The ULTIMATE noob question! Should I start over?

[Roger A. Shrubber]

You've said this 42 times before...
JD

sounds about right....

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

Curious to know what you mean exactly by 'put your feed in at the right ph'. I imagine that's going to be different depending on how you're growing. I'm pH balancing my water and then feeding the plant, and then checking the pH after to make sure the nutrients didn't change the pH in which case usually no. I'm on my first DWC plant right now. For soil or coco I am guessing you're very knowledgeable about that and its different. I'd like to learn more about coco and the pros or cons of it.

6.1 for coco, 6.3 for peat, 6.5 for soil....
if your feed changes the ph...let it.....AS LONG AS YOU'RE PUTTING IT IN IN THE RIGHT RANGE....IT'LL BE FINE....
quit overthinking it....quit trying to adjust the ph of your medium....just put it in right.........don't even check it coming out.....that's for hydroponics....no matter what people say...coco isn't hydroponics, it's a soil-less medium...it has similarities to hydroponics, but many important differences. coco has a buffering ability, and absorbs a lot of cal, M., K., and P till it's "deficits" are filled...it's going to throw off the ph that you would be reading, but the plants are fine...they adapt to their medium, and usually don't have any problems, until people start trying to compensate for problems that don't exist...so don't compensate for a problem that doesn't exist


i thought you were in coco....now i see you're not the op....dwc is different, and you should be keeping an eye on res ph, it tells you about whats getting used by the plants.....but it's not a practice that translates well to coco or peat,.

 

[cannabineer]

Straight coco/perlite washed and buffered some had suggested my coco was dirty and still had high salt and I'm not sure I did this right but I took about a gallon of my tap water and soaked about half a gallon of my coco in it for a couple hours strained it and checked ppm. My starting ppm of the tap water was 140 and after the coco soak was 185

Those are not bad numbers. I don't know why your plants look unhappy. The one thing I can suggest is to keep your nutrient pH at around 5.8; this is the sweet spot for a friend who does coco/perlite DTW.

Don't give up on these plants. The only way to become a good grower is to work with your problem plants and gain the experience.

 

[Juiceifer]

i don't know how many times i've said this, or will have to say it again....put your feed in at the right ph, and it'll take care of itself.
i like to center at 6.1 for coco....drop down to 5.8 occasionally, let it rise to 6.3 occasionally, then back to 6.1......do that and you should never get lockouts due to ph.
water every day with ph'ed water, with enough nutes added to bring it up to about 100 ppm. you don't want to water coco with plain water.
feed on w/e schedule you've been using, otherwise. you also want to get a little run off each time you water, in coco. not a lot, maybe 10%...but it helps to both draw oxygen through the whole pot, and washes out depleted salts, so your roots stay nice and healthy

Yes and it is one thing I was wanting to do but cut corners with an ph perfect line hoping I could go without at least till I had the funds for the other supplies that in hindsight if I was doing coco especially should have come first

 

[cannabineer]

Yes and it is one thing I was wanting to do but cut corners with an ph perfect line hoping I could go without at least till I had the funds for the other supplies that in hindsight if I was doing coco especially should have come first

I would avoid AN. They're famous for lying on their label. GH 3-part with supplemental CaliMagic and some silica is a complete and proven nute in coco. I recommend.

 

[curious2garden]

So I've posted a few questions on here considering my current grow, it has looked sad almost from the start. First it seemed like overwatering then burn and they just seem overall stunted. I picked up a ppm and ph meter today and while the ppm of my tap water wasn't crazy at 140 the ph is 8.5 which by looking at a ph scale effectively locks out almost every nutrient and I believe this may have been the problem from the get go

These girls are 2 1/2 weeks

Hey Juiceifer, your plants look like they are drowning to me. I've never had luck with those Jiffy pots. For some reason they never dropped water through them and I always had a sludge at the bottom. I've seen other people have no issue at all. They just didn't work for me, or I screwed up.

You might want to flip a pot over, tap the plant out and take a look and see how wet things are. I might even poke a hole in the bottom.

You can drop your plant right back in (I check for root binding that way).

 

[Lethidox]

yea i read some people dont use em because it can cause fungus or some shit. but i do see some growers on youtube that have luck using them.

 

[Juiceifer]

HOLY SHIT! who'da thunk it. You find and fix the problem and everything else falls into place. I got some ph down yesterday to go along with the ph pen I got Saturday and was given a free liter of cyco ph up cause the cap leaks if held sideways and squeezed so they couldn't sell it . Ph'd my water added nutes got out of the damn jiffy pots they were sucking the coco dry way to fast and did what I consider my first real feeding and these girls pulled a 180!

 

[Big Perm]

So I've posted a few questions on here considering my current grow, it has looked sad almost from the start. First it seemed like overwatering then burn and they just seem overall stunted. I picked up a ppm and ph meter today and while the ppm of my tap water wasn't crazy at 140 the ph is 8.5 which by looking at a ph scale effectively locks out almost every nutrient and I believe this may have been the problem from the get go

These girls are 2 1/2 weeks

Sorry I haven't read every post. Are these autos?

 

[Juiceifer]

Sorry I haven't read every post. Are these autos?

No they are not, they are fem photos. 2 Cinderella 99 and a skunk kush.
Here they are the third morning after fixing ph which is now

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

No they are not, they are fem photos. 2 Cinderella 99 and a skunk kush.
Here they are the third morning after fixing ph which is now

looking good...give them a week or so to really get going, then repot them, they have to be starting to get root bound in those solo cups.

 

[Serpentz]

6.1 for coco, 6.3 for peat, 6.5 for soil....
if your feed changes the ph...let it.....AS LONG AS YOU'RE PUTTING IT IN IN THE RIGHT RANGE....IT'LL BE FINE....
quit overthinking it....quit trying to adjust the ph of your medium....just put it in right.........don't even check it coming out.....that's for hydroponics....no matter what people say...coco isn't hydroponics, it's a soil-less medium...it has similarities to hydroponics, but many important differences. coco has a buffering ability, and absorbs a lot of cal, M., K., and P till it's "deficits" are filled...it's going to throw off the ph that you would be reading, but the plants are fine...they adapt to their medium, and usually don't have any problems, until people start trying to compensate for problems that don't exist...so don't compensate for a problem that doesn't exist


i thought you were in coco....now i see you're not the op....dwc is different, and you should be keeping an eye on res ph, it tells you about whats getting used by the plants.....but it's not a practice that translates well to coco or peat,.

No, not the OP. Sorry about the confusion. What I was trying to understand is if nutrients when added to a Deep Water Culture setup would balance out pH. Now I understand that the coco has a buffering ability.

Of course I tried testing the pH with my water change and it was less than slightly unaffected by the nutrients.

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

I felt compelled to respond. First...you will not drowned roots via flushing. But if you flush with straight RO water...you'll mess up the CEC and all the coco buffering will be gone.

You can't change the basic ph of a medium though watering ph manipulation.

Flush with low dose nutes or some calmag...then just go back to coco routines. Maybe ph 5.8 or thereabouts.
JD

i don't know how many times i've said this, or will have to say it again....put your feed in at the right ph, and it'll take care of itself.
i like to center at 6.1 for coco....drop down to 5.8 occasionally, let it rise to 6.3 occasionally, then back to 6.1......do that and you should never get lockouts due to ph.
water every day with ph'ed water, with enough nutes added to bring it up to about 100 ppm. you don't want to water coco with plain water.
feed on w/e schedule you've been using, otherwise. you also want to get a little run off each time you water, in coco. not a lot, maybe 10%...but it helps to both draw oxygen through the whole pot, and washes out depleted salts, so your roots stay nice and healthy

Its coco and the plants are young, nothing that can't be fixed has happened. Just get to watering with nutrients and ph to 5.8-6.2

@Juiceifer - These guys are right. Gather your skirts and get to work on doing it right. The plants will survive and do fine if you can be patient and take good advice.

Edit: d’oh late to the party.

 

[hawse]

Glad to see they are doing well. Yeah, just keep putting in that 6.5 water and don't worry about the run-off so much for sure. Also, I wouldn't even worry about adding any nutes with that FFOF soil for at least a week or three...

 

[curious2garden]

HOLY SHIT! who'da thunk it. You find and fix the problem and everything else falls into place. I got some ph down yesterday to go along with the ph pen I got Saturday and was given a free liter of cyco ph up cause the cap leaks if held sideways and squeezed so they couldn't sell it . Ph'd my water added nutes got out of the damn jiffy pots they were sucking the coco dry way to fast and did what I consider my first real feeding and these girls pulled a 180!

They look relieved. I run solely coco and I run my pH at 5.8 and allow to float to 6.1.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

They look relieved. I run solely coco and I run my pH at 5.8 and allow to float to 6.1.

You run pure coco coir? What product do you prefer? I like coco, but pure coco seems too heavy, I like some charred forest product and a lot of perlite added to it, among other possible amendments. I am near-zero media DWC for most of my systems now, but spent a little time in coco. Tupur seemingly went to shit, but I loved it for a minute.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

HOLY SHIT! who'da thunk it. You find and fix the problem and everything else falls into place. I got some ph down yesterday to go along with the ph pen I got Saturday and was given a free liter of cyco ph up cause the cap leaks if held sideways and squeezed so they couldn't sell it . Ph'd my water added nutes got out of the damn jiffy pots they were sucking the coco dry way to fast and did what I consider my first real feeding and these girls pulled a 180!

Looking much happier! Congratulations.

 

[Juiceifer]

looking good...give them a week or so to really get going, then repot them, they have to be starting to get root bound in those solo cups.

No they were in jiffy pots when looking sickly I put them in the cups Saturday and when I did I couldn't see any roots now that they are in the cups and doing better the roots just reached the bottom but I planned on doing just that one week and transplant

 

[Michael Huntherz]

No they were in jiffy pots when looking sickly I put them in the cups Saturday and when I did I couldn't see any roots now that they are in the cups and doing better the roots just reached the bottom but I planned on doing just that one week and transplant

They will go for two weeks easy if you don’t overwater, they will have a good base of roots by then. Let them stretch their roots for water a bit during veg, it makes for strong roots during flower. Let the media dry out a bit.

 

[curious2garden]

You run pure coco coir? What product do you prefer? I like coco, but pure coco seems too heavy, I like some charred forest product and a lot of perlite added to it, among other possible amendments. I am near-zero media DWC for most of my systems now, but spent a little time in coco. Tupur seemingly went to shit, but I loved it for a minute.

50/50 pith and xlg perlite. Pure pith is to heavy. I have run 50/50 pith/coir and hated it, but the plants didn't mind it. Felt like growing in Brillo pads, yech!

LOL I meant I don't run any other substrate. I used to run NFT and then Advanced Sunshine Mix #4 but love coco.