First time grower needs advice

hello everyone,

this is my first time posting in this forum. I've lurked quite awhile on here before settling on a DWC method for my first personal grow.

Recently, I've been having sick plants and I can't figure out what is the issue so I'm hoping for advice on how to resolve the issue.

I'm currently using a T-5 for vegging and its currently day 20. About 7 days ago my plants started showing signs of some sort of lockout as the fan leaves were showing signs of deficiency and decay.

I attributed the issue to low PH because for whatever reason, my PH pen was off by a whole point on the higher end when I got it from the store. So instead having a range of 5.8 to 6.3 like I thought i was having, my plants were actually growing in the 4.8 to 5.3 range.

I only found this out when a buddy of mine brought over his new PH pen just to test it out.

So I flushed out the buckets and gave it only PH water for a day, and on the following day I resumed my normal feeding schedule.

Things started to resume back to normal again as the plants were showing good signs of recovery. However, in only 5 days things have gotten worse than it was before and now im totally stumped as to what to do.

My ph is around 5.8 to 6.3. My ppm is rough 600 and overall room temp has been averaging 79 degrees with little fluctuation.

I'm using advance nutrients 3 parter with some additives like cal mag and mother grow tea with some hygrozyme.

The only difference in feeding schedule from day one to day 14 is the addition of hygrozyme cause my buddy suggested that I use it to prevent root rot.

My roots aren't entirely slimy nor does it have any foul smell to it. it is however not as white as I would like to be but I'm not sure its because of the discoloration from the nutrients or its actually root rot.

Going to post a bunch of pics and I hope we can find a way to save my girls. Any tips/feed is greatly appreciated guys

oh one last thing to ask, is there such thing as too much air? I'm currently using the eco 7 among 12 five gallon buckets. Thought I'd just throw that info out there in case it has an affect on the plants

Doesn't look like root rot. Keep your nutrients/ph stable and I think you'll see quick improvement on the top side too.

is there is definitive way of finding out whether I have root rot and its killing off my plants? I had a thermostat in the bucket for a good hour and the temp came out to be around 75 degrees. Yeah i know its a bit on the higher side but given how my system is set up, I have no effective method of reducing the temp in each individual buckets.Going to flush it again tomorrow and resume my feeding schedule in a day or so.

What kind of other issues could be the root of the problem if the PPM and the PH is stable. Could I be doing something wrong in between my daily routine that is causing this issue? My PH was raising about .3 per day after my last res change and I would give it a few droplets of PH down straight from the bottle to adjust the ranges. Now my PH doesnt even fluctuate anymore and my plants look like crap.

To save some time when I change out my nutes is I mix my AN 3 part solution in a 5 gallon bucket of water to make a concentrate so i dont have to individually measure out nutes for each bucket. Instead, I pour a bit of the concentrate in each bucket and proceed to add enough water where the PPM is around 600.

I've been doing this from day one for these girls and also on my other set of girls thats being grown in rockwool without any issues. I find this is easier as i can add more concentrate to raise the ppm or lower it by adding water. Is this the wrong way to mix nutrients?

evu80 said:

..I'm currently using the eco 7 among 12 five gallon buckets..

Click to expand...

I don't know what eco 7 is.. how big are the containers per plant? Or better yet how much room does each root ball have? You need gallons of space PER root ball to not encounter root lock.

let me find you a link to the eco 7 but essentially its a bad ass air pump that looks like a small engine and from what I hear can inflate a flat tire of a car.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=eco+7+air+pump&um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=646&tbm=isch&tbnid=ocR5_P991A3ySM:&imgrefurl=http://mygardendoctor.com/ecoplus-eco-185-submersible-pump/&docid=LM68hr9cg4ytmM&w=460&h=368&ei=VO12TrT4NKrliALg4M2RDw&zoom=1

my plants are in 5 gallons buckets

Okay.. so you do have big enough rez's. Sorry they looked small to me in that pic, but I see those buckets now ^^

That link took me to a submersible water pump. I'm very doubtful that's what you're using. Btw if you had root rot your containers would smell and your roots would be discolored.

So you did drop your ppm? How long have they been vegging?

Also you can use frozen water bottles to keep your rez temps down.

Hello first time grower,

I have a few suggestions that you may find useful.

My dwc temps reach 84 degrees sometimes and I have never had any problems with root rot. BUT when I used organic based Nutes in the past I did have root rot. So I would suggest removing the Mother Earth Tea and see if that helps. I have grown big healthy plants with only the base sensi 2 part nutes. Keep it simple until you get steady healthy growth, and THEN begin to incorporate the additives.

Any lockout at this stage is likely due to the PH being off or partial rot caused by the tea. Anytime I have had brown patches in my roots it was causing harm to my plants. My healthiest plants always have completely white roots.

About your question on mixing the nutes all together before adding water. I know for a fact my 2 part sensi grow a&b nutes are supposed to be diluted with water before they mix with each other. Upon further research I found if you mix your 3 part straight together, the calcium and sulfur mixes and turns into calcium sulfate and can kill your plant. This is the reason they bottle them separately in the first place. So to error on the side of caution I would pour each part into water first, or at least make a "diluted concentrate".

Another thing is I keep my water level fairly high, touching the bottom of the net. The roots don't have to drop down and I think it helps faster growth.

I am pretty sure the tea is what is giving you trouble.

Happy growing!

with those temps I would consider adding 2 ml of sm90 in your nutrient solution. SM90 does a lot to keep pathogens away in an environment with so little media. also look into connecting your buckets,recirculate the nutes and buy a chiller! bro i have been growing since 93. first rockwool, then rdwc, now coco. I have lost and seen others loose so many crops in dwc. there are so many week links that can break the chain. If i was in a laboratory setting i may choose dwc, but as a hobbyist looking for quality and flavor, i now favor coco. it just sucks so bad to loose a crop and have a flood on the same day. a simple broken pump or clogged airstone can kill a harvest.growing quality kind can/should be very simple.anyway sorry for the rant, I just want you to have lots of great harvests.grow kind-stay kind. peace

I agree with not useing the tea also,organics in hydro is not for first time growers,I use GH 3 part with flora blend and kool bloom and my ph stays steady for 10 + days,when my ph starts to drift is when I change my nutes,your roots look a little thin but that is most likely due to your ph being off,keeping your nutes cool is very important if you want to avoid problems,another thing to is dont trust that meter all the time I had the same thing happen to me,now I calibrate once a week and keep a bottle of the drops to manualy check if my meter should have problems(I droped one in the res.)I would not mix my nutes that way either I just figure how many gals. of water I am going to need and figure how many ml. im going to need of each nute and mix it that way GH has a nute calculater that helps,its best to keep it simple and a little cheaper to good luck