Using Mag Cal

[steelyeyes]

Using Cal Mag

I'm running and ebb and grow system with a 50 gallon reservior. I have a 600w air cooled light in a 5x4x8 room.

Temps now that I started recirculating some of the cooling air for the light back to the room are right at 82 above the light and 84 at the plant tops.

My nutrients are Aqua Flakes with Multi Zen running around 1200 ppm (EC 1.8) and some root accelerator. pH is 5.7 Plants are just at preflower, growth is dense but not happy. Leaves are bit pale and there is a bit of tip burn.

I could dump and refill the reservior but the deal is I'm only growing three plants on this trial run and we did that a couple of weeks ago.

So I think I need a little Cal Mag but the label wasn't overly helpful, well actually the House and Garden label wasn't. I have a target ppm for NPK on the Cal Mag but can't figure out how to calculate how much I need to get there since that info. is lacking on the H&G label.

So should I just try it at a teaspoon a gallon like the lower level on the label says and see if they perk up or what. Will that drive my ppm (EC) too high?


I do have a seperate issue with humidity as it's dropped to the 30% range but I'll fix that tomorrow with a humidifier.

Any ideas?

 

[REGISTRD]

Start at 2ml a gal and go from there

 

[Skunkmasterflex]

yeah i start with 2ml as well per gal....with seeds i dont apply till about the 3rd week or so, and with cutts i start about a week or so earlier than that. i use soil (ocean forest) with all organic nutes. be careful not to over to the cal mag right off the rip if your not used to using it yet as the first time i used it i went with what it said on the label and over did it a bit LOL....u will get the hang of it after using it a while....the OGs seem to love cal-mag bro, they get super crazy on it....

 

[steelyeyes]

Cool, thanks.

Dumped 100 ml in my 50 gallons this afternoon. How long before I see a reaction do you think?

 

[PureSugar]

How big are the plants and what's your growing medium? You mentioned that you changed your reserivor a couple of weeks ago. Do you monitor your pH and PPM daily. I mix fresh nutes every few days. I'm wondering if your plants have used up the nutes and are hungry. Picts would be a BIG help. The plants are probably low on Iron if your solution has been aerated for a few weeks.

 

[steelyeyes]

The pH gets checked every day in the morning and at night. We did have an issue with a meter getting out of calibration. We caught that a bit late and the ph had been below 5.0 for a while so the PPM wasn't changing. There are three of us that tend it and two of us were out of town when that happened. This hydo stuff seems to have a steep learning curve. We check the meter in calibration solution weekly now and keep an eye on what it says the ph of our supply water is. If that reads much different than 7.6 we check the meter again.

Since the ph has actually been at 5.7-6.1 for nearly a week the PPMs are slowly dropping, which seems cool. Three plants on a 50 gallon res. doesn't seem like it would move the nutes out nearly as fast as if we had all 16 pots running. We're still wobbling around trying to figure this out and would rather only kill a few than a whole bunch.

The plants are about 24-28 inches tall, the media is straight hydroton. Honestly with the mistakes we've made so far I'm amazed that they aren't dry and crispy...:)

 

[been]

You don't need cal-mag with Hydroton and I think you're running the nute levels too high for a 600w lamp.

 

[dayday]

You don't need cal-mag with Hydroton and I think you're running the nute levels too high for a 600w lamp.

I agree to many nutes I would lower EC to 1.2- 1.4 and and see how things go from there..

dayday

 

[steelyeyes]

I dumped the tank, flushed the pots with water from the top down, and I'm flushing with pH balanced water for a couple of days. I'll make up a lower EC when it's time and see how it goes.

 

[KING_KONG_KOLAS]

Exactly what does cal-mag do for your plants. And when do your plants need it.
I have been growing organically in soil for years and have not have many if any deficiancies. Do I need cal-mag?

 

[steelyeyes]

I was running the nutes too high. The feed chart was kind of confusing and I ended up feeding them at the early bloom rate...not cool.

My wife bought some GH Flora series stuff and mixed it per the feeding schedule on the bottle, which doesn't agree with the pamphlet, which doesn't agree with the their web site calculator. They all end up with ppms nearly double what you really need. Good thing I was only running 30 gallons in my 50 gallon tank and a feed cycle hadn't come up yet. We'll just dilute until we get to an EC in the 1.2 range and rebalance he pH. I've got another system running at 1.2 and those plants are happy and green and growing.

 

[steelyeyes]

OK. The nutes were a bit hot but the main problem was a lockout due to previous pH issues. So even though I changed the res. they were still circling the drain and getting worse every day. Last ditch, hail mary, thing was Cal Mag. We dosed it once and they stopped getting worse, added more and they are slowly coming back from the dead. I've got other thriving plants coming up from behind so I might have to sacrifice these to the god of mistakes made to clear my flower room for them but at least we figured it out.

 

[SSHZ]

I've found that I need to add Cal/Mag when I use R.O. water........ plants seem to need more of these than most fertilizers provide. I just add small amounts on a weekly basis starting in flowering and I never have any issues.

 

[Jalisco Kid]

You don't need cal-mag with Hydroton and I think you're running the nute levels too high for a 600w lamp.

What is in hydroton or what does it do that makes you think you do not need to use cal/mag with hydroton? JK

 

[hailo]

Exactly what does cal-mag do for your plants. And when do your plants need it.
I have been growing organically in soil for years and have not have many if any deficiancies. Do I need cal-mag?

Calcium and Magnesium is calmag.
Its needed from like 2 weeks old till about 7th week of flower

The reason you havnt needed calmag is:
1)Your using filtered(hopefully) city water, which contains cal, mag, and a lot of garbage
2)you use dolomite lime or some sort of lime
3)the soil you grow in has enough of it
4)the strain you were growing wasnt a calmag hog

 

[Cat Jockey]

Everyone just hold the fuck on. Step away from the Cal/Mag.

Yowsers. This is how rumors get started.

So I think I need a little Cal Mag

What makes you think that?

What the fuck do I know? Who knows. But here is what I know about Cal/Mag.

If you are using RO water, use Cal/Mag. Maybe. Depends on what nute line you are using.

What nutes you using steelyeyes?

Tap water is loaded with calcium. Start throwing more Cal at the plants with Cal/Mag and you could have problems.

Different nute lines have different Mg levels as well.

Botanicare comes to mind. Cal/Mag +, Sweet, etc. Why? Because they don't put enough Mg in their PBP line. Buy more shit instead.

If you are using tap water in hydro and think you have a Mg def., play with the pH first. If that doesn't work, consider switching nute lines to a mopre appropriate MJ line.

Keep in mind that Cal/Mag, at least the ones I am familiar with, have other things, like Nitrogen in them as well.

What's your nute regiment?

 

[Kpezzy]

Everyone just hold the fuck on. Step away from the Cal/Mag.

Yowsers. This is how rumors get started.



What makes you think that?

What the fuck do I know? Who knows. But here is what I know about Cal/Mag.

If you are using RO water, use Cal/Mag. Maybe. Depends on what nute line you are using.

What nutes you using steelyeyes?

Tap water is loaded with calcium. Start throwing more Cal at the plants with Cal/Mag and you could have problems.

Different nute lines have different Mg levels as well.

Botanicare comes to mind. Cal/Mag +, Sweet, etc. Why? Because they don't put enough Mg in their PBP line. Buy more shit instead.

If you are using tap water in hydro and think you have a Mg def., play with the pH first. If that doesn't work, consider switching nute lines to a mopre appropriate MJ line.

Keep in mind that Cal/Mag, at least the ones I am familiar with, have other things, like Nitrogen in them as well.

What's your nute regiment?

I heard a rumor that dudes from Colorado think their bud is better than Cali and we all know Cali bud is the bestest :tongue0011:

 

[Cat Jockey]

I heard a rumor that dudes from Colorado think their bud is better than Cali

I personally believe the digity dank to be grown by people across the globe.

 

[Boylobster]

My nutrients are Aqua Flakes with Multi Zen running around 1200 ppm (EC 1.8) and some root accelerator. pH is 5.7 Plants are just at preflower, growth is dense but not happy. Leaves are bit pale and there is a bit of tip burn.

Cat, I think that's his nute regimen. Good to advise caution before wildly spraying additives everywhere, though. :D

steelyeyes: I'm *so* stoked to have looked in your thread! I'm running RO with Aqua Flakes A&B, Multi Zyme, and Root Excelurator, and am experiencing what sounds like exactly the same problems. Please, tell me, how's your CalMag experiment going? I need to flip my buddies, like, NOW, but I don't want to without making sure they have everything they need. Take a look at my Under Current thread if you like, and see if it seems similar to your issues. Cheers!

 

[steelyeyes]

I've been adding the CalMag and it's helped some but not a lot. My other plants are ripping along on the AquaFlakes at an EC of 1.2, pH around 5.7-5.9. I use filtered well water with an original TDS of about 150 or so. I'm using multi zen, root excellerator, and drip clear on those and they're loving it.

I think my older girls got too beat up from some major overfeeding, then pH got all out of whack (pen out of calibration 5.7 was really 4.1), and then after the flush my wife screwed up the nute mix again and burned them once more for good measure. Their clones are happy and have huge leaves but the original plants are pale, small leaves, and hardly growing. I just flipped to 12/12 to see if I can salvage anything from them before we chop them to clear the flower room for the new kids.