Help is the a ca problem?

bird mcbride

Well-Known Member
IMO they appear a bit burned by something that's being overdone.
In my hobby table I am using city water, and cheap $2C liquid fertilizer. The ph is deliberately being run at 6-6.5ph. The clones in this table are skyrocketing and are the proper shade of green. It's a veg and I am raising the 80 watts of daylight CFL's daily by 3-4 inches. There aren't any signs of deficiency and the clones are perfectly green.
At first I had some leaf problems(very similar) before I figured out this cheap chinese fertilizer.
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Picture isn't the best, but FFOF is not only a "hot" soil, but lends itself to cal/mag def also over burn..... How old is your plant and how much of the plant has this issue?
Im pretty sure thats what the problem is, ive been looking up problems with ffof and im thinking its deeper than a cal/mag problem, is ditching ffof a good choice? it just seems weird I had to problems until now but they have gotten progressively worse quickly
 

ghgou812

Active Member
Im pretty sure thats what the problem is, ive been looking up problems with ffof and im thinking its deeper than a cal/mag problem, is ditching ffof a good choice? it just seems weird I had to problems until now but they have gotten progressively worse quickly
Well.... I was struggling with ditching the FFOF after my first few grows. Now I have a nice mix down (FFOF - perlite - lime) and believe it or not, actually saves me some dough by not needing to use nutes for the first 4 - 5 weeks. After my seed germinated, I put them in a 1 gallon pot where they stay for 3 - 4 weeks. When I transplant them to a 5 gallon pot, all the new soil mix has nutes to carry them for another 2 - 3 weeks. Then I start at 1/2 the recommended dose and work them up to full doses.
 

cottee

Well-Known Member
I think the cal/mag just created more problems for me, so a good flush is in order right? Ive been holding off but im sure I need it, thanks for replying ive been losing it trying to figure out the problems
Never grown in soil I ts sounds a right pain in the ass. Get on the coco bandwagon it's easy peasy lol
 

Alexander Supertramp

Well-Known Member
Would epsom salt work cause I feel like your correct, Its getting worse. I need to post another pic but im getting a lot more red stems on her, is that due to the cal problem?
Epsom Salts does not contain Calcium. Only Magnesium and Sulphur. And the Calcium in molasses is not readily available to plants. Actually causes more harm than good. You need CalMag for a quick fix. And dolomite lime for a long term solution. Be sure to include dolomite in your medium mix next grow. Earth worm castings are also a great source of Calcium.
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Well.... I was struggling with ditching the FFOF after my first few grows. Now I have a nice mix down (FFOF - perlite - lime) and believe it or not, actually saves me some dough by not needing to use nutes for the first 4 - 5 weeks. After my seed germinated, I put them in a 1 gallon pot where they stay for 3 - 4 weeks. When I transplant them to a 5 gallon pot, all the new soil mix has nutes to carry them for another 2 - 3 weeks. Then I start at 1/2 the recommended dose and work them up to full doses.
I like your style kind of takes the guessing of whether or not the nutes in the soil have been used up, thanks for the advice, hopefully she will make it through the final month
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Never grown in soil I ts sounds a right pain in the ass. Get on the coco bandwagon it's easy peasy lol
Im close to joining the bandwagon, just wanted to get a grow or two under my belt first, im annoyed with the soil being washed away so easily, and scared to add more in case of burning. I think my problem was underestimating how complicated mj is, everything was working so well lol but flowering ended that
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Epsom Salts does not contain Calcium. Only Magnesium and Sulphur. And the Calcium in molasses is not readily available to plants. Actually causes more harm than good. You need CalMag for a quick fix. And dolomite lime for a long term solution. Be sure to include dolomite in your medium mix next grow. Earth worm castings are also a great source of Calcium.
Im using calmag with no results so im getting more confused by the minute. Idk whether I added too much cal so now the mg wont be absorbed or if I have salt built up on the roots, I do know that ive seen this problem a lot with ffof. But thanks, dolomite will be a must next grow
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Cannabis complicated to grow? I dont think so...its a super easy plant to grow.
You're correct, anybody can grow it, but to try to perfect the craft is complicated due to the same thing that makes it easy to grow. Theres a million different ways to train and grow it but one can always just throw it in some dirt to grow, theres always more to learn. So in essence very easy to grow, but has complicated processess which keeps veteran growers coming back to discover better ways to grow
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Found out it was a ph problem, ph got down to 4 somehow so to any newbies such as myself lime is a must for ffof, i had to use a whole bottle of ph up to get it back to normal, shits ridiculous really lol u figure the hydro store would warn a brother, plus thats how they make more money so everyone who replied thanks a lot, everyone was right as well
 

Alexander Supertramp

Well-Known Member
Found out it was a ph problem, ph got down to 4 somehow so to any newbies such as myself lime is a must for ffof, i had to use a whole bottle of ph up to get it back to normal, shits ridiculous really lol u figure the hydro store would warn a brother, plus thats how they make more money so everyone who replied thanks a lot, everyone was right as well
You just made another common mistake. Reading runoff pH and thinking you can adjust the medims pH simply by pouring pHed water through it. Dosent work that way. Plus the pH up most likely contained lots of sodium, not a good thing for your medium. I seriously doubt your pH was anywhere near 4. Your plants would be showing many more issues than the little problems they are having.
 
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jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
You just made another common mistake. Reading runoff pH and thinking you can adjust the medims pH simply by pouring pHed water through it. Dosent work that way. Plus the pH up most likely contained lots of sodium, not a good thing for your medium. I seriously doubt your pH was anywhere near 4. Your plants would be showing many more issues than the little problems they are having.
I feel like u are correct it took me forever to get a consistent reading on the ph, im gonna pick up some lime today but what would you suggest I do? Like i said its my first time growing so Im not too sure of what to do lol what I thought was right ended up being wrong as hell
 

churchhaze

Well-Known Member
A good pH up for horticulture is based on potassium hydroxide. There's no sodium in potassium hydroxide. It's very high in potassium though.

It's cheapest to get potassium hydroxide as flakes for generic purposes rather than pH up.

... Plus the pH up most likely contained lots of sodium.
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
A good pH up for horticulture is based on potassium hydroxide. There's no sodium in potassium hydroxide. It's very high in potassium though.

It's cheapest to get potassium hydroxide as flakes for generic purposes rather than pH up.
I had the general hydroponic ph up, is that high in sodium? Im trying to figure out whether I should flush or not again, I dont want a salt build up... ive never heard of the flakes so I may look into it, I was also thinking about throwing some lime in during a flush in hopes of it activating quicker
 

poopshoot65

New Member
I just started my second grow after my first grow failed after three weeks due to me using shit soil and not doing my research. This time around I'm using FFOF with an added 15% perlite mix. I'm roughly three weeks in and I seem to be getting this same issue on a couple of my older leaves. I read through all your comments saying it could be a pH issue, but has anyone figured this out for sure? Im not going to start nutes until I transplant them into 5gal containers. Right now they are sitting in 1gal containers and I have 4 of them. The two larger ones are the ones that are being affected. Please let me know if you guys have any input. Thanks
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
Since u still need a transplant go out and buy some dolomite lime, only like 5 bucks and add it to the soil, and transplant, the ffof should have what you need with the lime added to it to fix your problem, and keep you going without nutes for a few weeks, if your already having problems now it will only get worse on the switch. Your probably having a cal or mag issue hard to tell with no pics, I cant stress enough check ph also
 

jpizzle4shizzle

Well-Known Member
I just started my second grow after my first grow failed after three weeks due to me using shit soil and not doing my research. This time around I'm using FFOF with an added 15% perlite mix. I'm roughly three weeks in and I seem to be getting this same issue on a couple of my older leaves. I read through all your comments saying it could be a pH issue, but has anyone figured this out for sure? Im not going to start nutes until I transplant them into 5gal containers. Right now they are sitting in 1gal containers and I have 4 of them. The two larger ones are the ones that are being affected. Please let me know if you guys have any input. Thanks
Answered you above also, but it sounds like your big ones are eating faster and ate the nutes outta the soil at a faster rate causing a deficiency on either cal or mag. The lime will fix that on the transplant but imo transplanting them would be an easy fix
 
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