Noob Nutrient Issues - Any advice appreciated

D

DanKill1

Member
My very 1st Post - First of all, an honor to be able to post here. I know there are a lot of experts here and I've learned a lot without being a member so I appreciate any advice you have.

I'm new to this (of course), about my 3rd go round but I've never experienced problems like this....Setup follows along with brief explanation:

SETUP:

  • Fox Farm Soil
  • Fox Farm Nutrients (Soil Trio), some ChaChing (barely used at this point but we'll get to that later)
  • 1/2 tsp of bat guano (will get to this later too)
  • Unknown strains (1 Indica - looks like 2- Sativa - looks like)
  • Distilled Water with Nutes at 3/4 to full strength every other feeding.
  • Temp: 78-80 Humidity: 40-48%
  • Air Circulation: OK probably not stellar, open air closet with fan
  • Soil PH: Between 7.0 to 7.5
  • Water PH: Less than 6.5 but not exactly sure..equipment doesn't measure exactly (I know...I know....will get on it next time)

Issues:

See attached pics (please excuse lighting...flash was iffy). Basically I'm in 4th week of flower. I've had issues since the beginning but it was more related to setup (wrong light) that led to slow growth. They seemed to do fine once I changed the bulb, unfortunately I was 5-6 weeks in veg by the time I figured it out. Fast forward till today, nute schedule consistent but did add 1/4 tsp ChaChingDSC01043.jpgDSC01044.jpgDSC01045.jpgDSC01046.jpgDSC01047.jpgDSC01048.jpg. They seemed to be doing fine until I noted what I thought was nute burn very similar to what you see in the attachments on one leaf of one of the sativa plants. Me being anxious I decided to flush one plant as it only showed up on one originally but I've never done it before and I didn't flush thoroughly. I think they are in 2 gallon pots. So I flushed the plant with less than required Bush Doctor (1/4 tsp with a gallon of water) then followed it up with 2 gallons of distilled. Waited for a week and thought the issue slowed up on the leaves until I saw it flare up again on another leaf, these are all toward the bottom of the plants. At this point I'm thinking K deficiency per my bible so I add 1/2 tsp of guano to my topsoil...mix it in and water......The results are attached. I'm clueless as to what to do next. My questions are:

1. Do I flush all the plants thoroughly and I'm paranoid about flushing agents hence me not using the correct dosage of the one I have. If I have to flush do I do it with distilled and do I really do 3 times the amount the pot can hold?
2. When should I expect the condition to go away? How do I know it's not nutrient burn vs. lockout?
3. With what I'm expecting to be another 4-6 weeks in flower, any other advice in terms of my setup to prevent this from happening? I'll have the same setup for a while so I'd take some pointers.

Thanks - IRwan
 
Dgringo69

Dgringo69

Well-Known Member
Throw in a little cal-mag. Also Epsom salt at 2 tbsp/gal can help correct deficiencies. I have a feeling that your use of distilled water has something to do with this.
 
SxIstew

SxIstew

Well-Known Member
That is a clear nute lockout. I will assume from my past experiences that you are using Fox Farm Ocean Forest?? I've always had over fert issues with the soil even using FF nutes. may want to try a new medium. but you definitely need to get the runoff pH exact. you need to be sure you aren't running anything below 6.3. probe testers suck but are fairly accurate. they need to be calibrated every once and a while but it's worth having it around. Personally I got so tired of pHing my shit, I switched nutes to General Organics, and medium to inert CocoGro. haven't had a problem since.
 
F

filthy piglet

Member
Hey man, first off you ph is to high and causing nutrients to lockout .....get the ph down to 6.5 and no higher......add a few teaspoons of lime to a gal of water, mix it good and flush your plants out with a few gal plain water ....pour the gallon of lime water thru last so it will fully getmixxed into the medium, that will balance the ph.......then make a batch of nutes 1/4 weak but make sure they have all the 6 macro elements n/p/k sul/cal/mg and also have secondary minerals iron/moly/boron/zinc/copper/manganese/ and pour that in till you get more runoff and then done feed or water again till the pot is lite......then you will have a ph balanced soil with all the minerals needed at the rite amount and your plant will be super happy and grow some dank nugs........holla if you need more help .....goodluck.....and iv been doing this a very long time so you can trust what im sayin....if you keep asking people your gonna get 100 dif people that all say something crazy and prob first time growers .....i told you the answar....ruuuuuuun
 
SxIstew

SxIstew

Well-Known Member
Also. I can say I know it's a lockout because of your first slow growth followed by "deficiency symptoms" the wrong light would not actually cause slow growth, it would cause long stretchy growth due to lack of light and the plants desire to want more by getting closer to the source. (example. growing in CFL's without the proper lumens usually shows elongated stems and stretchy growth)...Lockout's are not hard to fix, start by leaching(water 3x the pot size ex. 1gal pot 3gal water.) the medium with clean water NOT DISTILLED, "drinking water" from walmart works fine and tap water left out for 12-24 hours works the same.(it's to evap the chlorine if heavy amounts may be in your water supply).....You will only water with clean water until you notice they begin to improve. then move to quarter strength nutes followed by a pH test to ensure you went in correctly, if you water with 7.5 and it's coming out below 6.5 you will increase your pH slightly so that the plant is getting the optimum range of nutes for growth.
 
F

filthy piglet

Member
Sxlstew.......he is also correct .....but do what i said and your problem will be fixxed......and stop adding cha-ching and all that other bs.....your just messing up you balance even more......the key is BALANCE.....adding too much of one thing locks out other shit.....get a hold of what you doing first b4 you start with all the bs.....that stuff is dumb hot and not to be messed with by new growers that havnt learnd the full basics yet.....good luck
 
F

filthy piglet

Member
I also use foxfarm soil and out of the bag almost every time it been ph 7.2......i always make batches in giant bins with all my other stuff and ph balance it before using it or i would end up in flower with a ph issue around 7.5 and have to get it down to 6.5 and it was a pain .....i like to start low with soil ph because it always slowly climbs during the grow........6.3 works best for me and by the end of flower its 6.8......plants love it......
 
SxIstew

SxIstew

Well-Known Member
filthy piglet said:
Sxlstew.......he is also correct .....but do what i said and your problem will be fixxed......and stop adding cha-ching and all that other bs.....your just messing up you balance even more......the key is BALANCE.....adding too much of one thing locks out other shit.....get a hold of what you doing first b4 you start with all the bs.....that stuff is dumb hot and not to be messed with by new growers that havnt learnd the full basics yet.....good luck
Click to expand...
damn straight it's hot stuff. almost like trying to run SYCO your first grow. you'll never get it right. no matter who gives you advice. It takes time to get into something you like. took me 2 years and 6 grows to find something I couldn't go without. and even now i'm upgrading and adding new improved products. I started out with miracle gro, 1 clone in an 8" pot, and 3 cfl's(not the grow kind). lets just say I've made some drastic changes General Organics FULL LINE(besides the soil additive ancient forest) General Hydro FloraNectar, CocoGro/ReadyGro, 1 400w mh, 2 400w hps, oh and 7-10 gallon containers....lol
and again I will say. I'm still adding and upgrading. EVEN IF YOU CAN'T FIX THIS GROW, you will come back for more, and through trial and error you will 100% get down the basic principles of how to get every plant to the end without an issue. i'm going on grow 3 issue free. and i'm still considered a NOOB to most. :) including myself. follow filthy's instruction, he uses your product, GOOD LUCK AND KEEP UPDATING
 
Bakatare666

Bakatare666

Well-Known Member
DanKill1 said:
My very 1st Post - First of all, an honor to be able to post here. I know there are a lot of experts here and I've learned a lot without being a member so I appreciate any advice you have.

I'm new to this (of course), about my 3rd go round but I've never experienced problems like this....Setup follows along with brief explanation:

SETUP:

  • Fox Farm Soil
  • Fox Farm Nutrients (Soil Trio), some ChaChing (barely used at this point but we'll get to that later)
  • 1/2 tsp of bat guano (will get to this later too)
  • Unknown strains (1 Indica - looks like 2- Sativa - looks like)
  • Distilled Water with Nutes at 3/4 to full strength every other feeding.
  • Temp: 78-80 Humidity: 40-48%
  • Air Circulation: OK probably not stellar, open air closet with fan
  • Soil PH: Between 7.0 to 7.5
  • Water PH: Less than 6.5 but not exactly sure..equipment doesn't measure exactly (I know...I know....will get on it next time)

Issues:

See attached pics (please excuse lighting...flash was iffy). Basically I'm in 4th week of flower. I've had issues since the beginning but it was more related to setup (wrong light) that led to slow growth. They seemed to do fine once I changed the bulb, unfortunately I was 5-6 weeks in veg by the time I figured it out. Fast forward till today, nute schedule consistent but did add 1/4 tsp ChaChingView attachment 2738205View attachment 2738206View attachment 2738207View attachment 2738208View attachment 2738209View attachment 2738210. They seemed to be doing fine until I noted what I thought was nute burn very similar to what you see in the attachments on one leaf of one of the sativa plants. Me being anxious I decided to flush one plant as it only showed up on one originally but I've never done it before and I didn't flush thoroughly. I think they are in 2 gallon pots. So I flushed the plant with less than required Bush Doctor (1/4 tsp with a gallon of water) then followed it up with 2 gallons of distilled. Waited for a week and thought the issue slowed up on the leaves until I saw it flare up again on another leaf, these are all toward the bottom of the plants. At this point I'm thinking K deficiency per my bible so I add 1/2 tsp of guano to my topsoil...mix it in and water......The results are attached. I'm clueless as to what to do next. My questions are:

1. Do I flush all the plants thoroughly and I'm paranoid about flushing agents hence me not using the correct dosage of the one I have. If I have to flush do I do it with distilled and do I really do 3 times the amount the pot can hold?
2. When should I expect the condition to go away? How do I know it's not nutrient burn vs. lockout?
3. With what I'm expecting to be another 4-6 weeks in flower, any other advice in terms of my setup to prevent this from happening? I'll have the same setup for a while so I'd take some pointers.

Thanks - IRwan
Click to expand...
IMO, toss the distilled water, unless your tap is so bad you can't drink it.
Then, PH your tap to 6.5 (after letting it sit out overnight in a bucket or mixing bowl, assuming you have Chlorine, not chloramine.
Call or email your water supplier to see what they add to the water.
If it is Chloramine, it will not evap off when you leave it out, so you'd be wasting your time), and give ONLY water for 2 or 3 waterings.
I've never tried distilled, but all the threads I've come across that have had problems and used distilled, they were related.
You obviously have the start of a Mg deficiency there, but don't feed when you might be locked out already.
You COULD foliar spray with 1 Tbsp/ gal of Epsom to a gallon of water, but if it was me, I wouldn't.
 
F

filthy piglet

Member
Yea, i run cyco since it came out in my hydro table and tryed out the go line in my pots and it worked great and got some dank bud with it but now i only do tlo......i have sooooo meny bottles of nutes that ive tryed thru the last 20 years and now i have a master lineup of the best products that really work and i do the thing blindfolded but it took years of trial and error and i couldnt even tell you how much reading ive done, i read every grow book that was made and all the online shit and whatever else i could find and im still learning....now thats crazy .....granted its not on this basic level but i started getting into plant nute science book and other garden stuff because ive read everything done on cannabis thats known but there is always more....this plant is just now being studyed hardcore and in the next few yeats there is going to be so much more info on how this plant grows thats not known today....i love it...
 
Bakatare666

Bakatare666

Well-Known Member
filthy piglet said:
Sxlstew.......he is also correct .....but do what i said and your problem will be fixxed......and stop adding cha-ching and all that other bs.....your just messing up you balance even more......the key is BALANCE.....adding too much of one thing locks out other shit.....get a hold of what you doing first b4 you start with all the bs.....that stuff is dumb hot and not to be messed with by new growers that havnt learnd the full basics yet.....good luck
Click to expand...
Frequent mistake......
Guy comes in, and wants to treat his plant special, and ends up overdoing it.
Better to find a routine that works well for you, then add or change one thing at a time to see what will make it better, or what makes it worse.
DO NOT change 5 things all at once, especially if you have a problem, because if the problem gets fixed, you won't have any idea at all which of those 5 things fixed your problem.
 
Dgringo69

Dgringo69

Well-Known Member
filthy piglet said:
Hey man, first off you ph is to high and causing nutrients to lockout .....get the ph down to 6.5 and no higher......add a few teaspoons of lime to a gal of water, mix it good and flush your plants out with a few gal plain water ....pour the gallon of lime water thru last so it will fully getmixxed into the medium, that will balance the ph.......then make a batch of nutes 1/4 weak but make sure they have all the 6 macro elements n/p/k sul/cal/mg and also have secondary minerals iron/moly/boron/zinc/copper/manganese/ and pour that in till you get more runoff and then done feed or water again till the pot is lite......then you will have a ph balanced soil with all the minerals needed at the rite amount and your plant will be super happy and grow some dank nugs........holla if you need more help .....goodluck.....and iv been doing this a very long time so you can trust what im sayin....if you keep asking people your gonna get 100 dif people that all say something crazy and prob first time growers .....i told you the answar....ruuuuuuun
Click to expand...
I have to agree with the addition of the dolomite lime. I have used this technique before and it has turned plants around. The lime will also take care of your calcium.
 
D

DanKill1

Member
Thanks....I thought distilled was best due to the low PH. My tap has a 7.0 or higher PH. Do I flush 1st then add or just add to next feeding?
 
D

DanKill1

Member
SxIstew said:
That is a clear nute lockout. I will assume from my past experiences that you are using Fox Farm Ocean Forest?? I've always had over fert issues with the soil even using FF nutes. may want to try a new medium. but you definitely need to get the runoff pH exact. you need to be sure you aren't running anything below 6.3. probe testers suck but are fairly accurate. they need to be calibrated every once and a while but it's worth having it around. Personally I got so tired of pHing my shit, I switched nutes to General Organics, and medium to inert CocoGro. haven't had a problem since.
Click to expand...
Im sorry. Should've mentioned it was FF Happy Frog. Don't have a digital PH tester. I'm using a color scale with dye additive. I know its not exact but I thought it would be close. Thanks
 
D

DanKill1

Member
filthy piglet said:
Hey man, first off you ph is to high and causing nutrients to lockout .....get the ph down to 6.5 and no higher......add a few teaspoons of lime to a gal of water, mix it good and flush your plants out with a few gal plain water ....pour the gallon of lime water thru last so it will fully getmixxed into the medium, that will balance the ph.......then make a batch of nutes 1/4 weak but make sure they have all the 6 macro elements n/p/k sul/cal/mg and also have secondary minerals iron/moly/boron/zinc/copper/manganese/ and pour that in till you get more runoff and then done feed or water again till the pot is lite......then you will have a ph balanced soil with all the minerals needed at the rite amount and your plant will be super happy and grow some dank nugs........holla if you need more help .....goodluck.....and iv been doing this a very long time so you can trust what im sayin....if you keep asking people your gonna get 100 dif people that all say something crazy and prob first time growers .....i told you the answar....ruuuuuuun
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for this...will do. So since my tap PH is high and my distilled seems to have a negative effect what do I use? For the last flush bottle for each plant am I going to add nutes per schedule or will the lime assist in feeding? sorry for the confusion...just getting anxious about leaving the rat race:)
 
Bakatare666

Bakatare666

Well-Known Member
My tap comes out at 7.9, (checked with drops from a pool kit last year) and I just let mine sit overnight to evap off the chlorine, and don't have any PH issues.
 
D

DanKill1

Member
SxIstew said:
damn straight it's hot stuff. almost like trying to run SYCO your first grow. you'll never get it right. no matter who gives you advice. It takes time to get into something you like. took me 2 years and 6 grows to find something I couldn't go without. and even now i'm upgrading and adding new improved products. I started out with miracle gro, 1 clone in an 8" pot, and 3 cfl's(not the grow kind). lets just say I've made some drastic changes General Organics FULL LINE(besides the soil additive ancient forest) General Hydro FloraNectar, CocoGro/ReadyGro, 1 400w mh, 2 400w hps, oh and 7-10 gallon containers....lol
and again I will say. I'm still adding and upgrading. EVEN IF YOU CAN'T FIX THIS GROW, you will come back for more, and through trial and error you will 100% get down the basic principles of how to get every plant to the end without an issue. i'm going on grow 3 issue free. and i'm still considered a NOOB to most. :) including myself. follow filthy's instruction, he uses your product, GOOD LUCK AND KEEP UPDATING
Click to expand...
I really appreciate the advice...I know I havw issues but honestly this is the best grow so far minus the deficiency. Flowers look good and although my plants are long (stretchy) they look better than my previous two on lights alone. Just hope to yield something so I dont kill my confidence..
 
Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Active Member
If you are using the Fox Farm schedule, only use 1/4 to 1/2 strength. Anymore than that and you will have issues. I use the whole FF lineup. I only use the Sledgehammer at the final flush. With transplants into Ocean Forest you shouldn't need any nutrients for 3 weeks +. Get a digital ph meter - best $20 investment for growing you will ever spend.

Edit: I mean a digital ph pen for liquids. Those soil probes are junk IMO.
 
Sheesh420

Sheesh420

Member
Don't test the soil. Soil testers are useless. Know what is going in and test what is coming out if you're in this situation and don't listen to people on the internet diagnose your pictures until you are certain.
 
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