calcium deficiency??

I'm definitely a noob at growing anything. this is my first "test grow" to try getting a feel for how it's done. I transplanted a few pepper plants from a pot outside to an ebb and flow setup inside. I'm using the general hydroponics nutes, mixed mildly following the chart on the bottle, but with a little less gro and a little more micro. I saw a thread on here on a method of using no grow at all and extra micro, but I didn't want to go completely to that method on this test. at first, I was afraid to lower the ph to much lower then my tap water, but now I think 6 something is way to high for hydroponics. yesterday I lowered it to 5.5ph and I'm maintaining it at that. I also took out some nute water from the res bucket and added some fresh water so it's now about 50% of the original mild mix. it was only 2 days when they started showing bad signs of calcium deficiency. the leaves have brown spots all over them and a lot of the leaves have fallen off already. was it just because the ph was to high the first few days? will they recover, or should I try starting over with a few fresh transplants?

Just keep an eye on your ph and do a little expirementing with your babies..If i were you id wait to use any nutes what soever until they mature a little more..the only thing you can do is just keep an eye on them and try using different methods and maybe go up or down with the ph level..

i know this doesnt help much just saw it was unanswered so thought id give my two cents..hope all is well!!

thanks smoka. in the irc they said to flush flush flush. I cleaned everything out with alcohol and added fresh water. I'm holding the ph at about 5.4 now, with about 1 tsp of floramicro and 1 tsp of peroxide. I also boosted the flood times from every 2 hours to once an hour for 4 minutes. they seem to be doing better so far. one plant I noticed I do have about an inch of new root growth. the other plants, I'm not sure of. they're not in as good of shape at the moment.

I'm very handy, so everything else in a grow room, I can handle with my eyes closed. when it comes to nutes, I'm in bad shape. I have to try taking it slow and learn all I can.

I have 2 new seeds that just popped for me the other day. I put them in earth plugs, and I'm keeping them damp under a dome with similar water as my hydroponics setup. everything sound ok? please point out anything I'm doing wrong.

I took this picture yesterday

That looks like an old deficiency, or overwatering, can we see the rest of the leaves on the plant? Are you still having one finger leaves?

Strange leaf, looks like a pepper plant or some kind of house plant.

I am 7 weeks into flowering and bud leaves are curling up on tips and sides and turning brown. I use a DWC system with Maxi Grow and Maxi Bloom nutes. A few days ago I added some epsom salts to see if it was a magnesium deficiency. Since I am using ro water I thought it could possibly be a calcium deficiency. I read several posts on cal-mag and other ways to increase calcium such as lime. I then had a brainstorm. Since my tap water is off the chart in hardness, why not add some tap water to the ro water? I think I will try this. Does anyone see potential problems by doing this?

Maybe "peppers" wasn't a cover and he literally ment peppers? They don't look like any sort of deficiency in ganj. Even if it was calcium, it would be in the new growth as calcium isn't very mobile..

tymetravler said:

I am 7 weeks into flowering and bud leaves are curling up on tips and sides and turning brown. I use a DWC system with Maxi Grow and Maxi Bloom nutes. A few days ago I added some epsom salts to see if it was a magnesium deficiency. Since I am using ro water I thought it could possibly be a calcium deficiency. I read several posts on cal-mag and other ways to increase calcium such as lime. I then had a brainstorm. Since my tap water is off the chart in hardness, why not add some tap water to the ro water? I think I will try this. Does anyone see potential problems by doing this?

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IMHO the cal-mag is going to be better because it's specifically designed for plants...tap water also can have nasty impurities from municipalities such as fluoride, and everything else... I think in theory it sounds like a good idea as my tap water is very hard as well and I don't really feel like buying only distilled water or investing in ro rightnow, however I think it causes more problems than it will be worth, to solve my hard water problem i just use the hard water version of flora micro

however using hard water...can cause calcium or magnesium problems as too much Ca can block Mg and too much Mg can block Ca...are your symptoms on the top or bottom? I think the curling and leaf margins browning sounds like Ca..Mg will start on older growth as Mg is mobile and will translocate...

Thanks for your input bobswizzle. I don't believe the county water I use has fluoride but I will check. Since I am entering into my 8th week of flowering and am due to change nutes tomorrow, I may just use plain ro water ph'd to about 5.5 to 6.0. Today I looked at my tricomes and they look quite clear. (white widow grow). Any input? anyone?.Is 7 full weeks of flowering long enough to go to plain ro water? This is my first grow.