again! Best, -Max :wacky:

 

[Max Frost]

The more I think about this...the more I'm thinking it IS connected! Every grow I've done, I've had a plant or two that I have "thought" I was burning. MAYBE...just MAYBE what I've been seeing is NOT burn after all??!! Here's a pic of a Skywalker Kush from last round. Notice the damage toward the bottom of the plant. I thought this was burn, but it sure looks allot like what I'm seeing in the veg tent too now that I really think about it! The plant grew "through" it, and did fine after it grew past the damage. It did slow the plant down & I feel like it cut into the overall yield too. Here's a pic of it. Look similar??

Thanks again, folks!!!

 

[Max Frost]

A bit more info...

pH of my runoff water (of the young veg plants only...not my mature flowering ones) measured at 5.4 !!! :wtf:

WTF is up with THAT??? I'm using Happy Frog soil, right out of the bag for my germs/starts. I pH my water to 6.3 to 6.7 range, always shooting for as close to 6.5 as I can get. (It's just damn near impossible to pH plain water and get it stabilized with no nutes in it, so I use the range when using just plain water). Using pH'd water, and no nutes...how does the pH get so low in the soil? I'm wondering if the Happy Frog is as good as it was years ago when I used to use it. I always liked it for starts back then. Lately though...I'm having allot of probs from it, it seems like. I'm also noticing that it has A LOT more fucking bark in the mix than it used to. Doesn't the wood/bark chips lower the pH? Isn't that pretty acidic?

Does anybody have a recommendation for a better starting mix?


YIKES!!!

 

[sixstring]

Bark is bad, too much acid imo.i was gonna say a bad bag of soil and if they overran the bark it's high acidic now.i can't complain about promix bx or house n garden coco.those r the only 2 media I have put seeds and clones directly into without ever having a problem.botanicare and canna coco both gave me problems at one time or another.hope you get it sorted max, peace.

 

[ZONER]

A bit more info...

pH of my runoff water (of the young veg plants only...not my mature flowering ones) measured at 5.4 !!! :wtf:

WTF is up with THAT??? I'm using Happy Frog soil, right out of the bag for my germs/starts. I pH my water to 6.3 to 6.7 range, always shooting for as close to 6.5 as I can get. (It's just damn near impossible to pH plain water and get it stabilized with no nutes in it, so I use the range when using just plain water). Using pH'd water, and no nutes...how does the pH get so low in the soil? I'm wondering if the Happy Frog is as good as it was years ago when I used to use it. I always liked it for starts back then. Lately though...I'm having allot of probs from it, it seems like. I'm also noticing that it has A LOT more fucking bark in the mix than it used to. Doesn't the wood/bark chips lower the pH? Isn't that pretty acidic?

Does anybody have a recommendation for a better starting mix?


YIKES!!!

Hey Max,
I switched over to SUNSHINE ADVANCED MIX #4 did some reading about FF Soil, it seems they started a second plant on the East Coast to save on shipping costs..... One problem is they use pine mulch mixed in and pine is very acidic.

Z...............

 

[Big Buddy]

okay guys first off let me say I'm using the voice text thing on my phone so if some of the sentences here look very messed up thats the reason so don't mind it another literate I think its a pH fluctuation and it's mainly caused by the bag of soil that was used it could be a factor of the meter being messed up but I'm not really sure about that, seeing as how the new plants look pretty rough and the ones that are in flower for a while are starting to show issues as well there is a chance it could be the meter too. are the plants that you showed in flour transplanted into the same bale of soil that you used for the clones and seeds? are you still have this issue quite a bit before I nailed down that was pH I had a bad string of meters and I saw the exact same issues each time it almost looks like an overlap of different deficiencies but in reality what it comes down to is because the pH is off its okay to the range to take up anything so the plants could show many many effects. as for correcting it I would say your best bet is to flush with higher pH water you can use an incredibly light nutrient mix and pH a bit high but that's a touch risky I really wouldn't like to do that myself, it's better to flush with straight water that's pH fairly high and just continuously flush it in one sitting until the pH gets back into the range that you want that's going to take awhile though so have a lot of water ready

 

[Big Buddy]

I hope it's possible to understand that using this voice thing cause I noticed mistakes from like the very beginning

 

[Big Buddy]

and zoner, sunshine number 4 is the way to go as far as I'm concerned, the only soil I've never had issues with this stuff

 

[Big Buddy]

Also, the non structured bud issue you mentioned before is a classic ph fluctuation result in flower.

 

[Max Frost]

okay guys first off let me say I'm using the voice text thing on my phone so if some of the sentences here look very messed up thats the reason so don't mind it another literate I think its a pH fluctuation and it's mainly caused by the bag of soil that was used it could be a factor of the meter being messed up but I'm not really sure about that, seeing as how the new plants look pretty rough and the ones that are in flower for a while are starting to show issues as well there is a chance it could be the meter too. are the plants that you showed in flour transplanted into the same bale of soil that you used for the clones and seeds? are you still have this issue quite a bit before I nailed down that was pH I had a bad string of meters and I saw the exact same issues each time it almost looks like an overlap of different deficiencies but in reality what it comes down to is because the pH is off its okay to the range to take up anything so the plants could show many many effects. as for correcting it I would say your best bet is to flush with higher pH water you can use an incredibly light nutrient mix and pH a bit high but that's a touch risky I really wouldn't like to do that myself, it's better to flush with straight water that's pH fairly high and just continuously flush it in one sitting until the pH gets back into the range that you want that's going to take awhile though so have a lot of water ready

I hope it's possible to understand that using this voice thing cause I noticed mistakes from like the very beginning

Great info Big B.! (As always). And no...I think your post came out fine. I seem to be able to understand everything just fine. THAT'S gotta be a time-saver! Niiice!

Well, I have a brand new back-up pH meter still in the box. sounds like it's time to bring it out and compare readings. Maybe I'll use both meters for a while to check and see if I get consistent readings from them both.

No, Big B. It's different soil. I've been starting in the Happy Frog, then up-potting to Ocean Forrest before flipping. My water's pH, untreated, is around 7.5 to 8.0 think that's too high to flush with, or would you bring it down a bit?

If you were going to pick your ideal veg soil and flowering soil...what would it be? (Commercially available I mean...I have zero room/space to mix soils, etc.) Another downside of growing in an apartment! I could add a few amendments, but I'm just not set up to be able to mix from scratch. Thanks again!!! Best, -Max :wacky:

 

[Max Frost]

Bark is bad, too much acid imo.i was gonna say a bad bag of soil and if they overran the bark it's high acidic now.i can't complain about promix bx or house n garden coco.those r the only 2 media I have put seeds and clones directly into without ever having a problem.botanicare and canna coco both gave me problems at one time or another.hope you get it sorted max, peace.

Thanx bro! I agree...and I appreciate the kind words and well-wishes!

 

[Max Frost]

Hey Max,
I switched over to SUNSHINE ADVANCED MIX #4 did some reading about FF Soil, it seems they started a second plant on the East Coast to save on shipping costs..... One problem is they use pine mulch mixed in and pine is very acidic.

Z...............

Thanks Z! I Googled that and sure enough you're right on the money! I also ran across allot of threads where other growers are having issues with FF soils! Hmmm!!! Apparently it's redwood bark from the west coast plant and pine bark from the SC plant! WTF is SO MUCH bark doing in either one??? Bad FF...bad!!! Thanx again bro! Best, -Max :wacky: