San Diego Growers please need your input

[u.g.u]

This is going to be a little bit of a read but if you are having unexplained yellowing please read on. Little history on my self I have been growing for about 10 years, I have not had a problem to speak of for the last 8 years. Up until a few months ago I was helping 9 different people with there grows as well. So it all started 4-6 months ago. I have been using advanced nutrients for about the last 5 years loved them never had a problem. But after 4 rooms had to be pulled do to the is yellow(eventually burning see pic) then replanted and happening again. On a strain that I have been growing for the last 7 years, and know every last thing about it. I was convinced it was a bad batch of nutes. I go to the store swap them out, and call advanced with the batch numbers to see if there had been any reported problems. They say they will get back to me. 10 days later I have a meeting with the sales rep at the store, they tell me that the bottles were 18 months old when I bought them, and that was likely the reason I was having problems. I was pretty mad that bottles I had bought 3 months prior were bad. The store had a receipt that said they received them 1 week prior to me buying them. So they came from the factory old. So returned all my product and went with canna out of spite. So I go and flush everything out and apply canna everything seems to be stable not anymore yellowing but not really any greening either. I am kind of worried at this point so I get another batch of clones ready just incase. The new clones are ready they have never seen a drop of the bad nutes. Within 2 weeks they have the same symptoms. I start doing some research and everyone I know has been having the same problem different nutes, different strains, different growers, ppm pens, styles you name it but the same problem. It has now swelled to over 20 people. So what connects all these people the water. Every one of them is receiving water from helix water district. I could only find 4 people that reported no problems 1. On a well 2. Buying bottled water 3. On padre dam 4. Bottled water. Now 2 reported that he was having problems a few months back and asked my partner to go look at them it never ended up happening. 4 weeks later we call 2, and he says everything looks great. Now I am really confused cause I am still on the bad nute trip. I call him a few days ago to ask about the water and his source and find out when they were yellowing he was using his house RO water but his booster pump broke and was not supplying enough water so he would have to go to the store to make up the other 40 gals. That is when they started coming back I saw the plants day before harvest and the looked great. Now every person on my list is using an RO. My water comes out at around 20 ppm. Now what is common between all the people is they have failed to change out the carbon prefilters in there ROâ??s some up to 9 months old. Now mine is brand new RO but I use approx 500 gals a week running 30 lights and 90 plants plus mom room. I am thinking I just exhausted mine do to the high use. I have looked at all the water reports and compard helix to padre. The only difference I see is the helix uses chloramines and padre uses chlorine. I do some more research talk to a guy that has a masters in horticulture and he tells me that they have been using a higher dose than normal to flush the system out. He has a nursery they had to go to and do some leaf,soil,and water tests for some bamboo and found they had a chloramine toxicity with very similar sounding leaf look to mine. He says my therory sounds like the only reasonable explanation. My plants look pretty good now the day before christmas I was getting everything ready to be gone for 3 days I decided that the only thing I have not tried with these plants to get them green is raising the ppmâ??s to what I think is unreasonable. I have had the plant at 1800 in flower. I am currently at 2000 in veg with still a pale green look. So I raise them to 2500 come back 3 days later to find everything looking bitchin best the looked in a long time. I get them to look good enough to go 12/12 I slowly increase the nutes as I notice they are using more nutes then water. Eventually getting them to 3000 ppm. Unheard of in my book but shit they look good. So now I finally think I have gotten it figured out with the water and all. I go out and buy the tall blue granular activated carbon prefilter(the 24â?� one) good for the amount of water I need. Change all my resâ??s with new filtered better water. Within 3 days I check my res and my ppmâ??s are going up so instanly I knew the roots are getting better and are able to uptake a bigger % and need a lower ppm. Roots only uptake about 20% of what you have in the res so at 3000ppm they only take in about 600 ppm of that so as the roots heal the % goes up ppm down. Plants still look awesome I might add I have been doing twice a week foliar at 500ppm(plants receive 80% with foliar) which I think has help the situation a lot. Any ways I would like to here from other local growers to see if this is just within my group of friends or wide spread.

u.g.u Reviewed by u.g.u on 01-10-2010. San Diego Growers please need your input This is going to be a little bit of a read but if you are having unexplained yellowing please read on. Little history on my self I have been growing for about 10 years, I have not had a problem to speak of for the last 8 years. Up until a few months ago I was helping 9 different people with there grows as well. So it all started 4-6 months ago. I have been using advanced nutrients for about the last 5 years loved them never had a problem. But after 4 rooms had to be pulled do to the is Rating: 5

[u.g.u]

I found this article about hydroponic lettuce that back up my theory.

Lettuce seedlings pretreated with solutions containing either of N, P, K, Ca or Mg at the concentration of 150% strength Enshi-shohou for 48 hours, were transplanted to 50% strength Enshi-shohou solution containing chloramine. Root injury occurred by chloramine treatment with all the pretreatments. After 6 h of chloramine treatment, 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) reduction activity decreased in root tissues. Growth rate after 10 days of culture was similar with all the pretreatment. Lettuce seedlings subjected to high atmospheric temperature, high humidity, high solution temperature or high light intensity during culture with the half strength Enshi-shohou nutrient solutions for 8 days, were transplanted to 50% strength Enshi-shohou solution containing chloramine. Again, root injury occurred by chloramine treatment with all the pretreatments. TTC reduction of root tissues after 6 hours of chloramine treatment decreased similarly with all the pretreatments. Rate of fresh weight increase after 10 days of culture was similar with all the pretreatments. It was concluded that root injury was induced and growth was inhibited by chloramine, regardless of nutrient solution constituents or environmental conditions prior to chloramine treatment, although the effect of chloramine was modified by these pretreatments

[u.g.u]

and this

Itâ??s extremely difficult to determine if something in the water supply is causing plant growth problems. Root rot pathogens may originate in water, but they can come from a number of sources, including fungal spores, blown in dust or brought in by insects. Mineral problems can be a little easier to trace if the water supply analysis is available to check levels of elements. Plant problems which may be caused by water treatment chemicals are difficult to diagnose as some plants are much more sensitive than others and the type of system also plays a role. Research studies have reported that chloramines in hydroponic nutrient solutions can cause growth inhibition and root browning in susceptible plants. One study reported that the critical chloramines amount at which lettuce plant growth was significantly inhibited was 0.18 mg Cl/g root fresh weight, however, the levels at which some other species would be damaged is as yet undetermined. Similar problems exist with the use of other water treatment chemicals; chlorine and hydrogen peroxide are good disinfection agents, but too much in the hydroponic nutrient will cause root damage and just what is a safe level is dependant on a number factors such as the level of organic loading in the system.

[u.g.u]

forgot the pic

[bonedaddy420]

paragraphs man, use them.

[u.g.u]

Thanks for your help I am a grower not an author.

[bonedaddy420]

Don't take it the wrong way, but if you expect people to help you, you should put some effort into making the situation clear.

[u.g.u]

This is going to be a little bit of a read but if you are having unexplained yellowing please read on. Little history on my self I have been growing for about 10 years, I have not had a problem to speak of for the last 8 years. Up until a few months ago I was helping 9 different people with there grows as well.
So it all started 4-6 months ago. I have been using advanced nutrients for about the last 5 years loved them never had a problem. But after 4 rooms had to be pulled do to the is yellow(eventually burning see pic) then replanted and happening again. On a strain that I have been growing for the last 7 years, and know every last thing about it. I was convinced it was a bad batch of nutes. I go to the store swap them out, and call advanced with the batch numbers to see if there had been any reported problems. They say they will get back to me. 10 days later I have a meeting with the sales rep at the store, they tell me that the bottles were 18 months old when I bought them, and that was likely the reason I was having problems. I was pretty mad that bottles I had bought 3 months prior were bad. The store had a receipt that said they received them 1 week prior to me buying them. So they came from the factory old. So returned all my product and went with canna out of spite. So I go and flush everything out and apply canna everything seems to be stable not anymore yellowing but not really any greening either.

I am kind of worried at this point so I get another batch of clones ready just incase. The new clones are ready they have never seen a drop of the bad nutes. Within 2 weeks they have the same symptoms. I start doing some research and everyone I know has been having the same problem different nutes, different strains, different growers, ppm pens, styles you name it but the same problem. It has now swelled to over 20 people. So what connects all these people the water. Every one of them is receiving water from helix water district. I could only find 4 people that reported no problems 1. On a well 2. Buying bottled water 3. On padre dam 4. Bottled water. Now 2 reported that he was having problems a few months back and asked my partner to go look at them it never ended up happening. 4 weeks later we call 2, and he says everything looks great. Now I am really confused cause I am still on the bad nute trip. I call him a few days ago to ask about the water and his source and find out when they were yellowing he was using his house RO water but his booster pump broke and was not supplying enough water so he would have to go to the store to make up the other 40 gals. That is when they started coming back I saw the plants day before harvest and the looked great.

Now every person on my list is using an RO. My water comes out at around 20 ppm. Now what is common between all the people is they have failed to change out the carbon prefilters in there ROâ??s some up to 9 months old. Now mine is brand new RO but I use approx 500 gals a week running 30 lights and 90 plants plus mom room. I am thinking I just exhausted mine do to the high use. I have looked at all the water reports and compard helix to padre. The only difference I see is the helix uses chloramines and padre uses chlorine. I do some more research talk to a guy that has a masters in horticulture and he tells me that they have been using a higher dose than normal to flush the system out. He has a nursery they had to go to and do some leaf,soil,and water tests for some bamboo and found they had a chloramine toxicity with very similar sounding leaf look to mine. He says my therory sounds like the only reasonable explanation. My plants look pretty good now the day before christmas I was getting everything ready to be gone for 3 days I decided that the only thing I have not tried with these plants to get them green is raising the ppmâ??s to what I think is unreasonable. I have had the plant at 1800 in flower. I am currently at 2000 in veg with still a pale green look. So I raise them to 2500 come back 3 days later to find everything looking bitchin best the looked in a long time. I get them to look good enough to go 12/12 I slowly increase the nutes as I notice they are using more nutes then water. Eventually getting them to 3000 ppm. Unheard of in my book but shit they look good. So now I finally think I have gotten it figured out with the water and all. I go out and buy the tall blue granular activated carbon prefilter(the 24â?� one) good for the amount of water I need. Change all my resâ??s with new filtered better water. Within 3 days I check my res and my ppmâ??s are going up so instanly I knew the roots are getting better and are able to uptake a bigger % and need a lower ppm. Roots only uptake about 20% of what you have in the res so at 3000ppm they only take in about 600 ppm of that so as the roots heal the % goes up ppm down. Plants still look awesome I might add I have been doing twice a week foliar at 500ppm(plants receive 80% with foliar) which I think has help the situation a lot.

Any ways I would like to here from other local growers to see if this is just within my group of friends or wide spread.

[u.g.u]

So some more info came to light recently. This problem began at the end of july. That is when I pulled my last succeful harvest and started planting the next.

Water shortage influence on
water quality
Q. Does the drought affect the taste of my water?
A. Yes, it does. Because of the water shortage in
Northern California, along with issues regarding the
Delta Smelt, our water supply from the State Project
Water (SPW) in Northern California has been cut.
Lately, all of Helix water is coming from the Colorado
River and local sources. The mineral content from the
Colorado River has a considerably higher salt content
than SPW. What this amounts to is a â??harderâ?? water
delivered to our customers. This higher mineral
content affects the taste and increases detergent and
soap use. Some describe it as a mineral-tasting water;
others even describe it as metallic in taste. However,
the increased hardness in no way affects the health
and safety of your water.

and this

When the region's water supplies were cut last July, the effects were muted here because of the San Diego County Water Authority's steady source: paying farmers in Imperial County to fallow their fields and buying the water that would otherwise be used for irrigation

[u.g.u]

I have been having suspisions that it could be an issue with flouride I found an interesting article about aluminum flouride. Apparently under acidic conditions aluminum and flouride bond with a ph below 6I run mine at 5.6 and have flouride and aluminum in the water. Also everything I have been reading says that RO's don't remove flouride very well only an Alumina filter. I sent my water into the lab to have it tested I should know by today or tomorow whats in it. I added a few filters to my line up I have a KDF(zinc copper) and a tall blue. Going to get the Alumina if my tests come back with flouride in it.