PLANT PROBLEMS HELP! asap! pictures included..

maxed

Member
i just got these babies on sat. they are about 3 weeks in and I think i may have had a bad ph stick or nutes mix. heres what i'm using.

house and garden. cocos A+B and also roots accelarator. I have 16 plants . 7 - Green Crack (seem to be worse off) 6 are purple diesel which seem to be turning yellow but not as bad as green crack. and I have 3 others that also seem to be turning bad.

I transplanted them saturday and gave them a feeding of nutes.
I went by what the package said...

5.5mL of A+B per gallon
1.1 mL roots per gallon.

I mixed a 2.5 gallon bucket and fed each plant 3/4 of cup after transplant.
I then fed them again yesterday but mixed a whole new batch.

thye are in coco basement mix and 2.5 gallon pots.

what do i do?
 

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Wingnutt

Well-Known Member
I just finished fighting this same battle. Using B'Cuzz coco w/added perlite. Nutes are H&G cocos A+B with Roots Acc. and some others.

What i found is that H&G's feeding chart is way too aggressive for most mj plants, especially ones as small as those. I would ignore their suggested amounts and just follow the regimen as far as when to use which product based on the age of your plants. I base my amounts on the PPM of my water. If you don't have a Ph/PPM meter then you will not have success growing in coco. During veg, you should keep your plants around 400-600ppm, depending on strain and lighting conditions. During the later stages of flower you can up it to 1000-1200, maybe more, a lot depends on the strain.

I would half the amount of roots acc you are using as well. That stuff is potent and I think about .5ml/gal is adequate. Also keep in mind that you will need to pick up a calcium and magnesium supplement as coco tends to hog both. I use Cal-Mag Plus from Botanicare - it also has some iron which is helpful. I wouldn't add the Cal-Mag right away, but keep your eyes our for signs of Calcium or Magnesium deficiencies and treat as needed. I tend to throw a little in every watering during flowering.

Also, get some kind of enzyme to add to your nutrients. These enzymes help break down the salts that can build up, cleaning your medium and helping roots to absorb more nutrients. I like Hygrozyme a lot, but recently switched to H&G's Multi Zen - their equivalent product. I like Multi Zen because you use a lot less per gallon, but I think I might like Hygrozyme a little better. Either will help you.

Make sure when you water that you are watering in the 5.6-5.8 Ph range. 5.8 is what your are really aiming for, but I find that as salts build up the Ph of coco can rise easily. Also, some nutrients like phosphorus and potassium are better absorbed below 5.8 so i often water at 5.6 to balance it out a little.

Also make sure that when you water, you get at least 10% runoff each watering. Salts build up easily in coco and the number one way to increase salinity to harmful levels is to water without runoff.

Your plants look like they are suffering from a combination of high Ph and nutrient burn, as well as nutrient lockout from the high Ph. You will want to slowly adjust this over the next week. Do so by pouring copious amounts of Ph adjusted water through your containers. Start with some 5.8 Ph adjusted water and measure its PPM's so you know what is going in. Water slowly...this is very important. If you water too fast the water doesn't have time to sit in the soil and absorb the nasty salts your are trying to remove. Better to water each plant a little at a time, and move through the garden that way each plant has a good gap between wettings.

Once you see some runoff, test it with your Ph/PPM meter and see the difference. Fore example, when I first did this to mine I was having the Ph go in at 5.8 and come out at 6.6, the PPM in at 185, out at 1800. That showed me that I had a large build up of nutrient salts, the 1800 ppm, which was causing my high Ph. Salts are basic and therefore raise Ph. The more salts in your soil, the higher your Ph.

Once you have determined you have a high Ph, you can flush it with some lower Ph water to help get it back in line. I wouldn't go much below 5.2 though or you risk burning your roots. If only your PPM is high, but not your Ph, then you would want to flush with 5.8 Ph clear water. Again, go slow adjusting the Ph. It is better to slowly adjust it Ph down over a week or more than to flush 30 gallons through in one night with super acidic water. You will stress your plants if the Ph swings too much too quickly.

Also, check your tap water. If your PPM is much above 300 will want to invest in a filter or buy filtered water. Reverse osmosis is good, but expensive and comes with some other concerns. I use a Small Boy filter and it works great. Doesn't lower ppm much but it does remove some contaminants. The plants love it.

In the mean time, you can foliar feed to help your plants get nutrients that are being locked out of the roots. This can really help the problem from getting too much worse. In the future I recommend going much lighter on nutes. I would rather fix a deficiency than a toxicity any day, way less work and way less stress on the plant.
 

Wingnutt

Well-Known Member
Also, if you bought cheap coco did you flush it? Almost all cheap coco already has a high salinity and if you don't rinse it thoroughly you can have the same Ph problems. If you don't want to deal with that, buy a high grade coco like Canna or B'cuzz - no rinsing required.
 

heathaa

Well-Known Member
i would flush the soil. you have nute burn. it also seems like you might not have enough light on them hence the spacing between nodes. most people dont give nutes to their plants till after its a month old.
 

maxed

Member
thanks for all the advice. i went and flushed each pot with 2 gallons of ph 5.8 water per. i mixed each 2 gallon seperate. poured it slow. let it sit and flush out. i may do another flush tomorrow. would that be a bad idea? i only have a hanna pHep meter. the read one. so i should have a ppm meter too? my friend is doing the same as me, but he filled a 32 gal bucket with nutes. everything the same as I but his are going perfectly. it can't be light defiency since i'm running 2 -1000w on 16 plants. they are about 4-5 ft from the plants.
the plants are a little over a month old. we get our babies pretty far along.
my Ph for my water straight out of the tap is 8.8. i then correct with general hydroponics ph down. its about 30 drops for 2 gallons to reach the 5.8. would that sound right?
i'm going to shut the lights off in an hour for about 4 hrs till 8pm then check on them again. am i doing the right thing?


one thing i didn't add was that i had put about 1/2 tablespoon of roots oregonic as well too each plant right when i transplanted. along with some earth juice catalyst.

there's one other thing i wanted to mention but can't remember at the moment. stoned at heart.
 

maxed

Member
oh i remember now. its canna coco basement mix. i shouldn't have to flush before i used it i was told.
 

maxed

Member
so they are still turning yellow and dying. do i flush them again? when do i start watering them again?
 

maxed

Member
just checked on them. they seem to still be wet in the soil. I'm going to maybe water them in the morning. the lights will run one more cycle and thatll dry it out for sure. there still are yellow leaves but theres new growth coming above the yellows. I flushed them with 4-5 gallons of ph 5.8 on Tues and roughly the same on Weds ( 24 hrs to the hour) When I flushed them the second time the runoff ph that came out was about 6-6.1 for all. i'll take some pictures in a few hours and post them.

should i maybe do a 1/4 of the nutes when i water, or just use ph 5.8 water again?

Is it best to mix my nutes in small batches of say 5 gallons, or large batches of say 30 gallons?

bump anyone.. anyone...?
 

maxed

Member
ok so heres the pictures. this is a good selection of the them. a few of the purple diesel actually have no burn and super green. i'll take those tomorrow. does this look like they're doing better?
 

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brickedup417

Well-Known Member
ive noticed this a couple times, i think yours might be a fungus try treating it with some safer garden fungicide.

once when i tried to use cal-mag as a foliar spray
again when my tapwater p.h was way off
and i have been told it happens when there is a fungus present or sometimes when nutrient solution gets on the leaves
 

maxed

Member
I have a thing of Serenade Garden disease control. do I spray it on while the lights are on? or a few minutes before they go off? hmmm. this shit has been sitting here for a week and I was wondering if I needed it, assuming it was a nute problem. Maybe this will help as well.
 

brickedup417

Well-Known Member
dang i dont really know anything about serenade ive stuck with the safer for a while but i would bet its some type of fungus
 

maxed

Member
Some new pictures. Too me it seems as though the nute burn is gone and the new growth is going pretty good. There are a few yellow spots, but can that just be from the plant outgrowing the previous burn/problem? I've fed them twice now 1/4 nutes and I think tomorrow morning Im going to feed them half nutes. Would seaweed or calmag help the problem at all ? there seem to be some white spots, but I can't seem to find any mites/bugs of any sort under any of the leaves. looking good to you leaf experts out there?
 

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maxed

Member
yeah the ph runoff after the flushing was 6. i haven't shcked it since the flushings becos i haven't watered them down enough to get runoff. i'm going to water them pretty good today cos i can fill the pots being real lite. i'll see what the ph is then. should it still be around 5.8-6?
 
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