Well I hope this goes in the proper section here.
I guess I better start with the history of the plants in question.
I am a first time grower, I figured since I like to smoke as I feel it helps me greatly with my bi polar issues.... instead of purchasing I would simply make my own medicine since I will know what is going in it and just the satisfaction of creating my own smoke.
So.. I simply snagged some bag seed from 2 different strains and both were VERY good smoke!!! Now, I have NO clue exactly WHAT these seeds were exactly except that I KNOW it is very good stuff. One is Sativa dom. and the other is Indica dom. Suprisingly the sativa dom. veg plant I have is the most LUSH and HEALTHY. But the indicas are very healthy and nice as well one being the bad ass of them all but only ONE sativa plant made it through propagation and I did a lousy job at that looking back.
Plants started off stunted from over watering. Soon however they finally started growing, then my wonderful thinking and youtube helped me decide to top the MAIN shoot when only about 6 inch tall but that was 2 MONTHS old!!!! Yeah, they were ALLLLL seriously stunted!! LOL then I stunted them again and topped them.
Well, 8 months later and I have 4 healthy indica doms and one SUPER healthy sativa dom. They alllllll have 4 MAIN shoots now and are BUSH monsters!!!
I set up these veg plants in a drip system in 2 gal buckets of hydroton with the rockwool cubes burried in them. I run GH flora series with Micro Grow And Bloom, I also us MANY other additives such as Dimond nectar, flora blend, superthrive, hygrozyme, h2o2, lets see, ah yes some super B+ and that is about it. I have used this blend over the 8 months and though with my improper techniques early on, eventually this blend worked VERY well and the plants FLOURISHED!!!, I ONLY EVER USED DISTILLED WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had 5 plants in a 2x6 closet with only 4 ft of the closet lighted. I have a 4x2 T5 8 light setup, not the VHO but the model down from it. PLENTY of light BUT these five plants have gotten to bushy for this space. Also note about 3 weeks ago I added an Automatic Jack I got as a FREE seed and since I haven't used the REAL seeds I ordered until I can successfully grow bag seed from good gene's then I just used this FREE seed as an experiment. It cracked in distilled water, I put it in a ph'd rockwool cube, it sprouted but 2 days later it was looking BAD. I noticed that the seed cap was still STUCK to the top so I pullled it away and there was BLACK. I left it alone and it too got STUNTED, and then FINALLY after about 3 weeks old now it is about 1/4 inch tall man and has lush leaves but is BARELY GROWING!!! Overwatering it appears again, Man I really suck at that!!!
So. Now to the problem, I use those nutes, been using them for months works great. But now that the plants are gettting TOO big, I decided instead of KILLING the lesser healthy one's and I don't even know the sex of any of these yet.... I deciced I would try my hand in DWC in 5gal buckets. Now.... I started thinking and with that Critical Jack now growing a little bit, I am going to need to start thinking about water source BESIDES hauling and buying shit tons of DISTILLED WATER....
So you know of course that brought me to an RO system. So I went and bought a Whirlpool Ro system at Lowes. Thing gets the PPM down to 4, and the ph is at 7, basically almost like distilled water..... Well, I fill up a 40 gallon trash barrel, then put a bit of peroxide in it in hopes it would keep out unwanted bacteria etc... Either way, I now have RO water. PPM's of the tap is 160 and I just didn't want to trust it. Well when I got the RO system I also got a LARGER AIR pump that could run my reservoir for the drip system which will only be 2 large plants now and and little critical jack, So there will be 3 in DWC. So I researched DWC and decided I liked the DWC that has dripper tubes coming up into the basket as well as the roots coming down into the reservoir.
So I transplanted the 3 plants, hooked my new pump up to ALLLL the buckets AND the drip system tank and this thing has a 8 valve manifold on it, the bubles are rediculous coming out compared to before. at least double the amount of arriation (or however you spell that). When I transplanted the plants I also changed the nute solution to my drip system and replaced with RO water. Now, (SIDE NOTE) ( 3 days ago I came to the grow location and noticed where it had been hot then got cool again, the room with the plants and the water and all got down to 54 degree for a LOW. That was three days ago I immediately brought temp up to 70)
Now back to the issue, After changing the nutes and finishing the transplants into the 5 gal buckets, I run nutes with DISTILLED water around 1000ppm on full plants, for that critical jack I have been putting the dripper in a position where the plant is not getting hardly ANY of the solution, cube stays mostly dry but has enough weight that it is not needing immediate water ever. I know that train of thought sucks and it is a seedling getting full nutes but as an experiment and putting it in the drip system, it acutally was very lush and green just not moving UPWARDS, another thing for that possibility is that under that T5 this Jack is about 20 inches away with two large plants all around it, it gets alot of light but I bet it could be better, just cannot get it any higher up!!! If it were to fall over while i were gone it would be BAD!!!
So, that all was 3 days ago. Yesterday, I arrived to find the PH was up 7.0-7.2 in all the buckets and the reservoir for the drip system was up 6.8 or so and this is NEVER how it is, my ph in that drip system at 1000PPM and setting initial ph to 5.8 and it never goes below 5.5 and no higher than 5.9........... That is on distilled water, now on this RO (If that is actually what it is or unless there is something that happens to the plants if the temp is allowed to get to 54 for that long that will cause a problem to make the PH keep rising like the plants are locked out of something IDK) But other than that it appears the RO water may be causing the problem.
So I set the PH back to 5.6ish range and leave. come back again today not even 24hr later and the Critical jack is YELLOWING, the drip plants that are LUSH are showing very very MINUTE signs but they are showing signs of slight yellowing but the one 5 gal bucket was looking BAD another looks fine and actually looks good in the roots but the one doing bad I lift up the net pot and NO new white roots coming out of the net, and old roots turning brown, water level is not too high, so problem was that I tried to put too large a root mass in a 6 inch pot. Took out today and put in 10 net pot and gave more way for it to breath and replanted it. But the ph is RISING and RISING is this something that the AIRSTONES are causing and would that cause the plants to yellow, I went back to my old air system and eco 8 prong pump but man it is really wealk and I have seen some guys on here DWC's that are SURGING the water when the net pot is off...... I am thinking my ph should not rise with arriation to any more than 6.0 or 6.1 which would still be acceptable.
If I go back to DISTILLED water tomorrow and give it a week and things get back on track then WHAT THE CRAP do I do about getting distilled quality water without having to buy 50 gal of it from the store ever 2 weeks. I mean, I'm not even FLOWERING yet for pete's sake. I am going to get into needing ALOT of water and this RO stuff does not do the trick unless that COLD spell I gave the plants is causing this PH problem.
I'm just really at loss here. If the distilled water doesn't do the trick then I am going to start thinking a BUG has gotten into the plants somehow and is in their system and is causing the ph to rise, you know like when you have bacteria in your system and reservoir??? Those bacteria can what? Eat the nutrients causing your ph to rise but PPM's stay the same because the salt in the water is still at the level. I cannot remember how it goes but it was explained that you cannot tell how much nutes your plants are using based on ppm's because the salts cause the ppm to stay relatively the same as when you first put the nutes in the water. within a couple hundred anyway.
I have no slimes on anything or in the reservoir. I use h2o2 in all my water. I have had a very successful grow other than stunted plants that I eventually got to grow into bush monsters, its just something I have done or that has happend in last week has caused a major problem and Im not so sure going back to distilled water is going to fix it but EVEN if it does fix it, how am I going to get distilled quality water at my grow?????
One last note, I had gotten into cloning during last couple months too. Have ez cloner 30 site, distilled water, ph always stays 5.9 using RO it is sitting at 6.1 right now after a ph adjust last night.
So I am thinking PH is my problem, lockout is the culprit and I am changing water back to distilled tomorrow.
Any advise or if anyone know EXACTLY what the problem is please advise as I would love to get back to a less stressful grow.
Thanks in advance to all. I hope this wasn't too long of a post I just wanted to try and make sure everyone got as much of the history and story as possible so that diagnosis may be easier.
Thanks
I guess I better start with the history of the plants in question.
I am a first time grower, I figured since I like to smoke as I feel it helps me greatly with my bi polar issues.... instead of purchasing I would simply make my own medicine since I will know what is going in it and just the satisfaction of creating my own smoke.
So.. I simply snagged some bag seed from 2 different strains and both were VERY good smoke!!! Now, I have NO clue exactly WHAT these seeds were exactly except that I KNOW it is very good stuff. One is Sativa dom. and the other is Indica dom. Suprisingly the sativa dom. veg plant I have is the most LUSH and HEALTHY. But the indicas are very healthy and nice as well one being the bad ass of them all but only ONE sativa plant made it through propagation and I did a lousy job at that looking back.
Plants started off stunted from over watering. Soon however they finally started growing, then my wonderful thinking and youtube helped me decide to top the MAIN shoot when only about 6 inch tall but that was 2 MONTHS old!!!! Yeah, they were ALLLLL seriously stunted!! LOL then I stunted them again and topped them.
Well, 8 months later and I have 4 healthy indica doms and one SUPER healthy sativa dom. They alllllll have 4 MAIN shoots now and are BUSH monsters!!!
I set up these veg plants in a drip system in 2 gal buckets of hydroton with the rockwool cubes burried in them. I run GH flora series with Micro Grow And Bloom, I also us MANY other additives such as Dimond nectar, flora blend, superthrive, hygrozyme, h2o2, lets see, ah yes some super B+ and that is about it. I have used this blend over the 8 months and though with my improper techniques early on, eventually this blend worked VERY well and the plants FLOURISHED!!!, I ONLY EVER USED DISTILLED WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had 5 plants in a 2x6 closet with only 4 ft of the closet lighted. I have a 4x2 T5 8 light setup, not the VHO but the model down from it. PLENTY of light BUT these five plants have gotten to bushy for this space. Also note about 3 weeks ago I added an Automatic Jack I got as a FREE seed and since I haven't used the REAL seeds I ordered until I can successfully grow bag seed from good gene's then I just used this FREE seed as an experiment. It cracked in distilled water, I put it in a ph'd rockwool cube, it sprouted but 2 days later it was looking BAD. I noticed that the seed cap was still STUCK to the top so I pullled it away and there was BLACK. I left it alone and it too got STUNTED, and then FINALLY after about 3 weeks old now it is about 1/4 inch tall man and has lush leaves but is BARELY GROWING!!! Overwatering it appears again, Man I really suck at that!!!
So. Now to the problem, I use those nutes, been using them for months works great. But now that the plants are gettting TOO big, I decided instead of KILLING the lesser healthy one's and I don't even know the sex of any of these yet.... I deciced I would try my hand in DWC in 5gal buckets. Now.... I started thinking and with that Critical Jack now growing a little bit, I am going to need to start thinking about water source BESIDES hauling and buying shit tons of DISTILLED WATER....
So you know of course that brought me to an RO system. So I went and bought a Whirlpool Ro system at Lowes. Thing gets the PPM down to 4, and the ph is at 7, basically almost like distilled water..... Well, I fill up a 40 gallon trash barrel, then put a bit of peroxide in it in hopes it would keep out unwanted bacteria etc... Either way, I now have RO water. PPM's of the tap is 160 and I just didn't want to trust it. Well when I got the RO system I also got a LARGER AIR pump that could run my reservoir for the drip system which will only be 2 large plants now and and little critical jack, So there will be 3 in DWC. So I researched DWC and decided I liked the DWC that has dripper tubes coming up into the basket as well as the roots coming down into the reservoir.
So I transplanted the 3 plants, hooked my new pump up to ALLLL the buckets AND the drip system tank and this thing has a 8 valve manifold on it, the bubles are rediculous coming out compared to before. at least double the amount of arriation (or however you spell that). When I transplanted the plants I also changed the nute solution to my drip system and replaced with RO water. Now, (SIDE NOTE) ( 3 days ago I came to the grow location and noticed where it had been hot then got cool again, the room with the plants and the water and all got down to 54 degree for a LOW. That was three days ago I immediately brought temp up to 70)
Now back to the issue, After changing the nutes and finishing the transplants into the 5 gal buckets, I run nutes with DISTILLED water around 1000ppm on full plants, for that critical jack I have been putting the dripper in a position where the plant is not getting hardly ANY of the solution, cube stays mostly dry but has enough weight that it is not needing immediate water ever. I know that train of thought sucks and it is a seedling getting full nutes but as an experiment and putting it in the drip system, it acutally was very lush and green just not moving UPWARDS, another thing for that possibility is that under that T5 this Jack is about 20 inches away with two large plants all around it, it gets alot of light but I bet it could be better, just cannot get it any higher up!!! If it were to fall over while i were gone it would be BAD!!!
So, that all was 3 days ago. Yesterday, I arrived to find the PH was up 7.0-7.2 in all the buckets and the reservoir for the drip system was up 6.8 or so and this is NEVER how it is, my ph in that drip system at 1000PPM and setting initial ph to 5.8 and it never goes below 5.5 and no higher than 5.9........... That is on distilled water, now on this RO (If that is actually what it is or unless there is something that happens to the plants if the temp is allowed to get to 54 for that long that will cause a problem to make the PH keep rising like the plants are locked out of something IDK) But other than that it appears the RO water may be causing the problem.
So I set the PH back to 5.6ish range and leave. come back again today not even 24hr later and the Critical jack is YELLOWING, the drip plants that are LUSH are showing very very MINUTE signs but they are showing signs of slight yellowing but the one 5 gal bucket was looking BAD another looks fine and actually looks good in the roots but the one doing bad I lift up the net pot and NO new white roots coming out of the net, and old roots turning brown, water level is not too high, so problem was that I tried to put too large a root mass in a 6 inch pot. Took out today and put in 10 net pot and gave more way for it to breath and replanted it. But the ph is RISING and RISING is this something that the AIRSTONES are causing and would that cause the plants to yellow, I went back to my old air system and eco 8 prong pump but man it is really wealk and I have seen some guys on here DWC's that are SURGING the water when the net pot is off...... I am thinking my ph should not rise with arriation to any more than 6.0 or 6.1 which would still be acceptable.
If I go back to DISTILLED water tomorrow and give it a week and things get back on track then WHAT THE CRAP do I do about getting distilled quality water without having to buy 50 gal of it from the store ever 2 weeks. I mean, I'm not even FLOWERING yet for pete's sake. I am going to get into needing ALOT of water and this RO stuff does not do the trick unless that COLD spell I gave the plants is causing this PH problem.
I'm just really at loss here. If the distilled water doesn't do the trick then I am going to start thinking a BUG has gotten into the plants somehow and is in their system and is causing the ph to rise, you know like when you have bacteria in your system and reservoir??? Those bacteria can what? Eat the nutrients causing your ph to rise but PPM's stay the same because the salt in the water is still at the level. I cannot remember how it goes but it was explained that you cannot tell how much nutes your plants are using based on ppm's because the salts cause the ppm to stay relatively the same as when you first put the nutes in the water. within a couple hundred anyway.
I have no slimes on anything or in the reservoir. I use h2o2 in all my water. I have had a very successful grow other than stunted plants that I eventually got to grow into bush monsters, its just something I have done or that has happend in last week has caused a major problem and Im not so sure going back to distilled water is going to fix it but EVEN if it does fix it, how am I going to get distilled quality water at my grow?????
One last note, I had gotten into cloning during last couple months too. Have ez cloner 30 site, distilled water, ph always stays 5.9 using RO it is sitting at 6.1 right now after a ph adjust last night.
So I am thinking PH is my problem, lockout is the culprit and I am changing water back to distilled tomorrow.
Any advise or if anyone know EXACTLY what the problem is please advise as I would love to get back to a less stressful grow.
Thanks in advance to all. I hope this wasn't too long of a post I just wanted to try and make sure everyone got as much of the history and story as possible so that diagnosis may be easier.
Thanks