I have looked all over, and studied every source of problems I can find, and just can't find anything that resembles my issue, and makes sense for my situation.
Some quick background. I am running a 250w MH with a 14k kelvin bulb (little more blue than a 10k which I understand is a good spectrum for vegging). The light is actually as high from the plants as I can get it, I hang a fairly accurate digital thermometer about 3-4 inches above the tops of the plants, and it fluctuates from 80-88 degrees, with the lights on, and drops to around 75 degrees with the lights off. I understand this is a little hotter than ideal, however what I have read (and this seems to make sense from their conditions int he wild), that during veggitative stage, these higher temps shouldn't be an issue till it gets over 90-95 degrees. I don't think this is a heat issue however because it seems to effect the older leaves, and the new growth at the top of the plants looks fine as far as I can tell. There is a box fan pointing at the wall behind the plants, which gives them fairly good air movement, and hopefully helps to strengthen the stems. Till I can afford a real chiller, there is little more I can do to bring the heat down to closer to 75-80 consistently. About 5 times a day I mist them, which brings the temp down to around 75, though evaporates in 20-30 min or less and they are back up in the mid to high 80's.
I used a potting soil made by Whitney Farms, in 1 gallon containers. I water twice a week normally, whenever the soil down to about 4" is dry. At around week 3 I added 1/4 the recommended fish emulsion, and haven't added any nutrients since, but have another batch of 1/4 strength fish emulsion mixed up to feed them tonight (I planned on 2 fertilizations like this in the veggitative cycle). I use 100% RO/DI water with 0 TDS, and though I don't have a tester, with 0 TDS I'd imagine my water is right at 7 ph without nutrients. I believe (though I threw the bag away), that the soil was listed as neutral, so I assumed it had a PH of 7 without additional nutrients.
That's basically it as far as background info that I can think of. Here are some pictures of the issue I am having. I'm sure they will do a much better job than any description I could come up with
Some quick background. I am running a 250w MH with a 14k kelvin bulb (little more blue than a 10k which I understand is a good spectrum for vegging). The light is actually as high from the plants as I can get it, I hang a fairly accurate digital thermometer about 3-4 inches above the tops of the plants, and it fluctuates from 80-88 degrees, with the lights on, and drops to around 75 degrees with the lights off. I understand this is a little hotter than ideal, however what I have read (and this seems to make sense from their conditions int he wild), that during veggitative stage, these higher temps shouldn't be an issue till it gets over 90-95 degrees. I don't think this is a heat issue however because it seems to effect the older leaves, and the new growth at the top of the plants looks fine as far as I can tell. There is a box fan pointing at the wall behind the plants, which gives them fairly good air movement, and hopefully helps to strengthen the stems. Till I can afford a real chiller, there is little more I can do to bring the heat down to closer to 75-80 consistently. About 5 times a day I mist them, which brings the temp down to around 75, though evaporates in 20-30 min or less and they are back up in the mid to high 80's.
I used a potting soil made by Whitney Farms, in 1 gallon containers. I water twice a week normally, whenever the soil down to about 4" is dry. At around week 3 I added 1/4 the recommended fish emulsion, and haven't added any nutrients since, but have another batch of 1/4 strength fish emulsion mixed up to feed them tonight (I planned on 2 fertilizations like this in the veggitative cycle). I use 100% RO/DI water with 0 TDS, and though I don't have a tester, with 0 TDS I'd imagine my water is right at 7 ph without nutrients. I believe (though I threw the bag away), that the soil was listed as neutral, so I assumed it had a PH of 7 without additional nutrients.
That's basically it as far as background info that I can think of. Here are some pictures of the issue I am having. I'm sure they will do a much better job than any description I could come up with
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