Leathery w/ Necrosis

400w. HPS
12" above canopy.
75-80*F
12/12
Ph ~ 5.5 (cheap probe meter)
Potting soil mixed with fox ocean something. Teal bag.
Fish tank water
clone
flowering for about 3 or 4 weeks
fed as needed
watered when soil is light.

Im not really sure what to do with her. The leaves are dark and leathery, a little shiny. There are necrotic spots and all over. I should have let her veg for a while longer, it doesnt look like it will produce much.

Hmmm. I was having problems with mine but when I put them in fox farms (ocean forest- the teal bag) mixed with a little perlite and a little lime they did awesome.

Explain a little more in detail about your feeding-- what kind of nutes, how often do you feed, how often do you just water them, are you checking the pH of your water going in? (Much more important, helpful, and accurate than checking the pH of the soil).

And when did you start giving them fish tank water? I've heard of the benefits (aquaponics) and how fish produce nitrogen and whatnot. Do you check the pH of that water going in?

Also, if that pH reading is accurate then you're almost a whole point below where it needs to be at. In hydroponics the pH needs to be lower then soil. About 5.8 for hydro and anywhere from 6.3-6.8 for soil. You may very well be suffering nutrient lockout due to your pH being slightly too acidic.

Probably a Ph issue, it should have nutes.

I have a variety to choose from, and I have ph up and ph down, but im growing out of a pot, isn't that for hydro? How do I use it? I've tried before, and though I was reading around 6 - 6.5 in the water going in, in the soil, and the runoff. When I quit using it, the plants stopped dying off so I blamed the ph stuff, and gave up on it altogether.

I give nutes every 2nd or 3rd watering. I've been giving more nutes trying to catch up with this necrosis, seems like P or K.

I have
Master A. 4-0-3
Master B. 1-5-6
Optimum Hydro 5-0-2
Optimum Hydro 1-3-7
Epsom Salts
CalMag 2-0-0
Oneness 5-9-4

All of these are 5ml/gal doses. Usually what I do, is mix them to what I think the plant needs. Whatever mix is used, it doesnt total more than 5ml.

Use 1ml of 2-0-0, 1ml of 1-3-7, 1ml of 5-0-2, and 1 ml of 5-9-4. That gives me 4ml of 13-12-13.

Or like this morning, it seemed to need some p and k. so I gave it 5ml of 5-9-4.

Usually I just water.

OK, one thing I'm noticing is that your total npk ratio is giving you a way higher N value then P, which needs to be higher during flower. Grow formulas have more nitrogen and are used for veg, and bloom formulas have more phosphorous, which is what's used (in highest amounts) during flower. In flower the buds draw nutrients from the leaves, and continuing to give excess nitrogen can cause the plant to move elements towards the leaves instead of away from them, to the flower sites.

Honestly, if a plant is showing problems and you are giving it all the main ones (the 5 macro nutrients, NPK and calcium and magnesium) and it isn't fixing the problem, then its either a deficiency with micro nutrients (zinc, copper, iron, molybdenum) or not a deficiency at all.
It could be either pH problems, or over feeding.

In fact, 95% of the problems new growers encounter are solved by just watering with water that has been pH'd. There's a good chance that you are overfeeding, especially if you are increasing the nutes and its not getting better. It might seem like your amount of nutrients is small, but if a plant hasnt been acclimated gradually over time with advanced nutes then they can burn really easily.

You said you were having problems with pHing your water, how were you doing it exactly?

BTW, if you look at the npk ratios on your nutes, you'll see what I'm talking about--master a has higher nitrogen (for veg) master b has more phosphorous (for flowering).

Also, its not a good idea to mix different nutes from different companies unless you really know what you're doing (most of us don't, I'm a newb myself but I put about 10-15 hours a week into research). Those nutes are made to work with each other and sometimes miXing in different brands can throw off the system

ThorGanjason said:

You said you were having problems with pHing your water, how were you doing it exactly?

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When I was doing ph, I would take a reading from the source water, (fish tank, it gets rid of the high chlorine levels round here), that came in at about 8.3. I used a 100$ digital ph meter. If only watering, I would use the orange ph bottle, adding about 5 ml at a time until the water checked out at 6 to 6.5.

If I was adding nutes, I would add the nutes, then add the ph balancer, then test to 6 to 6.5, then feed.

I would collect the runoff, and check that, it usually stayed pretty much at the same levels it was poured in at.

What I got, was a bunch of really really sick and dying plants. Here is a pic of a survivor, it isn't pretty. Im flowering it out, even though it hermied. Most of the large fan leaves have died off, when they are only about 15-20% green, I remove them.

I've been harvesting the tops as they get ripe.

Hmm, you're definitely pHing correctly so that shouldn't be a problem. So you are pHing your water to 6.5 with a digital meter and then checking your soil with another meter? Same meter? (Some can test both soil and water but unless it was over 150-200$ then it probably is only made for one or the other). I'm trying to figure out what is taking it so low, did you add something to your soil like peat moss? Mulchy soils with a lot of bark can also be acidic.

That's strange that you are pHing your water to 6.5 and it is testing so low in the soil (5.5). Normally soil will buffer pH a little bit, I just use the indicator die so I'm probably a half a point off when I pH but I still don't have any problems. Granted I have lime, that helps.

If your pH in your soil is actually 5.5 then that could very well be your problem. But honestly it kind of looks like overfeeding, which would be surprising considering your nute schedule.

And also, there are probably a number of bacterial or fungal things that could cause problems coming from the fish tank water, but that's all a possibility and a guess. I have 2 five gallon buckets that I Keep filled with tap water, the chlorine dissipates if you let it sit for 24 hours and mine sits for four days usually. Also, spending a dollar a gallon for some distilled water might be a good idea if you don't trust the chlorine thing. 90% of the time when people on here are having problems, flushing with pH'd water is what solves their problems. I would try using a different water source to see if the water is your problem, BC honestly it sounds like your doing everything eight for the most part and that's the only out of the ordinary variable that I'm noticing.

Who knows; fish produce nitrogen, which is not a good idea to give to your plant during flowering (at least not as much as you give it in veg).

The more I think about it, you really should go spend 5$ on 5 gallons of distilled water and try that out. You still have a chance to save some of the quality on that plant if you can stop it now.

Either way man, just don't let this bad experience get you down. If this grow doesn't pan out, get some bag seed or order more and try again. Remember, keeping everything as simple as you can will work better than anything. Less is more with this plant. I'm a first time grower myself and have done tons of research, had almost every problem in the book starting out but I got it dialed in finally and couldn't be happier.


I'm still vegging mine until incan buy my HPS this weekend, but I went through a period where I thought I was going to lose them all. The more I did to fix them, the more problems I had. I bought a bag of fox farms ocean forest soil, and added a couple teaspoons of dolomite lime, water every 4-5 days and they have started exploding.

Salt build up from over fertilization.......flush with water twice your container size and continue with just water until she starts fading....and harvest the bitch

Good luck

Sorry for the long post, I've had a busy day and kept coming back to type on it and I kept adding more shit

I haven't phed my water in a long time. I will try on the one plant to see if there's a difference, I have a sister clone growing in vegetation right now. I want to get an RO system soon, but I'll see if I can round up some H2O from somewhere and see what happens.

Giving up is not gonna happen, I aint made like that.

PSUAGRO. said:

Salt build up from over fertilization.......flush with water twice your container size and continue with just water until she starts fading....and harvest the bitch

Good luck

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See, that's what I was thinking at first too, but overfed with 1 feeding every 3 or 4 waterings? And only feeding 5 mils per gallon? It just doesn't seem right to me, ya know.

ProdigalSun said:

I haven't phed my water in a long time. I will try on the one plant to see if there's a difference, I have a sister clone growing in vegetation right now. I want to get an RO system soon, but I'll see if I can round up some H2O from somewhere and see what happens.

Giving up is not gonna happen, I aint made like that.

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Hell yeah man, that's me too. I started forty seeds when I first got into it and did experiments on about 30 of them. Everybody gave me hell, saying it was dumb and I was just killing my plants, etc. I wanted to see what nute burn looked like so I pushed the envelope and lost a ton of plants, but learned how to keep from burning my good seeds (most were bag seed).

But yeah, I'm surprised more people haven't jumped on here saying "that's nute burn" but if you haven't fed in a while then it would have already cleared up by now. That means there's either a problem with the environment or whatever else is going in, and the culprit is really looking (to me) like the water.

Any grocery store should have distilled eater jugs in the drink section for like....well, cheap. A couple of dollars should get you enough to test out on one plant.

Keep us posted man

Looks like a you need to flush your soil very good. There was a build up of nutes in the fish water that is still lingering around and you keep feeding them on top of that causing the lockout of P and cal-mag