Some questions about soilless things like Foxfarm and Sunshine #4

[WestCoaster]

Hi all,

It's been over ten years since I grew and when I quit growing I had been doing it hydroponically for five years so I have some questions about nutrient and PH levels for use in Fox Farm mixtures.

When I last quit growing hydro wise, I ran my nutrients at 1200 ppm and my PH at mid 6's, 6.3-6.7

My local grow shop recommended General Hydroponics Floro Nova grow formula with nuts on the label at 7-4-10, seems wrong to me. It only takes a teaspoon of grow mix to get a gallon of water to just over 1000 ppm, so this some bad ass strong stuff or something is wrong with my brand new Hanna meter.

The bloom mix is from the same General Hydroponics company and the nuts are listed at 4-8-7, once again seems wrong to me and takes very little of the concentrate to achieve a ppm reading just over 1000.

So, my questions are for those that grow in soilless mixtures and check your levels before watering, do my numbers seem OK to you? If not, what direction do I need to take the PPM & PH numbers?

I only ask this because I am starting to see some yellowing of the lower leafs and most plants are 3-4 feet tall being grown outdoors in the Seattle area.

I did a search for the Floro Nova products and came up with a mixed bag of results.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

WC.

 

[20kwDreamer]

Depends on your source water, you want it to be >100ppm ideally. You want the water at pH 6.0, mix and feed. If you let it sit pH will drift.

Anywhere from 3mL to 8mL; 5mL a gallon being my average along with 1mL of Floralicious+. 400-1100ppm, watch the girls.

 

[WestCoaster]

Thanks for the responses PH and 20K.

My water source is bottled water that tests at near 0 ppm and a very neutral 7.0 before doing anything to it.

I only have eight plants so it's not going to break the bank to give the girls nothing but pure water to start with.

I do know this, the plant supplier had the plants on a 24 hour light regimen, and after I got them they went outdoors to 14-16 hours of light, (Seattle area). I don't know if the stress could cause something like that or not.

I will drop the PH closer to 6.0 as now that I think hard about it, in my hydro days I always ran it close to 6.0 and even lower when flushing at the end of the crop cycle.

I will correct the ph on the next watering later today and see what happens between eight different breeds all showing the same symptoms of some lower and mid plant yellow leaves tells me it's a nutrient thing.

I will say this, all the new growth on the tops of the plants looks very healthy and the fact that I only water from the bottom using trays may be affecting this somehow as I am pretty sure the plants were all watered from the tops before.

Time will tell.

Once again thank you for your responses.

WC.

 

[Chronicoil]

I was trying to troubleshoot a similar problem with my girls today. I repotted a little later than I should have, they are all about a foot or so high, the Sweet Hawaiian is an amazon girl who wants to be the star player lol. Anyway, I had them in a combo of african violet potting soil and coco. They seemed to be doing fine to a point, then I noticed bottom leaves turning yellow and drying up. It seemed they weren't getting the N so I repotted in Foxfarm as suggested by one of the local shops and gave more N with the first watering. The next morning the leaves were all wilting except for my Hawaiian girl, she seemed very happy and started shooting out new branches so I was like COOL, but couldn't figure the other one's out as they continued to drop lower leaves. So I put them outside for a couple days and the wilting went away, but now they are showing signs of being overfed. Hawaiian girl still growing tall and stands strong against fan on highest setting, but she's yellow, lookin a little like mosaic but all over.

Did I ruin my babies?