PPM Nutrients - Da Fuh' WHAT????

I know, bugged out title...

I'm using General Hydroponics Flora Series

I have been following Nebula HAze's nutrition schedule here-
http://www.growweedeasy.com/sites/growweedeasy.com/files/grow-weed-General-Hydroponics-nutrient-schedule.pdf

So when I follow this schedule my PPM's are way too low. I'm talking maybe 600 and I'm in the Early boom stages. I have been just adding more nutes to get to the 800 - 1400 range which I hear I should be.

When I followed the schedule without checking ppm, I had some serious deficiencies and had to add a calcium and magnesium supplement (Earth Juice) and pump up the nutes to about 800 ppm which I nearly had to double my nutes to achieve.

My last feeding... I gave 150 ML of each nutrients for a 1020 PPM in 13 gallons of water.

I'm using tap water but my tap water is pretty clean I'm talking <50 PPM.

My question is, should I worry less about PPM or just follow the schedule even though the PPM is low? Even though it seems to be creating deficiencies....

The X-Factor
I never followed the schedule while using The Calcium Magnesium Supplement. So perhaps I could have stuck to the low PPM leveles and the Calcium Magnesium Supplement could have made-up for the deficiencies I had.

Any advice would be golden, thanks.

PD!

How you achieved < 50 ppm tap water I can't tell you but what I do know is that is pretty much ultra clean water and you should add CaliMagic as they recommend or a Calcium Magnesium supplement of your choosing. I can't seem to Google X-Factor and I am unfamiliar with it. I like General Organics CaMg+ at recommended dosages for my RO water I recently switched from botanicare cal mag plus because I just want the Ca mg. CaMg+ happens to be a perfect 5 to 1 ratio.

In direct answer to your question if a plant shows a deficiency we try to understand why. Is it simply not enough of that specific nutrient or are we dropping/pushing that nutrient out? Dropping nutrients out means it is no longer water soluble and drops to the bottom maybe not visible to the eye. This happens from temps out of range, pH out of range and reactions with other nutrients. Pushing a nutrient out happens when too much of one type of nutrient(s) causes another nutrient(s) to be unavailable which is pretty self explanatory. For example too much Nitrogen/Potassium causes Calcium deficiency.

I hope that gave you an idea of how I work through these problems. Got a heavy work load at the moment so it may take a day or ten minutes for my reply I can't promise a fast response but if you need help throw me a photo of the whole plant, get me a link for that X-Factor you are using and I will work through the math on what you are feeding. (Don't forget to tell me veg or flower, temps and humidity, type of lights - please)

You always come through with great answers, man, thanks.

I will upload pics in a bit of some new discoloration I'm seeing. I have some autos that just went into flowering, still using massive nutes to get the right PPMs.

I have one that's in flowering, others seem to be just starting out to sprout the pistils.

My tap is about 45 according to my TDS meter. I know I have good water but I think some of the ppm pens use different ec conversions, so yours and mine might show 500 while one from another company would show 800. I do dwc and usually have my res at about 300-500. I don't know how people can have theirs above 1,000 without killing the plants.

When I use the GH flora, I use the per gallon measurements on the back of the bottle for the whole 5 gal res so its only mixed 1/5 of the strength gh recomends and that usually works well for me. You might need to use more for soil, I use dwc.

If your ph is wrong, you will see deficiencies even if you dump a whole bottle of nutes on it. Its called lockout, the nutes are there but the plant can't use certain nutes so it looks like a deficiency.

farmasensist said:

My tap is about 45 according to my TDS meter. I know I have good water but I think some of the ppm pens use different ec conversions, so yours and mine might show 500 while one from another company would show 800. I do dwc and usually have my res at about 300-500. I don't know how people can have theirs above 1,000 without killing the plants.

When I use the GH flora, I use the per gallon measurements on the back of the bottle for the whole 5 gal res so its only mixed 1/5 of the strength gh recomends and that usually works well for me. You might need to use more for soil, I use dwc.

If your ph is wrong, you will see deficiencies even if you dump a whole bottle of nutes on it. Its called lockout, the nutes are there but the plant can't use certain nutes so it looks like a deficiency.

Click to expand...

Unless my ph meter is full of doo doo, my ph should be on point. I'm using dwc as well. I have a 10 gal, 17 and 27

Make sure your tds reader is calibrated correctly. I've had my ladies I'm the upper 1600s with no problems but that was late flower. I look at it like going to the gym. When you first start going you are not going to be lifting 100+ pounds right away you are going to gradually get there over time. Plants are the same way, I go up about 100 or more ppm a week depending on how much water they are drinking and how they look.