I am going to loose everything "PLEASE ANY INPUT WOULD HELP"

strain--Purple Voodoo
1000 watt MH light
Temps--73 at night 80 day max
I use tap water 24 Hour Method.
I use Roots Organics 707 soil with extra perilite added for more drainage
5 Gallon buckets lots of drainage holes
Water Ph'ed at 6.5
Nute's that i have.. 1/4 dose
-Flora Nova Grow
-Diamond Nector

40 days veg

Everything is turning pale yellow Again i flushed everything each with 15 gal plain 6.5 water with the final runoff at 6.0 was 8 days ago everything started to look better the next few days. Then about 5 days after i flushed it all started to change back and now its all turning yellow and stopped growing again?

Ph meter says 7.5

what am i doing wrong? i am going to loose everything

I feel i am flushing too much I have flushed everything 2 times with 15 gal plain 6.5 ph'd tap water 24 hour method with the runoff at 6.2 I added 1/4 nutes to one plant after i flushed it and its looking like it is getting worse so i dont think i need to add nutes to the rest..

I am investing in a ppm meter next week.... but i don't know what to untill then any help would be extreamly helpful...


Do i need to flush again or add nutes?

Im going crazy

Don't flush them, they'll get worse. They need more food provided at the correct pH. First and foremost, check your soil pH. The pH of the liquids you give the plants comes second to the pH of the soil. To identify nutrient burn, watch the lowest, smallest and oldest leaves, particularly the pod leaves and the single-bladed leaves. When there's nute burn, these leaves will burn up before any others.

More run off in the future.

The pH of the liquid solution is not second to the pH of the soil. If you are getting the proper amount of run off there shouldn't be a difference between the two.

You're in soil, flushing isn't going to create a devoid media.

Those leaves aren't going to "get better." The new growth (what has arrived since you started flushing) looks plenty healthy. Reacting to a problem that started 10 or more days ago is a recipe for disaster.

Stay the course and make sure you get a ton of run off (30%) every time you feed and water. This will help keep the media rinsed and clean and in balance with the pH of the solution you are using. Flushing is a stressful process. Just focus on keeping the new growth happy. Eventually, those leaves will die off. It's okay, you've got plenty of good stuff coming in that will compensate.

Just be glad you're not like 2 weeks into flowering right now.

yeah, forget the old leaves, the plant doesnt repair those (havent seen that anyway lol)

you check out the new growth, if it looks fine, you are doing fine and should keep it up.

Snow Crash said:

The pH of the liquid solution is not second to the pH of the soil. If you are getting the proper amount of run off there shouldn't be a difference between the two.

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Regardless of what "should" be happening, the pH of the liquids you give the plant isn't correct if the pH of the soil is still off. No matter what the pH of the liquids you use are, if the soil pH stays correct then your pH is fine.

You need to know what your soil pH is because it can possibly be different from the liquids you use. Everything "should" all be perfect but sometimes it isn't.

Snow Crash said:

More run off in the future.

The pH of the liquid solution is not second to the pH of the soil. If you are getting the proper amount of run off there shouldn't be a difference between the two.
You're in soil, flushing isn't going to create a devoid media.

Click to expand...

Flushing does indeed leech the soil of nutrients. It is why flushing is done. As for PH, I don't care how much run off you generate, the PH coming out will not be the same going in. when I grew soil and checked run off, adjustments made in lime, bonemeal and the water I was giving the plant effected the ph of the soil. If I pour 5.0 Ph into soil that is around 7.0, if I water enough, the run off will reach a ph of 6.0 ideally. I think your comment that runoff should be exactly the same as source water is confusing and misleading.

It would only be different if there wasn't enough run off going on. Buffer materials are important and rinsing to this degree will wash them out. This makes crushed dolomite lime an important tool for soil growers who need an inexpensive and effective micro-nutrient element buffer. Top dress the soil once a month to maintain the cal-mag requirements when rinsing well.

Try to think of a "good" reason why the pH would deviate so greatly?

You don't start using a 6.0 solution in soil because the soil pH is 7.0. You use the 6.5 solution and you use enough of it to get the pH dialed in. Whatever it takes, you get the two the same and you keep them the same and you then know that the pH is not an issue.

Flushing the soil will remove salts while leaving a great deal of the organic material (the soil itself is a "nutrient"). So when I say devoid, I'm comparing to coco or peat. If you'd used synthetic fertilizers, those will leach out, but IMO... Kind of a good thing! The remaining material is going to be "thin" on organics but over time what is remaining will break down and continue to provide food for the plant to consume.

Go all the way organic. Brewing a little tea is super easy and cheap. Soil is more about relying on organics. If you want to push synthetics then move into coco... The stuff is great anyway.

What is really happening

you pour in 6.5 water and get 6.0 runoff, means there actually was a salts build up to flush out since the runoff was lower, it does not indicate a problem

Soil (or soilless mixes) act as a buffer, what this means is that they will return to the ph of origin when they dry, so if your soil is 7.5 out of the bag (most are adjusted as close to 7 as possible as this is considered nuetral) and you pour in water that is ph'd to 5.8 it will lower the overall ph but as the water is used by the plant and the soil begins to dry the PH will rise back to 7.5. As this happens the plants will take in different nutes in different PH ranges (pic provided). Over time as unused salts build up the overall PH of the soil will go lower and this is why we flush (leech) the soil to remove those excess salts

I flush everytime I water as this is what happens when it rains in the real world and the PH of rain is 5.6 (in most places) I therefore PH my water to 5.8, I have been doing this for a long time and the plants love it, there are a lot of growers here that have adopted this technique as well and there has never been any reported stress, it is important to be aware of what is actually happening to be able to determine the potential cause of any problem.

The input from others telling you that damaged leaves will not repair is correct, the PH info is distorted and confusing.

What I can see happened was that you switched to bloom nutes a bit early this will always cause the yellowing of leaves as bloom nutes tend to have much lower N values, the fix when it first occured was to give em a dose of veg nutes you also have a minor cal/mag def going on. There is no reason to flush again (unless you decide to check out my technique) let em dry out and give em a dose of veg nutes with a bit of cal/mag suppliment them go bloom, bloom, veg, with your nute feeding till you are closer to the end of flower. Me I feed till the end and don't do a pre-harvest flush as there are never salt buildups with the way I grow, but to each his own

I love Riddleme's explanation, but I believe the plant plays a part in the PH swings as well. I grow soil and hydro, and the hydro PH tends to swing at different times of the plant's life. Late into flower, mine like to PH up to 6.0 and higher if i let them.

thanks for all the great info so my soil meter says 7.5 and i am flushing with 6.5 with the runoff after 15 gal at 6.1 so i guess there is more build up i need to get rid of... so if i understand correctly what everyone is saying i need to flush with more water to get my soil ph down until it is 6.5

using riddleme flush technique ... with 5.8 and letting the soil rise naturally when its drying out to around 7.5

flush with 5.8 water 15 gal
no nutes

Im going to give it a try and see what happens

Good idea. Lots of people like to get stoned, surf the forums and answer questions.
Unfortunately not all of the answers are right. Riddleme knows his shit man.

OK....... so i just flushed with plain water 15 gal each at 5.8... there was not much of a Ph difference in run off i do 3 gallons at a time and the final 3 gal run off was at 5.83 so i think my soil Ph is now good we will see what happens..

so i flush with 5.8 what do i regular feed with 5.8? will my soil keep rising back up to 7.5?

To All: thanks again for all the help

Dgomes said:

OK....... so i just flushed with plain water 15 gal each at 5.8... there was not much of a Ph difference in run off i do 3 gallons at a time and the final 3 gal run off was at 5.83 so i think my soil Ph is now good we will see what happens..

so i flush with 5.8 what do i regular feed with 5.8? will my soil keep rising back up to 7.5?

To All: thanks again for all the help

Click to expand...

Just wait till the soil dries out and give em a regular dose of veg nutes, then watch new growth for improvement

riddleme said:

What is really happening

you pour in 6.5 water and get 6.0 runoff, means there actually was a salts build up to flush out since the runoff was lower, it does not indicate a problem

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What does that even mean? (rhetorical)
Are you saying that the deviant pH does not indicate a problem?
Are you saying that salt build up isn't a problem?

Both???

cruzer101 said:

Good idea. Lots of people like to get stoned, surf the forums and answer questions.
Unfortunately not all of the answers are right. Riddleme knows his shit man.

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HAHAHAH!!!! Funny joke... Sure he does...
[see above]

Have fun dropping in a far too acidic solution to try and average out the right pH.

At what point is using the right pH in, to get the right pH out, the wrong approach? This is asinine.

New +ignore
-sub'd

You can do what you'd like to dude. We'll see the results of it soon enough.

i feel ya bro i never herd of Riddleme method but he sounds like he knows his stuff i just flushed 1 plant with 15 gal 5.8 plain water and we will see what happens

the strange thing is when i used my soil pH meter it stayed 7.5 and i flushed with 5.8 and the run off was 5.8 soil meter still says 7.5



doesn't hurt to try new things.... well i hope it doesn't hurt them lol

So they are still yellow but it looks like they have stopped turning yellow but the new growth looks like it is deformed i have been reading and one of my friends said add Epson salt would this help?

Dgomes said:

So they are still yellow but it looks like they have stopped turning yellow but the new growth looks like it is deformed i have been reading and one of my friends said add Epson salt would this help?

Click to expand...

got any pics?

This is all one plant



Here is another plant showing some brown

the first set of pictures is the plant that i flushed with 5.8 and the second one is a plant i flushed a week ago with 6.5 it seems like i cant get my Ph to go down? because every time its time to water my meter says 7.5-8.0 WTF

Thanks for the help

Not a mag def, so epsom salts won't help, they look much better, have you feed em a dose of veg nutes yet? they are still pullin N from the leaves