Still having unknown plant problemsa

Hi guys,

Iv just started flowering my 4-5 week old plants to find a female for cloneing for smoking (not sure yet) and iv noticed that my bottom leaves were turning a rusty/bronze/brown on the tips and working its way up the leaves. Also a few little patches appearing in the middle of some lower leaves.

Now the thing is i was using a bad ph tester and i was under the impression it was around 7 and when i tested it today with a digital tester it was 3.8. So iv drained the resevoir and filled it with fresh water and almost full strength canna vega a+b and canna rhizo. Adjusted ph to 6.4 (using strait perlite in an autopot system) so im hoping that will fix the problem but im pretty worried as its infecting all 3 of my larger plants. I just want to see if the low ph is what would have been causing it.

Btw im pretty sure its not nute burn as i was only using half strenght and it wasnt so much of a crispy burn, rather more of a corrosion. Sort of....

Hope you guys can give me some feedback with the information i have provided. Pics soon hopefully

elp me

Sounds like lockout, possibly K lockout, from bad pH. You are on the right track now- pics asap, but the other thing is that I'd watch for tipburn since you just cranked up your fert strength. I like that canna stuff. It's user friendly!

PH issues are a pain in the arse. They can cause symptoms that mimic various def.'s. As Stinky said you're on the right track and I think you'll be OK.

thanks heaps guys. My ph is now 5.8 but the burn is still moving up the leaves a little but im hoping to see that dissappear soon.

Hi guys,

Just an update on my current grow and my problems. Iv been have ph problems and i think i have a K def. Iv decided the hydro grow system im using is to hard to control so i am going to wait for the 3 plants i have to start showing sex and i will take 6-8 clones from the female plant/s and select the best 2-4 for my new fresh grow. Il then put the rest of the plants i used for clones in my back yard and i might get a few cones from that :jointsmile:

Ok so heres what i need help with (stinky :p). I need someone to explain to me what sort of soil i would use (mixture/type/fert) and also when i should take the clones. Once iv taken the clones i will plant them into small rockwool cubes and then into a prob tray and under cool white and warm white bulbs for 2-3 weeks using 1/2 strength canna a+b vega and canna rhizo. I will then plant into soil and then move them to 18/6 under my 400w hps. I will be needing to hand water the clones with a bottle and also by misting and would like to know how often and how much i should be watering them.

Thankyou so much for your help everyone. Comments and suggestions would be great

Iv included pics of my system and plants.

also they have been on 12/12 for about 6-8 days now and im pretty sure they are all gonna be female. But im gonna wait until im sure.

:)

sorry but also if i was to continue growing these 3 under the 400w using my bloom nutes about how much yeild could i expect. Just generally what i should expect :)

thanksyou

Yield- no idea, honestly.
A soil that resists changes in pH sounds like it would be right up your alley. IF you have access to a farm supply store that sells composted humus, this is a good soil ingredient. IT buffers the pH right where you want it for a soil grow. The farm supply, and even the home depot, around here sell a couple products that are appropriate. The one I prefer is a coarse mixture of composted cow manure and composted humus, whcih comes out of the bag at .5-.5-.5. Then I cut it by ~30% with perlite to drop the nutrient % and lighten it for drainage. You don't have Agway where you are I'll bet, but any farm supply should have something comparable.
Another option is ProMix BX or HP. This is a peat based, lime buffered, soilless mix that is often used in nurseries. If you use promix, you should plan to re-pot at least once every 6-8 weeks into a slightly larger pot, because the lime gets used up and the pH drops. Re-potting helps keep that from causing problems.
Take the clones from a healthy plant that is in veg. Take the top shoots closest to the lgiht. Wait until the plant is large enough to provide at least 4 healthy shoots, while still leaving about half the plant intact.

well if the problem doesnt stop im going to take appropriate cuttings and then ditch the plant. So in this case can i take it from the plant once it shows signs of flower or do i have to revert back to veg first ?

Thanks heaps stinky

You can take cuttings from flowering plants. Usually about 2 weeks into 12/12. You can take them later in flower but your success rate starts decreasing in the fourth week of 12/12.

thankyou grey

Hey guys,

Lucky me all three of my plants have shown to be female but im getting some problems with my leaves (pics below). I think cause the plants are always sitting in the water they might have nute burn or maybe its cause the ph is always rising to about 6.4. Iv just cut back all the bad leaves, flushed the pots with neutral water and fixed my ph to 5.6 and added the lowest strenght of of canna flora a+b.

Im going to water by hand and would like some advice of the amound i should be watering and how often i should water. Also the most amount of time i can go without watering. Is there anything i can do to fix these problems as to water every 3 hours i will be waking at 4 in the morning everyday :(

Any help would be so great as im starting to worry.

Thankyou all

im scared for my plants :(

Sitting in water...?

Might want to fill-out the troubleshooting form. The link is in my signature.

[quote=darbolah]Hey guys,

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just cut back all the bad leaves,

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A lot of my friends say don't cut back the leaves.
Wait untill they are ready to fall of the plant then give them a little pull if they dont come off try agian another day.

You're friends are right. The plant will let you know when it's done with a leaf.

Sitting in water = root rot or at the very least inability of the roots to process nutrients in the absence of ample oxygen.

I'm going to merge this with your other thread on the same subject, so we don't have to go over all the background again.

Edit: those are the exact same pics you posted before...?

unfortunatly there the only pics i have. Im unsure of what to do at this point as iv dropped the nutes to 1/3 strength canna flora a+b and have also just done a flush so im a bit stuck. If it comes to it i will take 6-8 nice clones and start again in soil with absolutly no nutes. I would like to avoid this as i think iv been given a sign (getting 3 out of 3 fems on my first grow) so i want to keep going.

Anything else i can do stinky ? :(

thanks for knocking up this thread for me btw :)

I hate to say it, but the 'autopot' style of hydro system may be making your troubles worse. Remind me again if you have aeration in there?
Let me give you some background on the place of perlite in a hydroponic system. I'm NOT an expert by any stretch, but these are the situations in which you are most likely to encounter commercial growers using it:
-As a lightener for a coco coir grow
-As a medium for starting cuttings
-As a medium for growing root vegetables or fast-cropping leafy crops in a flood-n-drain system that allows for COMPLETE drainage between flood cycles. (Yes, I spend too much time reading Growing Edge haha so sue me)
You never want your roots sitting in the solution unless it is being AGGRESSIVELY aerated as a DWC grow. You can fertilize all ya want, but with insufficient oxygenation to the root zone, the plants can't do much with their food, like giving a calzone to a dude with no teeth.

So. Given what you have there, and trying for minimal root disturbance while you are troubleshooting... I'm going to suggest adding some serious airstones to the reservoir. If you can't guarantee complete drainage, you are going to have to suck it up and build a hybrid between that style and a DWC style to deliver O2 to the root zone, or completely re-think the system.
Just out of curiosity, how many gallons does the res on that thing hold, and how is the water transferred to the inside of the pot? I hope it's not a wick system; if it is, I don't know what to tell ya other than lose the whole autopot and convert to an automatic drip-to-waste with good drainage. You should have at least a couple gallons to do this right. Stick an aquarium pump in the res and use weedhound's basic sick hydro plant schedule:
Distilled or RO water, add CalMag Plus to 300ppm, add a stand-alone base fert with micros to 600ppm, adjust pH to 6.0, cross your fingers.
I think those plants are too weak to take clones at the moment. The clones are unlikely to survive.

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

You can fertilize all ya want, but with insufficient oxygenation to the root zone, the plants can't do much with their food, like giving a calzone to a dude with no teeth.

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LMAO! Good analogy! Sorry, just felt the need to chime in and say that. I'll get back to lurking now... :jointsmile:

sorhow about ......
I sit the pots above the system for a few days (1-3) to allow full drainage and i hand water 3 times a day. While doing this i will buy a ebb and flow system that just drip waters the plants and drains the waste. Because of the space problem i have i will have to empty the drain tray (under the planter tray) once every day back into the resevoir. Il probable go with clay balls for the medium. Will this be an ok alternative ? Also would it not be wise to transplant and also do you have any ideas on how i might do that considering one of the pots has two plants in it :S

Also stinky in regards to how it feeds from the resevoir, it works like a gravity fed sorta thing and all the water builds up below the plants and then empties down to nothing for 10 mins or so then repeats. Its sorta shit i know but i will buy a two piece ebb and flow or something of that nature. I really just want to see out this grow as its my first and i dont really want to give up :P

Thanks stinky and all other :)

Try adding an aquarium air stone to your res as it is right now then, if you think you want to keep using it, and try to figure out how to drain it better.
Oaky. Let's think what your other options for salvaging your system are.
A simple pump, sitting in a 5 gallon pail below your pot, and plugged into a timer to run every ~4 hours or so, pumping to drip emitter stakes or even just tubing secured so it drips at the base of the plant, is a simple and cheap automatic drip system. You can do drip-to-waste or recirc. drip on that system.
For a simple to build and maintain hydro, that is not ebb n flow, go into the grow log section and look for 'stinky kinda likes the darkside'. That style doesn't require an air pump because the water is constantly moving around and mixing in atmospheric gases. Transplanting- because of your drainage problems, you might be best off transplanting. You will have to be careful not to damage the roots. Perlite falls away easily, so be careful. Another pair of hands to support the root ball as you do a pot swap would be helpful. You can transplant into promix or coco without washing the roots, and that is what I would do if those were my plants. Both are soilless mixes and pretty compatible with perlite. If you choose coco, keep using calmag on it! But anyway, the roots will quickly grow into the surrounding medium and your watering woes will diminish.
Yikes. You have quite a tough situation to fix there. Sorry it's turning into such a clusterfuck.

ok iv let my girlfriend know im going to the hydroshop today as iv been clusterfucked. Yes its officialy, well stinky thats been alot of help, but i think im going to just but a complete new setup no expense spared. As for the medium im going to be using 1 tray for all of the plants and il just use netted cups to keep them seperate so i might get clay balls a try as i cant get calmag in brisbane and i dont know what promix is :P

I wish myself good luck

Im going to get some of the parts today but as for my sick plants im going to buy some good soil with no ferts and transplant them at the beginning of their light period. Im gonna mix 1/3 perlite from my current system (flushed and drained ofcourse). I will then water with tap water at ph of 6.8 using 1/4 strength canna ferts. Do you guys think this will help :)

-indoor
-soilless
-perlite
-Hand watered 3 times per day (when lights are on
-Tap water
-pH 6.4
-7-8 weeks old
-Canna Vega a+b 1/3 strenght
-In every watering ferts are added
-400w HPS with cooltube - about 30-40cms away from light
-between 84-88F (Lights on) 74-76F (Lights off)
-Humidity unknown - i have very good ventilation
-Day 13 of 12/12
-I have 30cm bathroom fan intake and high power exhaust running off my cooltube.

Pics included and also one of my first little bud


Hope this helps
Thankyou

looks like a P deficiency - how might i fix this, by upping my nutes or changing my ph ?

Peace

Darbolah......that ph is the ph of ? Your water or your adjusted nute solution? Is growing in perlite like that considered a hempy bucket?

What's the ph of your runoff? And are you checking or do you check ppms?

Also any chance we could get a pic of the whole plant from the top looking down so we can see the whole thing at once.....the side view doesn't quite do it.

ok il get that photo and my run off ph tonight, that ph is the ph of the nute solution. Iv just changed it to full strenght nutes and ph of 5.6-5.7 as that is supposed to help with P lockout.

What do you think ?

Well I was just reading up on hempys.....I guess that's what you have going there but they were saying 6.2 which really isn't far off from what you are. Maybe try 6.0 for a comprimise?

Just don't know enough about growing in perlite to be sure .....sorry i'm not more help. :(

do you know what might be causing the problems WH.

Thanks for you help :)

just hand watered, first of 3. Watering using full strength canna nutes and a finished product of 5.9 pH. The runoff is around 6.7, dunno is that is any help but iv also included some more photos as the problem is getting worse :(

Any help would be great

OMG doesnt anyone know what the problem is, this is just the third thread i have done to help this plant and to no avail :(

Should i just scrap it or what ? If i cut it up into clones would any of them survive ?

PLEASE ELP ME

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Originally Posted by darbolah

OMG doesnt anyone know what the problem is, this is just the third thread i have done to help this plant and to no avail :(


PLEASE ELP ME

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You've sort've answered the question yourself.

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-soilless
-perlite

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You're growing in straight perlite. I'm not positive this is a soilless medium, due to it's lack of ability to retain moisture I feel perlite really delves into borderline hydro. There is nothing for the roots to truely hang on to. Have you ever lined the bottom of a soil filled pot with perlite and then transplant? If you have you'll see that perlite just falls off or is very easily removed by any gentle movement during the transplant.

This could make it very easy to shock the root system.

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-Hand watered 3 times per day (when lights are on

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Hand water 3 times a day when the lights are on, but the root system remains dry when the lights are off? That's a long dry period considering perlite doesn't retain moisture. Water sort've just rolls off of it. Also 3 times a day during 12 hours (lights on. That means there is about 4 hours of the plant being dry between waterings. The root system being dry for that long could be problematic, but I don't know as Ive never grown and probably wouldn't grow in straight perlite.

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-Tap water
-pH 6.4
-Canna Vega a+b 1/3 strenght
-In every watering ferts are added

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You're in a soiless medium , or really what I consider almost hydro (think of hydrotron balls). Your ph is rather high considering all this. In a soiless medium you want a ph of 5.8 -6.2 and I think for hydro it's 5.5 - 6.0. Weedhound would know the hydro ph for sure.

Also you're watering every watering with ferts. Which is fine if you were treating this as a hydro grow, but in a soil and soilles grow you want to water with plain water every other watering. This sort've helps wash away salts in the medium.

If you look at your leaves they look like they're burned a bit from too much nutes.

This is a soiless grow but you're in the wrong ph range and you feed the plants as if they were in a hydro setup instead. Might want to rethink your plan of attack on this grow because currently it appears you're trying to combine two different methods that aren't similar in any way.

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-400w HPS with cooltube - about 30-40cms away from light
-between 84-88F (Lights on) 74-76F (Lights off)
-Humidity unknown - i have very good ventilation
-I have 30cm bathroom fan intake and high power exhaust running off my cooltube.

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400 watt hps... about 12-15" away from the canopy top. This is not bad but your temps are not great. 84-88 degrees? That's pretty warm You want to grow between 70-78, not to say these plants can't survive in these conditions but problems can occur. If you go back and look at some of your pictures you can see the plants look very dry and some of the problem areas have the leave edges and leaf tips curling upwards. Classic sign of heat stress.

Humidity is very important. Good ventilation is not the issue here. The issue is that you want the air neither too Arid nor too humid. Get a cheap hygrometer in there. You want to try to keep the humidity between 30-60% and ideally between 40-50%. I got my thermometer/hygrometer combo for $9.95

If you're saying you have an intake on your cool tube as well as an exhaust then you need to make sure that they're equalized in pressure or the intake side is slightly stronger (the stronger intake will make up for the restriction the exhaust has pulling through the cool tube.). The reason being is that if your intake fan is flowing less air than your exhaust then it become a restriction and is not helping/will not cool efficiently. you should remove this or add a fan that can match your exhaust fan. Try running it without the intake fan. I bet your temps drop about 5 degrees or so. Make sure there are as few restrictions as possible on your cooltube/ducting.

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just hand watered, first of 3. Watering using full strength canna nutes and a finished product of 5.9 pH. The runoff is around 6.7, dunno is that is any help but iv also included some more photos as the problem is getting worse

Any help would be great

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Don't you think if you're seeing problems you should back off a bit to try to determine what the issue is. If you did have a nutrient lockout then feeding it more of those nutes is not going to help, it will just make the problems worse.

your ph is rising.. again probably leading to more lockout and leading to your problem is getting worse as you stated.

Also in one of your pics it looks like you have 2 plants in 1 pot? Do you not think that maybe the roots are rootbound now in that pot or that maybe they are fighting for nutes? Maybe you have it divided up some how. I really can't tell from the pictures.

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OMG doesnt anyone know what the problem is, this is just the third thread i have done to help this plant and to no avail

Should i just scrap it or what ? If i cut it up into clones would any of them survive ?

PLEASE ELP ME

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Yes.. the problem is everything I stated above.

Start with correcting your PH issue and attempting to check for the plant being root bound or the roots being tangled up ito each other, but be gentle.. don't go prying anything apart.

Your pictures exhibit multiple problems. General causes for multiple problems are PH lock outs (your ph is out of range for the medium you're growing in.. I could be wrong but this is *my* opiniion) and rootbound (Pretty sure I saw a pic with 2 plants in 1 pot. I can't say anything beyond this but if those plants are not seperated by some means then I would say these plants are probably rootbound as well. Which oddly enough can contribute to ph problems.)

Start with ph and rootbound issues and then work your way with the rest of the stuff I listed.

Good luck:thumbsup:

Ok....Daihashi makes some very good points here.....rootbound is part of the problem I agree.

I went and read up somewhat on these hempys which is what I believe you are growing. These things are pretty new Darbolah so stop getting mad because the rest of us don't know how to do them or troubleshoot them. YOU'RE the one growing in them. :wtf:

Without in ANY way pretending to know about hempys.....from what I read you should not have to worry about ph issues in these....but for those who do it should be 6.2. So ph is not SUPPOSED to be a problem here. But just because someone says it shouldn't be a problem does not make it so in real life so.....

One thing that kept being mentioned was that hempys need a lot of nutes......so perhaps undernuting IS an issue here......or could be related to a problem like the plants being rootbound......as Daihashi mentioned. I don't know if they are or not......but it's certainly possible as well. Or both. OR all three.

So no.....I don't know whats wrong with your plants. It's also possible they need to be flushed.....(again a possible rootbound related issue) but quite honestly I don't know if they do or not......so I'd put it in the list potential things to do to solve the problem.

I personally would probably flush until the ph came out the bottom at 6.2. Then I'd consider a larger container and restudy your nute program. I can't even begin to tell you how to nute a hempy bucket.

I'd also think about flushing with H202 water ph'd at 6.2.....(Hydrogen peroxide 3% use 2 tsp gallon) and consider a zyme product but again.....I don't know about enough about these hempys to really say.

There's a pretty good thread about the hempy bucket on homegrown420 but I don't know if I can post the link here or not.

It's not really for troubleshooting but it provides good insight on just general care and maintenance etc etc. I feel it could be beneficial here.

If a mod gives me the go ahead I'll post the link. :thumbsup:

I do think that's what's needed here......hempy info...:thumbsup: ..Darbolah one earlier question....can you measure ppms? If so....measure them in your runoff.....if you have a few hundred ppms in the runoff you need to flush and that's regardless of your medium.