Mag/calcium deficiency?

SamWE19 said:

I’m a fucking idiot -

I have a 1000l res but it’s multiple small reservoirs joined together and I have a 16000 lph water pump circulating water and mixing it all up. It’s a loud pump so you can hear when it’s on.

Anyway I just happened to put my hand in the water to check one of the 2 inch hose outlets in the tank. I don’t usually get close to them as they are behind huge plants now.

Turns out nothing is coming out the fucking outlet!

Checked the pump and it’s making the usual noise I can hear the motor spinning but nothing moving. No clue what could be blocking the pipe as I have filters on the pumps intake.

Anyway as soon as the store opens in the morning I’m going out for a replacement pump and parts early start tomorrow!

These pumps have been flawless for me no issues with them for years so never even expected this to happen

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So good to see this! Many of us can tell you the deficits we see but only you can figure out why they are happening in your grow. I'm so glad you figured it out. One thing I learned when running NFT was you always had to have at least one known good back up pump.

myke said:

So how’s the plants now? On a side note I found this at my local store. No one knew If it can be used in hydro. Anyone know?

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Thanks for bringing this up! I wondered too.

myke said:

So how’s the plants now? On a side note I found this at my local store. No one knew If it can be used in hydro. Anyone know?

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Got a massive nitrogen toxicity going into flower now most likely because I’m too high ppm. I’m letting the ppm drop as I refill hopefully will eventually correct itself

cannabineer said:

Not in my experience. It is good to have a generous amount of S.

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How often do you water with this espom and gypsum combination using the 1gram per 5 liter and 1 gram per 4 liter concentrations you mentioned? Is this just for deficiencies or can i water more frequently with this?

Dr. Who said:

Ca carb is in a top pH up
Ca carb is the source for CALi MAGic

In my soils I run Oyster shell, powdered eggshell, and gypsum. Lots of ca carb there. It supplies the plant with what it needs but, does a far better job of pH control then other Ca compounds

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Can you reasonably build a balanced soil that has enough calcium to forego calmag when watering with RO? I've been hoping to drop the calmag additions but keep reading that with RO you'll get a deficiency quickly. I

rkmcdon said:

How often do you water with this espom and gypsum combination using the 1gram per 5 liter and 1 gram per 4 liter concentrations you mentioned? Is this just for deficiencies or can i water more frequently with this?


Can you reasonably build a balanced soil that has enough calcium to forego calmag when watering with RO? I've been hoping to drop the calmag additions but keep reading that with RO you'll get a deficiency quickly. I

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Yes you can. I build my own soils and use a mix of egg and oyster shell with a tic of Dolo in a cpl of the formula's

Check out www.buildasoil.com for one

Dr. Who said:

Yes you can. I build my own soils and use a mix of egg and oyster shell with a tic of Dolo in a cpl of the formula's

Check out www.buildasoil.com for one

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Thank you! I've been checking out build a soil as well as recipes here for just that purpose. I've finally settled on the recipe below. I'm having my water tested for calcium and mag and want to go to tap water and drop cal mag (and ph'ing) from my sop. I am a little nervous to do so on both accounts

1 bale of promix MP (52 gallons)
20 gallons ewc/4 gallons insect frass
20 gallons rice hulls/perlite
8 cups azomite
6 cups kelp meal
3 cups fish bone meal
3 cups neem seed meal
3 cups gypsum
3 cups alfalfa meal
3 cups crustacean meal
3 cups oyster shell meal
3 cups langbeinite

BTW, love your screen name and sig! I've been a Doctor Who fan since i was a child in the 70's/80's

rkmcdon said:

Thank you! I've been checking out build a soil as well as recipes here for just that purpose. I've finally settled on the recipe below. I'm having my water tested for calcium and mag and want to go to tap water and drop cal mag (and ph'ing) from my sop. I am a little nervous to do so on both accounts

1 bale of promix MP (52 gallons)
20 gallons ewc/4 gallons insect frass
20 gallons rice hulls/perlite
8 cups azomite
6 cups kelp meal
3 cups fish bone meal
3 cups neem seed meal
3 cups gypsum
3 cups alfalfa meal
3 cups crustacean meal
3 cups oyster shell meal
3 cups langbeinite

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Heads up - Neem meal (Neem) has antibiotic properties......Not the greatest choice for building a soil...(in my opinion).

General soil building ratio for main parts.
1/3 of your peat or Promix
1/3 EWC
1/3 perlite

The rest is your choice.

I like the average ratio's to start learning from. Done in this style. GREAT soil building beginners read!
She does a good job of lining things out, nice style and well worded.

good luck!

Good luck

Just thought I’d update this thread...

Turns out a massive factor was fucking my plants up and I didn’t even realise.

I have a hybrid nft:aero system i designed myself.

the sprinklers were always on soaking the roots. It was working fine but I was getting deficiencies and I could never figure out wtf I was doing wrong.

this run I put my sprinklers on a timer 30 mins on 45 mins off and theplants have took off like I’ve never seen before. Massive healthy fast growth beautiful lime green leaves.
There was absolutely no signs of “over watering” or oxygen starvation but I guess they just weren’t getting enough oxygen still

SamWE19 said:

Just thought I’d update this thread...

Turns out a massive factor was fucking my plants up and I didn’t even realise.

I have a hybrid nft:aero system i designed myself.

the sprinklers were always on soaking the roots. It was working fine but I was getting deficiencies and I could never figure out wtf I was doing wrong.

this run I put my sprinklers on a timer 30 mins on 45 mins off and theplants have took off like I’ve never seen before. Massive healthy fast growth beautiful lime green leaves.
There was absolutely no signs of “over watering” or oxygen starvation but I guess they just weren’t getting enough oxygen still

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Nice to hear!! Love it when a mystery is solved!

SamWE19 said:

Just thought I’d update this thread...

Turns out a massive factor was fucking my plants up and I didn’t even realise.

I have a hybrid nft:aero system i designed myself.

the sprinklers were always on soaking the roots. It was working fine but I was getting deficiencies and I could never figure out wtf I was doing wrong.

this run I put my sprinklers on a timer 30 mins on 45 mins off and theplants have took off like I’ve never seen before. Massive healthy fast growth beautiful lime green leaves.
There was absolutely no signs of “over watering” or oxygen starvation but I guess they just weren’t getting enough oxygen still

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Congratulations on getting this resolved!

Dr. Who said:

Heads up - Neem meal (Neem) has antibiotic properties......Not the greatest choice for building a soil...(in my opinion).

General soil building ratio for main parts.
1/3 of your peat or Promix
1/3 EWC
1/3 perlite

The rest is your choice.

I like the average ratio's to start learning from. Done in this style. GREAT soil building beginners read!

Easy Organic Soil Mix for Beginners

So you want to go organic but don't know where to start? Here's a recipe for an easy, organic, water-only soil that will provide more than enough...

forum.grasscity.com

She does a good job of lining things out, nice style and well worded.

good luck!

Good luck

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Thank you!

Yours is actually the first negative I've read on neem seed meal as a soil amendment. I had previously read it was beneficial both as a source of nutrients and to keep mites at bay. Has there been research to indicate neem can harm beneficial bacteria in a living soil?

Thanks for the link. I had read it before, but as i was skimming it, i saw their suggested ratio for rock dust at 4 cups per cu ft. That seems a bit high? However, it did make me realize i was too low on my rock dust addition so i'm bumping it up to 1 cup per cu ft or 12 cups total from the previously listed 8 cups

I also found a source of bio-live today! It doesn't ship to Oklahoma, but found a store in OKC that keeps it in stock, so I'm going to substitute it in for the Fish bone meal, alfalfa meal, crustacean meal, kelp and langbeinite in my recipe above sinc it has all of them plus fish meal, humic acid and is inoculated with beneficials. Will make it a little easier not having quite so many 50 pound bags lying around as well

rkmcdon said:

Congratulations on getting this resolved!

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Can’t believe something like this causes it though.

I would have expected to see drooping leaves from lack of oxygen

I’ve had 6 grows and every time thought my system just needed less nutrients or the nutes I was using were shit.

now I’m at 650ppm comfortably little tiny bit of tip burn but no signs of deficiency and they are praying.