What is wrong

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this site and this is my first grow. I did a search for the issues I am having and there were so many different opinions I thought I would post pictures of my plant. I apologize if this has been answered a million times.

Currently growing 3 different strains all from seed. Ninja Fruit, White Widow and Candy Glue. Growing in coco using GH Floraseries drain to waste expert feeding chart. I had issues in the begining with heat stress but have since corrected the heat issues. Currently using 2 600 watt LED and will be using 1800 watt HPS for flower (3 600 watt ballast).

Yesterday, I noticed that my timer did not shutoff when it was suppose to. So instead of my plants getting 18/6 photoperiod they were getting 24 hours of light. I believe this happened on Thursday when I switched over to LED from MH. During this period the plants all seemed to look good. Before this I was dealing with what appeared to be a nitrogen deficiency in 1 of the candy glue plants (Fed plant Floranova Grow).After correcting the issue last night with the timer I woke up this morning with all the plants drooping, wilting and the candy glue that looked to have the nitrogen deficiency looked the worse.

The coco I'm growing in is from rehydrated blocks that I mixed perlite with. It seems to hold water very well in fact in still looked moist today. I typically only need to water my plants every 3 days. After seeing the plants this morning they got fed and all seem to be doing much better however the candy glue still does not look 100% and I'm concerned that all my plants seem to have deep purple stems.

Being that the coco still looked moist ( coco feels cool to the touch but not really moist) could this be an issue with roots not draining good enough? The pots weren't heavy I would say that they were on the lighter side. I water until I get runoff

Could it be stress from the light schedule being mixed up and me correcting it back to 18/6?

Also I do use RO water. I store my RO water in a 35 gallon reservoir. I do not mix my nutes in this reservoir, this reservoir is only for RO water. I take a gallon of RO and mix my nutes in separate jug.

Should I have an airstone in my RO reservoir to provide oxygen? Currently its sealed with a lid and doesnt receive much light. Could my RO water be the issue? I do check my PH and I run between 5.7-5.9 and my ppm of RO is 4 ppm and after adding nutes my ppm is under the recommend amount on the feed chart for GH.

Any help or guidance would be great thanks everyone!

Take pic in normal light

Here are some photos of the candy glue in normal light. They look a lot better than what they did first thing this morning.

I tested the water runoff that accumulated in the tray. It had a 790 ppm with a ph 6.6. When I fed them earlier today I had the ph at 5.7-5.8 with 454 ppm. Is this normal to see when growing in coco? Is the ph to high?

Here is a couple of pictures of the white widow strain, it looks like some discoloration is appearing on the leaves.

Candy Glue has its leaf fringe standing up...probably too warm.

WW has Mg deficiency...add Mg to your RO water.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Coir holds a lot of calcium, magnesium and potassium.
Excess magnesium will lock out sulphur.
Sulphur deficiency quite often appears first as purple leaf stems. Then yellowing of leaves appear. Usually in the tops. But it doesn't really discriminate. Sulphur is fairly mobile.
It's a little alarming that you're feeding at 5.8ph and your runoff, is reading 6.6.
Means your runoff is closer to 7, or over.
The higher ppms in your runoff is a worry too. That tells me the coir is leeching cations. Which is buffering your ph to stay high.
Try to get your runoff ph and ppms to read the same, as you're putting in.
It's always good to aim a little lower than other hydro in coir, imho. For these reasons alone.
I find coir is a great medium, if you rely on the chances it's going to hold back, then leech cations further down the line.


I use the expanding blocks too. You need to be aware the blocks have a lot of sodium too (Na).
If you're using clear nutrients. What colour is your runoff? Is it a lot browner in colour, than the feed?
Have you tested the runoff ec, if it isn't clear?
Does the ec's match the ppms?

There was a fan blowing directing on the candy glue could this have caused leaf fringe as well? All plants were fed today and I added CalMag into my solution. Do you think I still need to add more Mg? I added 1 ml calmag per gallon

I run 100% straight coir.
Your runoff is a big problem dude.
I'd be getting that under control, before adding or changing anything.
IMHO, you don't have any deficiency at all. It's lockout.
Sodium will dry and shrivel leaves as well. Learned pretty quickly using the blocks.
How did you prepare the coir, when you expanded them?

My nutrient solution is a lighter brown when I feed and the runoff is really dark brown. I'm not sure how to read the EC reading but in the runoff solution I have a reading of 1720 us/cm.

When I expanded the coir I put 5 blocks in tote and added hot water and perlite. I used tap water

If you're deficient in magnesium.
Bottom leaves start to yellow at the tip, and edges of the leaves. They develop a yellow V shape.
In horticulture, it's quite often referred to as "the magnesium V".
Magnesium deficiency does not mean purple stems. It's a miss conception.
The stems don't go back to green, because of magnesium in the Epsom salts. They go back to green because of the sulphur.
Epsom salts = magnesium sulphate.
It's so unlikely what you're experiencing is a deficiency

Is this magnesium def?

What do you suggest I do to correct my runoff situation? Keep flushing with lower ph RO water until it reads closer to the range in which I feed?

You don’t think I have any Mg issues?

Should I have an air stone in my RO tank?

Is sulfur causing the purple stems?

Grankel1 said:

What do you suggest I do to correct my runoff situation? Keep flushing with lower ph RO water until it reads closer to the range in which I feed?

You don’t think I have any Mg issues?

Should I have an air stone in my RO tank?

Is sulfur causing the purple stems?

Click to expand...

I suggest tomorrow, or whenever your next feed is. To give a big flush.
When you do adjust your water/feed to the desired ph. Then flush until your runoff ph, and ec reads the same, as you put in.
I usually just use water to flush. Then I just top it off with nutrient straight after.
But you can use a low dose of nutes to flush, as well. If you'd prefer.
About 400ppms wouldn't be bad. Even a tad lower.

Good luck.
Hope they come around.



It's a good idea when expanding the blocks, to use hot water as you did.
Get the runoff clear, and do a cold flush. Then check ec. Aim for very low ec.
If you have RO. You should be able to get the ec's to almost zero.



Definitely a good idea to run you reservoir just like a dwc. Temps and oxygen is a must.
You don't want infection.

cgrizzle3 said:

Is this magnesium def?

Click to expand...

No.
I'll find a few photos and upload.
Give me a few minutes

Magnesium deficiency.
You'll notice the V.
On marijuana the same V forms on the fingers of the shade leaves. The serrations and tips yellow first. Then the fingers form the V.

Tim1987 said:

OK.
If the ppm measurement you use is the one that reads lower. It's an ec of 3.4.
If it's the other ppm, it's ec 2.6.
What I'm suggesting is to check the ec of your runoff. Because sodium, salts etc give off a charge. You need to know the electrical conductivity of your runoff.
All that brown, is decomposed coir. It will give an inaccurate ppm measurement.
The ec could be higher. Or it could be lower. You need to find out whether your coir is absorbing or leeching.

Click to expand...

Sorry mate.
Scrap the quoted post.
I was converting 1720ppm to ec.
I miss read. My bad.
You could most likely find an accurate converter online though. If you can't on your meter.
Good luck

Just make sure what you put in is properly pH'd and no more than half strength nutes. After a few watering's everything should be in order.

Thanks for all the replies I have learned a lot from this discussion.

My EC from the runoff is 1.72 which seems to be at the upper limit based off some charts I have seen. Being that this is clearly more than what I have been freeding my plants is my coir leeching?

I performed a test comparing distilled water, with distilled water mixed with some of my coir.

I pulled the sample of coir from the pots in which my plants are in however, the sample I took doesn’t see any nutirents because the pot is currently to big for the plants.

Below are the results:

Distilled water

PH: 6.5-6.7 I read it is suppose to be at 7 but slightly lower if exposed to air??

PPM: 17

EC: .036

Distilled water with coir sample

PH: 6.6

PPM: 89

EC: .208

Do you think the numbers with the sample are significantly higher and could cause the issues with my plant and the purple stems?

I will provide a data sample of the coir from around the stem later.

After performing this experiment I thought of how I have been watering/feeding my plants. Since I transplanted them from solo cups to 5 gallon pots I have not been doing the 20% runoff. I didn’t want to over water them, so I was providing them the same quantiy solution they were receiving in the solo cups. Now I’m thinking that maybe all those nutrients were staying in the coir and when I went to measure the new runoff it had some leftover nutrients from prior feedings.

Could this be possible and causing some issues? Should I perform a light flush with ph water until runoff matches desired PH?

Again thanks!!

Grankel1 said:

Thanks for all the replies I have learned a lot from this discussion.

My EC from the runoff is 1.72 which seems to be at the upper limit based off some charts I have seen. Being that this is clearly more than what I have been freeding my plants is my coir leeching?

I performed a test comparing distilled water, with distilled water mixed with some of my coir.

I pulled the sample of coir from the pots in which my plants are in however, the sample I took doesn’t see any nutirents because the pot is currently to big for the plants.

Below are the results:

Distilled water

PH: 6.5-6.7 I read it is suppose to be at 7 but slightly lower if exposed to air??

PPM: 17

EC: .036

Distilled water with coir sample

PH: 6.6

PPM: 89

EC: .208

Do you think the numbers with the sample are significantly higher and could cause the issues with my plant and the purple stems?

I will provide a data sample of the coir from around the stem later.

After performing this experiment I thought of how I have been watering/feeding my plants. Since I transplanted them from solo cups to 5 gallon pots I have not been doing the 20% runoff. I didn’t want to over water them, so I was providing them the same quantiy solution they were receiving in the solo cups. Now I’m thinking that maybe all those nutrients were staying in the coir and when I went to measure the new runoff it had some leftover nutrients from prior feedings.

Could this be possible and causing some issues? Should I perform a light flush with ph water until runoff matches desired PH?

Again thanks!!

Click to expand...

I'd just go by your runoff. All day.
Taking coir samples, and testing like you would soil, isn't accurate.
You need to run coir like any other drain to waste hydro. You measure what comes out the bottom.
The only time it makes sense not to. Is if you use organic, powdered nutrients. Then a soil sample makes sense.
But using synthetic in a bottle. Like I am, and you are. We need to go by our waste.

IMHO.
Over the next few days try and get your waste, to match what's going in. It may take a little more time. It may take less. But you'll get there.

I think not running good run to waste. Like you say, is for sure part of your problem. I run 15-30% runoff each time. It's essential IMHO.
Once coir is fully saturated it's almost completely inert. Meaning it doesn't hold on to anything, and releases it's cations. This is what you want to happen when you water, or feed.
It's kind of the same, as when the oldies used to always tell us to water the garden outside, a lot more, but to do it less often. Otherwise you underwater, and the garden starts getting deficiencies etc.
You have essentially been underwatering your coir. If you under water / feed coir, buildup happens.
You gotta flush out all the dirty, unused crap, each time.

I performed a flush last night on the candy glue strain. The plant is in a 5 gallon pot.

The starting numbers:

Going in 1st gallon:

PH: 5.7
PPM: 4
EC: .008

Runoff:

PH: 6.4
PPM: 568
EC: 1.2

The numbers don’t really seem to be off by much starting out. However, the water going in was crystal clear coming out was very dark brown.

Going in 11th gallon:

PH: 5.2
PPM: 7
EC: .014

Runoff:

PH: 7.4
PPM: 29
EC: .061

Not sure why the PH is increasing. Is the the coco trying to buffer PH?
Going in water crystal clear, coming out light brown almost clear now.

I then decided since I flushed everything away from the plant, I didn’t want to leave it with no nutrients. I made a mild solution using General Hydroponics Floraseries.

Going in:

PH: 5.8
PPM: 558
EC: 1.19

Runoff:

PH: 7.5
PPM: 29
EC: .061

Wow! PH is crazy high now what is going on? Plant seemed to suck up the nutes or the coco is holding it. Water coming out was lighter in color than the solution going in.

Should I be concerned with the PH?

I tested another strain using the same nutrient solution

Going in:

PH: 5.8
PPM: 558
EC: 1.19

Runoff:

PH: 6.2
PPM: 769
EC: 1.64

PH seems to be dialed in better with this strain. Could this be strain related?
Runoff water was that dark brown again.

I’m thinking I need to flush all my plants and rinse this coco since I never rinsed it!!

Plant looked a little stressed this morning not much though

After the first few gallons used for the flush the coco didn’t hold anything else. Pretty much Poured a gallon in and collected a gallon of runoff.

On the other strain tested collected around 30%