1st Grow ph issues?

senescence

Member
Hello all!
I am a long time lurker, but a first time grower and poster. This is my first grow they are Pyramid's auto Northern Lights. They are both exactly a week old. I am growing them in my closet with 5 cfls each 3 2700k and 2 6500k 23 watt. The lights are about 3 inches away from each sprout, they used to be about 1 inch away until I noticed the leaves curling and moved then farther away. I also have two fans in my closet and consistently monitor the ambient temps and humidity. I used the hand method to test the radiant heat from my lights and they feel fine. I also have not added any nutrients other than about a half a tablespoon of blood meal to each last night. Today i noticed a light discoloration on the bigger sprout's new leaves. Now here's the tricky part, I received my ph meter in the mail today and i measured the runoff ph to learn that it was about 7.5. I have been using tap water and measured my tap to learn that it was sitting around 7.8 - 8.2. Should I use distilled water instead? I plan on using fox farm grow big for one feed and big bloom at the first sign of pistils. Should I rethink my nutes? Has my high ph level or blood meal caused the discoloration?

Thank you to any and all help i can get!
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Fender Guitar

Well-Known Member
Use distilled water or lower the ph of tap water with ph down.
As for the discoloration, i think the blood meal burned your young plants. Blood meal is very strong and young plants need very little fertilizer.
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
too hot, and light is too intense when leaves curl up like that. Give the poor seedlings a break, let them reach for the light. give them 6" or so. they are new born still. The yellowing indicates you are watering to much and they need more air. let the soil dry out before you water again. stop pushing so hard. let the plant tell you more and pay more attention top now the leaves behave. make sure you have a nice breeze not a storm. be patient
 

senescence

Member
Thanks guys Ill def be moving the lights 6 inches away and wont be putting in any ferts for a while. Ill also start using distilled water. I just watered these plants last night so i dont plan on watering them for another couple of days.
 

senescence

Member
The dirt looks muddy.
What exactly does that entail? I did water them last night and mixed the top soil around to mix the half table spoon of blood meal. The soil is a potting soil that i picked up at lowes it was the only organic one with no additive ferts.
 

SouthCross

Well-Known Member
Thanks! Ill definitely hold off on watering them for at least ten days then.

Being straight. You bought crap wood chip soil. Cannabis won't grow for $hit in it. I've grown in it. Yours looks like 'garden soil'.

You've added a lot of junk to the soil. You're going to be fighting problems for the next 4 months. PH won't be right. The plants will be discolored. If you want smoke. Start over. Buy the cheap promix from Wal-Mart. It's peat moss based. Not wood chip. If the soil has finger sized chunks of wood in it. It's crap for cannabis.


Prepare the pots before you grow. Adjust the PH while there isn't a plant in the pot. First watering can be a compost tea. Address the problems at the beginning.
 

senescence

Member
Being straight. You bought crap wood chip soil. Cannabis won't grow for $hit in it. I've grown in it

You've added a lot of junk to the soil. You're going to be fighting problems for the next 4 months. PH won't be right. The plants will be discolored. If you want smoke. Start over. Buy the cheap promix from Wal-Mart. It's peat moss based. Not wood chip. If the soil has finger sized chunks of wood in it. It's crap for cannabis.


Prepare the pots before you grow. Adjust the PH while there isn't a plant in the pot. First watering can be a compost tea. Address the problems at the beginning.
You dont think transferring them would be viable because the shock would hurt my yield? What junk have i added? Is a half a tablespoon of blood meal that bad? Or are you reffering to my tap water? Because i did let it sit for 24 hours before watering.
 

SouthCross

Well-Known Member
You dont think transferring them would be viable because the shock would hurt my yield? What junk have i added? Is a half a tablespoon of blood meal that bad? Or are you reffering to my tap water? Because i did let it sit for 24 hours before watering.

Blood meal has to compost and the raw form is hot. The natural process of it breaking down causes the PH to vary. When it's added, it's cooked in the soil for at least a month. Stuff like blood meal, chicken poop....it needs to be composted or it'll burn plants. The blood meal you added won't compost in the soil until after you flip to flower. Then it's excess nitrogen when you don't want it.

Yeah, it'll hurt the yields. Don't add nothing to the soil for at least three weeks. The plant isn't big enough to use all you're giving it.
 

senescence

Member
Blood meal has to compost and the raw form is hot. The natural process of it breaking down causes the PH to vary. When it's added, it's cooked in the soil for at least a month. Stuff like blood meal, chicken poop....it needs to be composted or it'll burn plants. The blood meal you added won't compost in the soil until after you flip to flower. Then it's excess nitrogen when you don't want it.

Yeah, it'll hurt the yields. Don't add nothing to the soil for at least three weeks. The plant isn't big enough to use all you're giving it.
I do have some other seeds I could germinate. Do you think this grow is hopeless enough to start over? Also i was thinking of maybe trying fox farm's ocean forest? Or what promix would you suggest instead?
 

graying.geek

Well-Known Member
I do have some other seeds I could germinate. Do you think this grow is hopeless enough to start over? ...
No! Don't be brow beaten into thinking you need to start over. Your soil is adequate and the seedlings don't look too bad -- yet. They look nute burned, no doubt from the added blood meal, but they can recover. At this point, it appears that you may be drowning them, but you may also need to flush with water pH'd to ~6.5 to clear out some of the excess nitrogen, then stop watering until the top 3 cm of soil gets pretty dry.

After a couple of weeks, consider top dressing with some EWC and maybe add some EWC + alfalfa compost tea to jack up the complex nutes in your soil.

Oh, and get yourself some pH Down and pH all of the water and teas that you're using to 6.5-7.0. Tap water is fine if you let it set uncovered for an hour or more.
 
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senescence

Member
No! Don't be brow beaten into thinking you need to start over. Your soil is adequate and the seedlings don't look too bad -- yet. They look nute burned, no doubt from the added blood meal, but they can recover. At this point, it appears that you may be drowning them, but you may also need to flush with water pH'd to ~6.5 to clear out some of the excess nitrogen, then stop watering until the top 3 cm of soil gets pretty dry.

After a couple of weeks, consider top dressing with some EWC and maybe add some EWC + alfalfa compost tea to jack up the complex nutes in your soil.

Oh, and get yourself some pH Down and pH all of the water and teas that you're using to 6.5-7.0. Tap water is fine if you let it set uncovered for an hour or more.
Thanks! ill do just that. It would be safe to flush with tap that i ph to 6.5 and leave uncovered for an hour correct?
 

senescence

Member
I also have gallons of distilled water on hand if that would help flush it? Or should I wait to use the ph downed tap? I currently have no ph down or up.
 
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graying.geek

Well-Known Member
1 foot tall 5 gallon pots, another newbie mistake of mine a bit bigger than i would have liked.
Ah, bummer. I was hoping for 1 gal or less. To *really* flush you'd need to pour 3x your pot volume of pH'd water through your soil. Right. Not really reasonable. But the up side of the larger pot is if you drench the soil with 1-2 gal of pH'd water it should disperse the blood meal throughout the pot. If you added just 1 T to each pot you'll be fine. But: NO MORE WATER OR NUTES for a while. Wait until the top gets dry before watering, and not until after week 2 for nutrients, *assuming* your nutrients are in the form of compost tea. Are you organic, or synthetic?

Have you read the Marijuana Grower's Bible? Free download here:

http://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/marijuana-grow-bible
 

senescence

Member
But the up side of the larger pot is if you drench the soil with 1-2 gal of pH'd water it should disperse the blood meal throughout the pot. If you added just 1 T to each pot you'll be fine. But: NO MORE WATER OR NUTES for a while. Wait until the top gets dry before watering, and not until after week 2 for nutrients, *assuming* your nutrients are in the form of compost tea. Are you organic, or synthetic?

Have you read the Marijuana Grower's Bible?
I only added .5 T to each plant last night and the blood meal was thoroughly dispersed with the tap water I used last night, the tap water did sit out for enough time as well but had a high ph i would assume. Do you think I should use the distilled water or the ph'd tap to disperse the blood meal more? Im definitley not going to be watering for at least 10 more days and no nutes for 2 more weeks at least, im thinking. I was planning on using fox farm's grow big and big bloom. Do you think this is a good idea? Or should i only use big bloom at the first sign of flowering? I do know about the growers journal and refer to it often. I also try to read it casually for knowledge. The blood meal was a stupid mistake, I thought it might help out since the soil has no ferts baked in it, didnt realize it was so hot and needed to compost first.
 

graying.geek

Well-Known Member
I only added .5 T to each plant last night and the blood meal was thoroughly dispersed with the tap water I used last night, the tap water did sit out for enough time as well but had a high ph i would assume. Do you think I should use the distilled water or the ph'd tap to disperse the blood meal more? Im definitley not going to be watering for at least 10 more days and no nutes for 2 more weeks at least, im thinking. I was planning on using fox farm's grow big and big bloom. Do you think this is a good idea? Or should i only use big bloom at the first sign of flowering? I do know about the growers journal and refer to it often. I also try to read it casually for knowledge. The blood meal was a stupid mistake, I thought it might help out since the soil has no ferts baked in it, didnt realize it was so hot and needed to compost first.
Use either water. It'll make no difference, as long as you pH first. Candidly, it sounds like you've already resolved the blood meal overdose, but drenching with pH 6.5 will help toward getting your soil pH in line. I wouldn't plan on watering for 2-3 weeks, but you'll have to judge. Your soil will be fully saturated and your tiny plants just don't transpire enough to get rid of the excess, so keep your eye on it, but don't jump the gun and over water again. Your babies need to develop some roots and a drying soil will encourage that.

I've never used any of the commercial nutes so can't help you with your Fox Farm questions.

Don't kick yourself over this. Very common mistake for new growers.
 
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