Puzzling PH in Bubbleponics

[fred1]

Looks like nute burn to me. 400ppm is too much for plants that size. I know because I fried mine just like that and my ppm were at 400. I think with DWC you need to run your nutes much lighter, especially early on, since the roots soak perpetually in the water.

 

[Florida Girl]

What do the roots look like? Can you take a picture of them? It sounds to me like you've got the beginning of a bad situation.

My last grow suffered greatly..... My water going in (with nutes) was 5.8 and the runoff would be around 4.2. I'd flush and flush and finally get the runoff up to 5.5... then the next time I watered again the runoff would be back down to the low 4s

I grew Hempy method, which is a passive hydro method and while my first grow did GREAT... the second had problems because I didn't chill the water going in first. The warmer water became a breeding ground for the fungus. After I discovered what the problem was I treated with H2o2 and then started using ZONE (for roots) in the water as well as went back to chilling the water. My plants recovered (somewhat) and survived till I harvested them... but the yield was extremely small.

Anyway... I'd ditch that water you have, clean and santize (bleach) the res. and then refill. You should get a thermometer in there to see what the temp of the water is during lights on. Water is VERY hard to accurately guesstimate so you really need a thermometer.

If your roots look dingy or slimy.... then you need to treat them with something... H2o2 will work.... although you need the higher % type... not the kind you get in the medical isle. Check with a nursery if you don't have a local hydro store.

Good luck

 

[compqt]

Thanks for the responses.

Floridagirl - I have a digital thermometer in the res and the temps are 63.8. I will post pics of the roots in a few hours. The roots look good. And my setup is only running for 10 days and its brand new. What sucks is I am packing for business trip tonight and won't be able to change my res until Saturday

All this so early is discouraging and making me think about going back to soil

 

[Jonus]

My plants are 10 days old. Everything was good until a couple of days ago. My PH dropped from 5.9 to like 1.6. I used PH up and brought it up to 6. The next day is was back in the ones. My PPM has remained steady at 400, heat is 82 F.

What is causing this and what can I do to prevent this??

The only thing I can think of that caused that was either an accidental spill of pH down into your nute tank, or, the tester you are using is faulty or has pH down on it.

If it happens again, it would be better to flush rather than use pH up. pH up is usually a variant of potassium hydroxide. Potassium is also a component in your NPK fertilizer. Too much of it could also act the same way as using a fertilizer with a high K rating. Not 100% sure on that one, but perhaps someone here with a little more experience in bio chemistry could verify and or clarify that one a bit more for you.

 

[HomeGrownHairy]

Looks like nute burn to me. 400ppm is too much for plants that size. I know because I fried mine just like that and my ppm were at 400. I think with DWC you need to run your nutes much lighter, especially early on, since the roots soak perpetually in the water.

Yeah, I agree with you. A ppm of 400-600 is for established seedlings. I'd go really light of the nutes until they have a bit more mass.

 

[compqt]

Haven't given nutes in a week. Could it really be the PH up causing nute burn. Is it early enough if corrected to still get these babies to grow nicely???

 

[Jonus]

Its just a guess, but I suggest you flush out your nutrient with some pH adjusted water, and start with a new batch of nutes, then monitor the pH and EC/PPM regularly.

 

[compqt]

Here are some root shots. A bit blurry, camera sucks!

 

[Slab]

I owe you a joint Compqt.

Can you top off rez atleast before you leave town? that would bring your ppm down.

Don't give up Compqt, I had two bad ones in a row myself. light leaks, heart brake just the same.

 

[compqt]

I actually got my girlfriend to change half the res for me tomorrow. Just straight distilled water, and when I get back Saturday I will change the whole res. She takes care of things while I am out of town. She sends me pics of the plants and whatever she doesn't know I talk her through it.

Slab, don't worry about it. Just smoke a nice phatty for me and I hope I can get through this with minimal damage

 

[Slab]

You are a lucky man, my old lady steals from me

, microwaved but still got me faced.

Those are some nice thick cuts with great roots going,
I go 25% nutes with freshly rooted clones with no probs,

Not sure what the burn looks like from Potassium as was mentioned by Jonus. coupled with a faulty meter That makes sense

You mix feed and then ph balance right?

Just to be sure its not a cal mag deficiency, good old tap water has that advantage.


The fact that you are still in Veg, worse case is a two week delay it looks like.

You will love the speed of DWC compqt, you can bring girls in under 40 days with it.

Well have a good trip, look fwd to bud pr0n.

 

[compqt]

Well I told my girlfriend I would take her on a nice vacation with the money I am saving from buying my weed so she is all for the grow.

These are Blue Cheese feminized. Plants sprouted on the 19th so this is them 2 weeks after sprouting.

My first hydro grow i used bagseed in a DWC/aero setup I made, it went pretty good. Not as rough as this one is turning out. My plan is to take the best 2 out of these 4 plants I have now and keep them as mothers for cloning and i guess I will just flower the other 2. i am going to flower in the DWC/Aero setup under a 400 w HPS

Yes I throw my nutes in the res first and about an hour later I adjust my PH accordingly. I haven't given them nutes though in over a week.

I am using fox farm so I am following their chart and I did use 1/4 strength as they suggested. I am going to try and get my PPM down to 200 and leave it there until they get bigger. the first full dose of nutes should give me an 800PPM according to the chart so if i get it to 200 that would be 1/4 and I will go from there

Think I should go with Tap?? Never used it yet

 

[koolhand77]

I would go with tap water definetly your gonna be saving alot of dough. the other thing is your water temos are too low. you want them at 68 to 70. It's a bitch I know and doing dwc first time can be very frustrating as I am almost done my firs grow in my dwc setup I learned alot and hoping to get some good smoke out of it. All I did was just kept reading. I would go into the plant problems and read what people were doig worng and just made ure I wasen't doing it. I also had some great help from people who know what they r talking about. GL

 

[compqt]

Update

My girlfriend did a full water change in the res yesterday. today the PH is sitting at 5.4 and my PPM is under 100.

I don't think I am going to add anything for at least a week. Let the plants recover from the nute burn

 

[Jonus]

isnt 5.4 a bit low? I always thought you hydro lot were aiming more at 5.8?

 

[fred1]

Start fiddling with the PH too much and you are asking for problems. 5.4 is fine.

 

[compqt]

Start fiddling with the PH too much and you are asking for problems. 5.4 is fine.

yeah I think thats what happened when I started this. I kept adding PH up to my rez and I think thats what caused my problems. Someone mentioned that the PH up could have caused my nute burn. 5.4 is a lot better than what it was doing (dropping into the 1.5 range) so I am happy about that

Thanks guys

 

[compqt]

Question:

The leaves that are showing the nute burn are dry and brown. should I trim them off or leave them???

 

[Jonus]

yeah I think thats what happened when I started this. I kept adding PH up to my rez and I think thats what caused my problems. Someone mentioned that the PH up could have caused my nute burn. 5.4 is a lot better than what it was doing (dropping into the 1.5 range) so I am happy about that

Thanks guys

You shouldn't really have had to use pH up in your hydro tank. The reason would have been because the PPMs were too high causing nute burn which would have meant the pH would have been too low too because of too higher concentration of nutrient in the water.

So dropping the pH to 5.4 would 'normally' cause a few deficiencies like nitrogen, phosporous and magnesium. But because you have previously pumped them full of nutes, there will be still quite a bit in the stems and it will take about a week or two before the plant uses up the excess in it and you may start to notice deficiencies from the pH being too low.

The leaves that are showing the nute burn are dry and brown. should I trim them off or leave them???

I think once the plant gets a bit bigger it would be ok to remove them. But in general they will competely die and just fall off in their own time. If you do pull them off it would pay to do so before you flower your plant.

They are unsightly, and the actual brown burnt paper parts of the leaf are completely dead and you will see that even touching them they will break off the rest of the leaf.

Once you get the balance right with your nutrient PPM so that they arent getting cooked and pH stablised, then you hopefully shouldnt see any more of those smoked leaves.

 

[compqt]

Thanks Jonus. I am going to give them at least a week before I do anything and see what happens