Do I have mites?

First time doing a DWC grow, and I've only grown in soil once before so I don't really know what I'm doing. I used some clones and put them in a setup with a tub a couple weeks ago. They have been growing quickly but I started getting spots on the leaves almost from the start. At first I thought maybe my PH was off but I've been keeping it at 5.8-6.0. Water temp has been 68-70 with decent bubbles and the roots don't look bad.

I'm worried that maybe since it's growing fast and the new growth comes in ok and slowly gets spots and dies it might be bugs rather than a deficiency or something. I looked at pictures of what happens with russet mites but I don't think my leaves are so shiny. Or maybe I'm lying to myself

Looks phosphorous deficient to me maybe some calcium deficiency as well. So what nutes you using, what ppm do you have it at, when was the last time you calibrated your ph probe???

My first thought was calcium, I'm using GH flora trio and adding some cal mag, but maybe it needs more? I might have gone a bit light with the cal mag. I don't have an EC meter unfortunately but I calibrate my PH meter almost weekly. Could it help if I upped the nutes and cal mag?

timefortreez said:

My first thought was calcium, I'm using GH flora trio and adding some cal mag, but maybe it needs more? I might have gone a bit light with the cal mag. I don't have an EC meter unfortunately but I calibrate my PH meter almost weekly. Could it help if I upped the nutes and cal mag?

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Knowing what the ppm is is pretty important in my opinion with hydro. You could up the nutes a bit but not knowing what that is its hard to tell, but if everything else is on point then I would believe your underfeeding it if you get deficiencies. Or that you underfed it at one point. need to keep an eye on the new growth.

It's been on my list actually. I thought maybe I could get by with using a feeding schedule and swapping things out but you're right it would be the only way to properly diagnose things. I'll have to find a way to pick a meter up faster.