Leaf Edges turning white? (PICS)
- Thread starter IpFreely
- Start date
herbose
Well-Known Member
My mistake, if it's dried calcium it won't wipe off and when it's wet it pretty much disappears til it's dry again.
Kriegs
Well-Known Member
NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Don't give those little babies anything like that -- they don't need a thing until at least 2-3 weeks and even then it's questionable.
They look fine.. don't worry, might be a little dried calcium from your water like someone suggested. The first set of real leaves are often a little goofy. You've got months ahead of you... you'll get an ulcer reacting to every little thing.
Pogmahthoin
Well-Known Member
I had this same problem, it is hard water. I was using it in my humidifier as well that's what clued me in, there were deposits all over the inside of the machine. If you have an old pressure cooker and some soft copper tubing you can distill your own water, it's kind of cool.
I have kept using my hard water with no problems.
I have kept using my hard water with no problems.
Kriegs
Well-Known Member
Boiling won't do anything for hardness. I wouldn't worry about -- it's primarily calcium and magnesium which, at the very least won't hurt the plants and in many cases is beneficial.
Nutes.. My advice? Don't add any unless you see an actual sign of deficiency. If just must "do something" for your plants, there's a huge array of choices. Wait until your plants are at least a month old before you add anything and whatever you add at that point -- mix it at 1/4 of the strength that the label tells you. The vast majority of stuff is way too concentrated for weed when you first start feeding. I burned the shit out of my first plants, and I can direct you to a million pic's on here showing the same thing. Many newbies do it, no matter how often the pros tell you how not to.
You've at least 3 weeks before you need to worry about it. Plenty of time to read up...
Just remember all in all, MJ is a WEED.. it's a tough sum'bitch, and it doesn't need constant babysitting and tweaking, just daily disciplined attention.
If your water is hard enough to show calcium stains on your plants it's definitely too hard for them out of the tap. It's probably also way off on ph. I have the same problem with my water and it nearly ruined my last grow. I had to get a RO machine to fix the problem. They're expensive but worth it. My tap water has a ph of around 5 and a ppm of 350 out of the faucet. After the RO treatment its 6.7-7.2 ph and 5 ppm.
Kriegs
Well-Known Member
Hard water is slightly alkaline.. it can push 8.0 if Ca and Mg are the only hardness consituents, but that's rare. The pH of pure calcium carbonate solution at saturation is 8.4; can't go any higher. The "chemical competition" in natural hard waters puts another lid on how high the pH can go, so most "hard" waters are about 7.5
At worst, one might need to use some plain ol vinegar to drop your pH a little bit, about a 1/4 tsp per gallon.
Your tap water at 5.0 and 350 ppm sounds like "sulfate water", which is "soft" in water business lingo but obviously has a lot of salts in it with the 350 ppm. Are you in the northeast... or near the Atlantic or Gulf coast? Utah, Wyoming, west South Dakota? These places have sulfate waters... but they're not the only ones. They occur anywhere the geology is right.
Thinking this a bit more, sulfate water in gypsum-rich states like the interior west can leave white stains, too. So, it behooves you to at least test the pH of your water. Your municipal water provider, if you have one, may already have this info on their website.
Kriegs
Well-Known Member
In your water, I take it to mean..?
Vinegar... you'll have to experiment with your particular water a bit to find out how much to add to get it where you want it. pH of 6.5 is a good target.
For water that's 7.5 - 8.0, try 1/4 teaspoon per gallon for starts. Check pH and take it from there.
Just FYI, I water with my tap water at 8.0.. never been a problem. In fact, I had quite the opposite problem for awhile -- super-LOW pH from my nutes. Personally, I think pH'ing water to move it down is a waste of effort unless it's way out there, like 9-10 or more. I could go into a huge spiel on soil buffering to tell you why water pH is largely irrelevant.. I know that's heresy.
Don't forget good ol fashion PH Down. BTW ph'ing water isnt always a waste of time. I have a horror story from my last cycle. Tap ph was 5.0, I didnt know. Promix ph was 5.5, I didnt know. After nuting the water ph was 4.5 or under, gasp! Plants showed no signs of lockout or deficiency until late veg due to foliar spray. They were apparently getting all their nutes from the spray allowing watered nutes to build up in the soil. They were literally fine one week, looked like shit a few days later. By the time I figured out I needed to flush it was too late, cosmetically at least, they still produced some awsome bud. One plant actually had a soil ph of 3.8!!! Every time I hear someone say they killed a plant I think of how awful that poor abused plant looked and how great it is to still be smokin it.