A Few Minor Problems

So week 5 is quickly approaching and I noticed I obviously over nuted the plants. The pH was WAY to high for some reason and I'm looking to lower it. Are all signs that don't look healthy in the included pictures symptoms of over-nuting. I know for a fact it isn't lack of light or over watering. The run off is also a tanish, brown color. When I water the plants I give just enough to where some drops of water begin to fall out of the drainage holes and collect it for testing. Anyway, take a look and tell me what you think. They are all about 4 1/2 weeks old. Also if you have any thoughts as to what type these girls may be feel free to post thoughts. They are all different shades of green, and although all were planted at the same time, one is GIGANTIC! You can't tell in the picture but it's about 2 to 2 1/2 feet tall.

The others :

have you flushed out your plant/plants already if not i suggest that you give it a try

fill out the troubleshooting form.

-shake

What is your experience level? 2nd attempt

Your Equipment:

.1) Type and wattage of lights. 4 13 watt 1700 lumen CFL, 2 13 watt 825 lumen CFLs.
.2) Distance from tops? 2-3 inches
.3) Reflector type? Standard lamp reflectors
.4) Is there a consistent fresh air supply? Fans and air purifier
.5) Do you have an exhaust fan and a circulation fan? Circulation fans
.6) What are the bulb wattages, kelvin ratings, and schedule? All in blue spectrum, 20/4 schedule.

Your medium:

.7) Specific brand and type of soil, (Miracle Grow Moisture Control) and anything you've added to it. (nothing)
.8) Size of container. 2 gallons
.9) Did you use peat pucks (or similar) to root clones or germinate seedlings? No

Your nutrients and water:

10) Source of water? (tap) What's it's ph before adjusting? 7.0
11) Method of checking water ph. (aquarium test kit)
12) Method of adjusting water ph. (Baking soda, amonia)
13) Specific brand and N-P-K ratio for each bottle. Soil is 14-7-10, water twice a week, once normal water, one with ph up or down
14) How often are you watering between feedings, and how much per watering? Water when soil tells me to, just enough to where some runoff comes through the drainage holes.
15) Any additives or tea's? (none)
16) Are your ph levels stable, or do they fluctuate? Stable
17) What is your ingoing water's ph? ...your runoff ph? Ingoing, 7.0, runoff is about 5-6
18) Do you foliar feed? no

Your growroom:

19) Indoors or outdoors? indoors
20) What size of closet, room or hut? Built in closet space, about 1x2 and 2 feet high
21) What are the temps and humidity levels while lights are on? ...With lights off? Lights on, temp is 78 and humidity is 54%. Lights off, temp is 74 and humidity is about 50%
22) Have you seen signs of insects in the growroom? None

Your strain:

23) What strain are you growing? (Indica)
24) From seeds or clones? seed
25) Is this an autoflower strain? Don't know.


The plants were fine until I added too much Ph for one week. Now I've dropped everything and only add pure water with a ph of about 6.9 to 7.0. They are still growing quite nicely, but the lower leaves of my biggest are yellow and the edges around one other are yellowish. I'm trying to prevent spread and maintain a healthy plant.
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where did you get 13W, 1700 lumen CFLs?

if my math is correct you you have 8450 lumens covering 2 sq ft. you want a minimum of 5000 lumns/sq ft. i'm not saying that lighting is 100% of your problem.

a pH of 7.0 is too high. pH is critical in the uptake of nutes. as a general rule a high pH makes micro nutes less available. 6.3-6.8 is where you want to shoot for soil.

how are you taking a runoff pH? if you are using the test kit the results will be skiewed due to the color of the runoff due to nutes and soil.

why are you watering with normal water and then either pH up or down? you need properly pH'd water at all times. and ammonia is a sever poison. i have never used it, but i don't think that i would. go get some pH up or down. you shouldn't need both 'til you have a digital meter. adjust to 6.8 or so (or leave at 7 maybe?) and add your nutes. they are usually around nuetral i believe and will drop your overall pH to within range.

good growing!


-shake

haha the local Wal Mart here had 13 watt CFLs, not sure if they were 1700 or 1800 lumens but it was a knock out deal, so I bought a few. The ph deal, I've always used tap water I let sit out over night and the ph was around 7, you know how finicky the aquarium kits are, and watered the plants until a small amount of water began to drip out of the drainage holes. ONLY recently, for about two waterings, have I tried to raise ph by adding baking soda to some water. I only added a tad which raised the ph to around 8 or 9, which was good because the runoff from the plants prior was really, really low. That helped them bush up and spurt into action, but a few days later the yellow began to appear. Now, since that was only towards the end of last week, I've switched to plain tap water with a ph of 7 while I figure out what the heck to do. Thanks for your knowledge! It won't be wasted haha. I'll try my best to make it to the shop sometime soon and get some ph up and down and a better kit to read the levels correctly. It's a REAL small grow area, here I took some pics from afar so you can get a better image of the whole operation.


headshake - appreciate the constant comments, you've replied to all of my posts




The yellowing in the pictures has looked the same since early Saturday morning, today being late Monday night (time of pictures below).

A little more :

no worries jakal. i try to help out around here. pay my unpayable debt, ya know?

they are looking pretty good. they only thing i can say is more light!!!


-shake

It looks like my biggest and best quality is a hermie. There are the small white, thin, little hairs that symbolize a female, but just recently, approaching week five, I've noticed these very small, tulip looking blossoms that havent sprouted yet. They are scaring me, it looks like little seeds, then again it also looks like little tulip leaves about to open and grow. Any input? If it is a hermie (I'll try to take higher quality pics), how does that affect the overall yield? Will it be the same, just with seeds here and there throughout, or will it be a small amount of buds and large amount of seeds? Regardless, I'll grow it to it's potential, just use the seeds for future grows and pathetically toke on the small amount it puts out til others grow.

Take some pics so we can confirm the hermie :) I would bet that they are just unpistilated (is that a word? :) ) calaxys, I've never had a hermie show that early before anyway. :) Hermies can drastically reduce yeild (both in quantity and in quality!). If you wanted some better smoke, since you're growing it out regardless, you could patiently pick each hermie male flower off. Time consuming but I dont know the amount of effort you want to put in here. :)

Otherwise they look pretty healthy except for the yellowing. You're runoff is crazy though! If you're putting in seven and getting out five you're way out of bounds on the low side. I would throw some lime (like 1/4 c hydrated ) in your next water batch. It will raise your soil ph while making sure it doesnt go over 7. Be careful as you can toxify plants with this, so use it with one watering and check your results. It can also be flushed out quickly if you flub up too, so it should be a good way for you to identify your problem. :)

Okay, so one of the plants is most def. a male, there's almost a bushel of these pods that look like little green seeds. Could I patiently pick ALL of them off or will that be wasting my time? What will be the result of picking off all the seeds?

Yeah, if its got little balls hanging off its a male. You can pick them off all day long, but you'll still end up with a male plant in the end. Best thing is to pull it, if you don't want it to pollinate all your crop!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jakal369

Okay, so one of the plants is most def. a male, there's almost a bushel of these pods that look like little green seeds. Could I patiently pick ALL of them off or will that be wasting my time? What will be the result of picking off all the seeds?

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they are not seeds, they are the beginnings of the male flowers. when they open they will release pollen which will then fly around in the air til it meets up with a females pistils and then move to the calyx and commence to making a seed. it takes both a male and a female (not including hermies) for a cannabis plant to reproduce.

if the plant is just a male there is no point of plucking all the flower clusters as the DNA of the plant is male. chop it immediately. if it has any flowers you can see you might want to put a trash bag over it first.


-shake

Well shit, the seed was from SUCH a fiya batch. There's no reason to grow a male plant at all? I mean, even if it's not a large yield, wouldn't SOMEthing come out of all the hard work? GOOD news though! The other two are HUGE and are def. females. They've been in veg. for 6 1/2 weeks now, I think they are ready for the new 12/12 cycle and different lights. I'll take some pictures once my phone charges and I'll see if you guys agree with me. I'm persistent though, I can't bring myself to kill a plant just because it's male, what if I finished it out completely by itself, in another room from the females?

So the first picture is of a confirmed female at week 6, I think it's looking pretty nice. I mean, ofcourse I'm no proffessional and am working on such a limited budget. I assume those two things play a huge role in what the end results are, etc. etc. etc. etc. I'm really hoping to get a lot out of this plant (a lot to me being around an ounce), but reasonably I'll be content with a 1/4 hopefully. Anyway, I'd like to change the soil before I flower to something away from miracle grow. Hopefully some Fox Farms products, there's a dealer in the city I found. Plus Big Bloom for buds. I'm wondering how much longer should this guy should veg for, it's got quite a bit of nodes.

The second picture is of the best quality seed I've ever owned, but turned out to be a male. I've moved it outside and decided rather than killing it and calling it quits for that one, to let mother nature decide the final outcome and we'll toy around with that plant and see what happens.

Pic three is both together. The shorter one is the female, and that 2 1/2 footer back there is the disappointing male (now outside).

Next pic is my trying my best to show off the balls of the male. If you look closely, no even closer while squinting you'll see them if you know what you're looking for.

Next pic "........" ditto

First picture shows what the little balls look like if I pick one and hold it in my hand haha, REALLY want to make sure it's a male because my hopes were all pored into that one. Ah well.

You can see them a litter more clear in the second picture. Though the plant has like 20 nodes, they "balls" are only on the top two, all the lower nodes have signs of a female. Strange?

Not really strange, MJ doesnt show her sex easily. I usually don't see preflowers until about week 4-5 if Im growing from seed. So the lower limbs of your plant are just pre mature, basically. The balls have not dropped. ;) And I dont see any hairs on those lower nodes. So call a spade a bloody shovel and declare it officially male. :) Dont worry, there will be more seeds. :)

Oh also, let it veg for 2 mos before putting it into flower. They flower much faster/better if you let them get to that age point.

I recently started wondering a lot about the energy costs. I don't want it to be noticeable, and if I'm running 5 lamps 12 hours or more a day for 2 months straight, I don't know, it almost seems like that situation is very close to digging your own grave. Is that the conditions in order to grow at least and ounce? That's really all I'm looking for. Such a simple request for a casual smoker (except when with friends). What would happen if they only veg for 7 weeks and I switch to flower for 8 or so weeks?