need help still

[kyolic]

I am just using big bloom right now and distilled water. I just wanted to make 100% sure it was a calcium def or somethin and not just ozone damage. I just picked up some cal mag and tiger bloom and i am about a month into flowering.

[stinkyattic]

No cusswords in thread titles please.
You need to give some more info... please fill out the form in the sticky. We don't even know if you're dirt of hydro... :wtf:

Edit: That's not Ca def btw. You look scorchy.

[kyolic]

sorry about that i was just pissed off lol.

-indoor
-soil...2 plants in 3 gallon bags 2 in 5 gallon...2 plants are 40 inches and the other two are about 30
-fox farms soil
-Soil pH should be normal since i have only been using distilled water
-the plant is about 3-4 weeks into flowering
-I have only been using big bloom about to start using tiger bloom
-i water every 2-3 days
-I have two oscillating fans for my ventilation...nothing great
-my light is currently about 2-3 feet above the plants....i just moved it up though. For a couple of weeks it was less than a foot above them.
-and my humidity is around 50%
- lighting..i am using one 600watt sodium bulb


And i figured the leaves were just burned from the light being so close but then i started looking at nute defs and it looked like it was potassium or something so i just wanted to make sure.

[stinkyattic]

The assumption that distilled water allows pH to remain stable actually doesn't work despite the truth being counterintuitive.
Tap water contains calcium carbonate, and that in turn controls soil acidity. If you are in soil and your tap water isn't known to be horrible, use the tap water.
I don't know exactly which of the soils you are using but PEAT is a common ingredient and tends to dop in pH over time, especially after the lime added at the factory as buffer is used up... and guess what that is? Calcium carbonate again! :D
I think you have a lockout situation and likely your pH is too low too.
Complete a soil runoff test and FLUSH!!!!

[kyolic]

sorry for the noob question but its my first grow...how do i flush? Also how would i have a lockout situation considering the ratios in big bloom are small as hell? I thought lockouts happened when you gave them too much nutes

[Gundari]

Lock out occurs when the ph of your medium has swung either too high up or low, the plant loses all ability to suck up certain nutrients. PH lock out is a bitch, I've done battle with it several times before...its my growing arch nemesis. (You are partially correct, it does tend to happen when you feed the plant too much as lots of salts build up in the soils and alot of ferts swing the ph towards being more acidic.)

And you flush by running PH'd water (PH like 3 gallons or w/e at aroun 6.8) and just continue running water through your soil until you've rinsed out all the nasty salts and such and your soil will be sitting at a nice happy ph of 6.8.That way your plant can eat and be happy again.

The generally acceptated amount for a successful flush is 3x the pot size. IE if you have a 1 gallon pot, 3 gallons of water. I've always had to use WAAAAY more then the pot size but all my ph problems have been really really strange.

[Weedhound]

AND......ozone can burn your plants if you have it too close.

[kyolic]

thanks for the replies guys. I think it was damage from the light. cuz I mean at one point before I was able to move my light up it was about 2 or 3 inches away from my plants and that's a 600 watt bulb. could the burns look like that though? I think I will just give them ferts tomorrow for the first time at one third the dosage and see what happens. I only give them that once a week though right?

[stinkyattic]

That's not a light burn. However, high temps exacerbate the symptoms of fertilizer burn.

[Weedhound]

Doesn't look like light burn to me either. check your ph. I'm just mentioning about the ozone stuff. ;)

[kyolic]

unfotunatly I can't afford a ph meter at the moment. if I flushed them can I just leave them in the bags there are in and just let the water drain out of the holes on the sides? I'm gonna do that as a last resort because I think my light being a couple of inches away from my plants for two weeks has something to do with it hopefully....but thanks for the help guys

[stinkyattic]

It's not the light... Light burn presents very distinctively.
If you had physical damage from the light, I would say, 'yo that's light bleaching'.
But it's not.
It's some combination of fert burn, salt buildup in the soil, and a possible pH problem. pH issues and soil salting go hand in hand BTW. A liquid test kit is less than ten bucks...

[kyolic]

It's not the light... Light burn presents very distinctively.
If you had physical damage from the light, I would say, 'yo that's light bleaching'.
But it's not.
It's some combination of fert burn, salt buildup in the soil, and a possible pH problem. pH issues and soil salting go hand in hand BTW. A liquid test kit is less than ten bucks...
oh sick. I was looking at the wrong ones then. ithe ones at this grow shop were like 80 bucks. so after I dump a shit load of water on them how long should I wait till I add ferts again? and I can't help but thinking that all that water would destroy the roots or make them have root rot or something

[stinkyattic]

The final step of a correct flush is watering with a complete fert mixed at 1/4 strength.
The pH test that's cheap but still accurate is a little bottle of drops and a vial that you mix with a few mL of your water or nute solution and it turns color depending upon pH. It's called an 'indicator solution'.

[kyolic]

The final step of a correct flush is watering with a complete fert mixed at 1/4 strength.
The pH test that's cheap but still accurate is a little bottle of drops and a vial that you mix with a few mL of your water or nute solution and it turns color depending upon pH. It's called an 'indicator solution'. even though I have been using distilled water this whole time can flush with tap and just strt using that?

[kyolic]

for those of you who told me to flush my plants it didnt work. I used 10 gallons of ph 6.8 water on a 3 gal bag and then added 1/4 nutes at the end and the prob is gettin worse. what should i do.

[stinkyattic]

Have you actually been using the CalMag with your distilled water? Try giving your plants a foliar of it. There's something really odd going on, and the more recent pics DO show classic Ca def symptoms (wide patches of necrosis on the plant edges).

[stinkyattic]

Shit that's just a strange set of symptoms all around. Running the distilled water before is what I think really shot you in the foot. The edge spotting and speckling in the center of the leaves looks like a really bad potassium deficiency or lockout. The tipburn looks like fert burn. CalMag has other trace minerals besides Ca and Mg and will at the very least help halt the spread of the problem until you can identify it.
When you did your flush, did you check the final runoff pH of the water coming OUT of the pots?

[kyolic]

yeah I checked it...it was actually sittinr right at 7. and I thought it looked like either calcium or potassium like I said before. I have some cal mag that I bought a few days ago that I can use to foliar feed. would it be ok to foliar feed today even though I fed them ferts 2 days ago? and one of my other plants has the same shit happening to it. what can I use for potassium? or will calmag do the trick? I don't know if the tiger bloom I used has potassium in it

[stinkyattic]

pH 7 runoff is too high. Get it into the 6.5-6.8 range.
Potassium is the 'k' in NPK and is the last number on the bottle. For example a 6-3-4 nute has 4% potassium.
You can foliar feed at any time. You can even use your tiger bloom along with the calmag, but dilute it quite a bit more than the bottle says.