Yellow leaves and brown spots in new coco mix.

Stunted growth (partially by design w light at lowest level while waiting for flower tent). Yellowing as you can see.

I lifted the lights and raised the light level a few days ago because the mother clone in the back left started turning purple. She was damaged. I somehow broke the original stem of the clone which was between the two much larger side branchs that makeup the plant now. Lux meter reads 39,800. I think that's up about 13,000 from the lights were a little too close.

I'm mainlining Peyote Critical, Purple Punch, Blue Dragon, and Crumpets#3 X Candy Rain #3. I just did the 2nd topping.

The yellowest of them all in the upper right is Peyote Critical. She started out leggy.

I thought it might be a magnesium deficiency so I gave them a mild nute solution at 5.5 pH. They received a cal-mag nute solution on the previous fertigation.

Almost forget to mention the coco. I used the name brand coco without treating it in any way. Just mixed in the perlite.
Oh great Wizards of RIU, please help!

wht water arte you useing, from what ive read, coco is ment to be used with RO water. it could be lockout from your waters PPM. but wait for a coco grower to chime in, as i grow in dirt

RO. Thats' why I added the cal-mag. Thanks.

What are you feeding them? EC? How often are you feeding them? I'd be feeding them at 6.0 pH-6.2 pH.

IFed them 3 days apart. 5.8 pH and EC of 1.6. Runoff was coming out at 6.3 & EC 2

Coco should be fed every day to substantial run off.
Never give plain water.
Never let it get dry.
Contrary to what one of the above posters claimed........r/o water isn't necessary in coco........I've been using tap for decades without issue.

I would raise the lights up a bit more, you are still pushing a lot of light on plants that are small and struggling, give them around 20-25k lux and sort out your feeding. How long ago did you transplant to these pots? That's really the only time you should let the media dry out a little, just until the roots fill up the new space. What nutrients are you using? I would feed those EC 1 and PH around 6. Also, since the EC was building up, be sure to increase your runoff when you feed. Good luck! You can still turn things around, coco is easy once it "clicks" in your brain. Oh I forgot to ask about temps, but if your temps are below 80, get them up.

MickFoster said:

Coco should be fed every day to substantial run off.
Never give plain water.
Never let it get dry.
Contrary to what one of the above posters claimed........r/o water isn't necessary in coco........I've been using tap for decades without issue.

Click to expand...

I didn't let it get dry. I know not to feed plain H2O. I use RO because the tap H2O is loaded with chloramine and usually runs at 225+ ppm and I use the RO for drinking water since I don't like buying bottled water and the tap water tastes not so good. I'm going to give my tap water a try on plants someday just to see how it comes out. I think the chloramine kills the bennie microbes though.

I haven't been doing the runoff like I should because I was lazy not wanting to mix nutes and wanted to slow the growth while waiting for space to open in the flower tent. I'll do that today.

Thank you.

Rurumo said:

I would raise the lights up a bit more, you are still pushing a lot of light on plants that are small and struggling, give them around 20-25k lux and sort out your feeding. How long ago did you transplant to these pots? That's really the only time you should let the media dry out a little, just until the roots fill up the new space. What nutrients are you using? I would feed those EC 1 and PH around 6. Also, since the EC was building up, be sure to increase your runoff when you feed. Good luck! You can still turn things around, coco is easy once it "clicks" in your brain. Oh I forgot to ask about temps, but if your temps are below 80, get them up.

Click to expand...

I transplanted weeks ago. They are 47 days old now and did the 2nd mainline topping a few days ago.
Jacks 3-2-1

I will follow your advice.

Thank you.

Offmymeds said:

I didn't let it get dry. I know not to feed plain H2O. I use RO because the tap H2O is loaded with chloramine and usually runs at 225+ ppm and I use the RO for drinking water since I don't like buying bottled water and the tap water tastes not so good. I'm going to give my tap water a try on plants someday just to see how it comes out. I think the chloramine kills the bennie microbes though.

I haven't been doing the runoff like I should because I was lazy not wanting to mix nutes and wanted to slow the growth while waiting for space to open in the flower tent. I'll do that today.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

Coco isn't a medium for lazy people if you are hand watering. Those plants are a big enough size that they should be fed at least once a day, not every three days.

You never said what you were feeding them. You said a mild nutrient solution on one feed and a CalMag solution on another. Did you feed just CalMag or was it with nutrients?

Edit: Your post came in while I was typing. You shouldn't need CalMag with Jack's. Even with RO.

I keep the cal-mag as a precaution more than anything to help stabilize the pH. Since the coco was new and I didn't do a cal-mag treatment on it I tried cal-mag with Jacks at 1.6 EC. Normally it's been just Jack's at 1.0 & 5.8 pH

Offmymeds said:

I think the chloramine kills the bennie microbes though.

Click to expand...

Wrong........my tap has choramine and I have no problems.
Besides, coco doesn't contain bennie microbes........it's not soil
If you don't feed to substantial run off you will develop problems due to salt build up.
225 ppm of your tap is not horrible........try it.

MickFoster said:

Wrong........my tap has choramine and I have no problems.
Besides, coco doesn't contain bennie microbes........it's not soil
If you don't feed to substantial run off you will develop problems due to salt build up.
225 ppm of your tap is not horrible........try it.

Click to expand...

I don’t bubble shit, straight out the tap for me too.

Offmymeds said:

I didn't let it get dry. I know not to feed plain H2O. I use RO because the tap H2O is loaded with chloramine and usually runs at 225+ ppm and I use the RO for drinking water since I don't like buying bottled water and the tap water tastes not so good. I'm going to give my tap water a try on plants someday just to see how it comes out. I think the chloramine kills the bennie microbes though.

I haven't been doing the runoff like I should because I was lazy not wanting to mix nutes and wanted to slow the growth while waiting for space to open in the flower tent. I'll do that today.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

Tap water is not loaded with chloramine. Chloramine levels in tap water rarely exceed 4 ppm. I water straight from the tap, chloramine and all and have for decades in coco, soil, and straight hydro.

MickFoster said:

Coco should be fed every day to substantial run off.
Never give plain water.
Never let it get dry.
Contrary to what one of the above posters claimed........r/o water isn't necessary in coco........I've been using tap for decades without issue.

Click to expand...

You should run some of my well water it might change your mind.

Critical anything will be a heavy feeding plant, it will need more fertilizer than most other plants due to the Critical Mass cross.

Coco you want to keep your PH in the 5.7-6.0 range for best results usually going acidic to alkaline through growth or holding 5.8 as long as possible.

Coco naturally clings onto Calcium & Magnesium so you will either need to use the classic Calmag solution or just increase your base nutrient feed to account for it.

xtsho said:

Tap water is not loaded with chloramine. Chloramine levels in tap water rarely exceed 4 ppm. I water straight from the tap, chloramine and all and have for decades in coco, soil, and straight hydro.

Click to expand...

Our chloramine gets so high that you can literally smell it. I have the RO system because of the bad taste of the water so I'm going to have it here anyway but it would be very nice to just take it straight from the sink faucet.

I just raised the lights a little more, turned the lux down to 27,000 and flushed them with .8 EC @ 6.0 pH. The runoff came out at 1.6 & 6.3.

Time to wait on the new growth.

They already lost the droopiness. I think they're on the road to recovery.

Thank you RIU Wizards!

Hey your not in Ohio are you?