Please help! Droopy Plants

I haven't tried any of the maxi line of nutes so cannot offer you any suggestions there. I like the stuff I use....(Botinicare) but I wouldn't change anything you are doing if it is working for you. :thumbsup: I sort of like to stay with certain lines myself as well because they do seem to enhance each other. When I go to bloom nutes I just change over one day....(I asked about this to my hydro guy cause I'd be more like you....switch slowly)....and he said no...just boom. My usual schedule is to start them at about 200/300 ppm and raise the level one hundred ppm once a week until I hit 1200-1300 then hold it which usually is for a few more weeks. At about the third week of flowering I add the bloom stimulater type thing and cut the reg bloom nutes in half. They are usually at about 800ppm when I turn them and I I change the light over at the same time. About 200ppm of that is suppliments....Liquid Karma and Sweet...and 50% of the total ppm is Cal Mag because I use RO water. I may be revamping this however because I just spoke to X-C who gets about three times the yield I am getting and I full intend to find out how he does it!!!

Interesting side note.......just put some new little purebred feminized seedlings s in my setup and started them at 200ppms.....NOT HAPPY.....touchy touchy so I am starting to see how certain ones could definitely go without nutes for awhile as the big boys have said....the other ones in my setup are fine with it so.....

How about an updated photo of the herd when you can?

Still wasn't able to get a closeup my camera doesn't work during the day and I can't seem to get any good pics with the small resolution otherwise I can't mail them so this is the best I could do...I can't really tell the difference between any of them yet...they all look like they have some kinda ball where the bud site should be but I don't see any hairs *shrugs* hopefully it's too early I can't imagine I have all 9 males...

When I change the res I'm thinkin about doin the maxibloom with kabloom and then the bcuzz supplement I don't know if maxi is ment to be used with kabloom or you use maxi for a bit and then switch to kabloom or what but I'll ask my hydro guy when I stop in tomorrow...anyway here's the pic they are definately much bigger I really hope I can tell which are males soon because they are growing all into each other

Holy CRAP! What did you do to them?!! They are HUGE! They look really good ASD, good work.!!. What a MASS! :D

I've just basically followed your advice WH...I think one of the biggest things was getting the meter because it let me know how much the plants wanted to eat...I've gotta pick up a few things tomorrow and still have more work on the room but pretty much all that's left is sorting out male from female ;-) I've still got my fingers crossed...hopefully they will will keep truckin along like they have the last 5 days...

Well they look really good at this point. They seem to be a nice healthy green color too so :thumbsup: I feel that once you get the basics of hydro it does seem easy and of course while you can get by it REALLY helps to have the equipment to keep things on track. Right tool for the job blah blah. Otherwise it's just guessing and that can really be frustrating.

You've done the work here so it's your ballgame. :) I will check back and see how things are; males/females etc...

Good thread you guys! Good advice and good job following the advice. I love this site.

Thanks Tom :)

Hey WH you said you use RO water, I was wonderin what type of system you have...all the ones I've seen have to be installed to a water supply and have a waste line of water...not the end of the world considering water is like 1/4 a penny per gallon here but I was just wondering if yours required installation or is it just one where you pour the water in a top res and it comes out in another tank where it's purified?

I've seen this one online that claims 100gpd at zero ppm 6 stage ro+di...it looked like the ebay price was like 160 after shipping with a tank...I'm looking into this cause the britta is a pain in the ass to use and it still only gets the water consistantly under 120...I'd prefer a system that would definately get under 30ppm but obviously the closer to zero the better...

Thought here......when I first started this project my hydro guy told me to try my tap water first....just straight.....because it is loaded with good things like calcium, iron etc...The main problem with tap water is that sometimes (I have well water by the way) there are things in it which keep your ph from remaining stable. This happened to be true for my water and I have the very same problem using it for my fishtank. The ph climbs...no matter what....no matter where. I tried the britta filter (which didn't do anything for me) and (ps my hydro guy says all those filters do is take out the good things like minerals etc...so he is not crazy about them....the britta type things I mean) and it was only after my hair was standing on end with frustration that we broke down and bought an RO filter which turned out to be exactly what I needed.

I was thinking about you yesterday and was again PONTIFICATING ;) to perhaps suggest you try your regular tap water. According to what i have read you would simply mix your nutes to the number you need and just add that number to the number you started with in your water.....in other words just pretend the water is at 0.

Is there a way you can test your water...minus britta....to see if your ph will remain stable? Perhaps put a fair amount in a bowl, test it, adjust it, leave it, retest....over a day or so?

I am certainly not arguing that you should not buy an RO system if you'd like....I love mine....use it for the fish and the plants but I am just remembering my hydro guy telling me that generally tap water is good for your plants. Even the small amount of chlorine in tap water can be beneficial for them apparently. Just depends on your type of water.

More thoughts....I mentioned trying your tap water because you are using it already (w/Britta) and seem to have your ph probs under control. When I used the Britta it did not help control the ph of my water at ALL. Your plants also seems to be liking that water and growing nicely with it so that is why I'm betting it's worth trying rather than investing in an RO system.

I do love my system...it's a SpectraPure....50gpd. There are several things involved with these systems just to give you a heads up. Ours is extremely easy to set up and take down. Just screw the line on to your faucethead or hose and find someplace for the waste water and a bucket for the processed water. Couldn't be simpler. Like hooking up an extra hose or something.

If you use RO water you will need to also use CalMag or something to help replace lost minerals, calcium etc...

You will need something to keep your RO water in.....we use a 50 gal plastic storage barrel. A clean plastic trash can will work fine for you. Once in awhile I have to toss some H202 into it to keep algae out and we have a fish heater in it to keep the water at about 65 degrees.

Don't know what area you live in but on the box in HUGE letters it says you cannot leave your filter outside in freezing temps....

When i looked into these filters I asked a couple people about RO vs RO/DI and was told that RO alone was a better choice for fish and plants. I cannot remember why but.......I'm sure someone else on these boards knows the answer to that.

Just some more cud to chew on and meditate over.....