George W. Grow

George W.

Member
This is my first post on this site and I know it will definitely not be my last. I have recently just started a small operation with the hopes that I can expand and grow in more space later. I Have growen crops outdoors and in greenhouses. I am for the first time starting indoors. I will continually post my progress to keep those interested informed. As of right now though I have seemed to have run into a little problem and was wondering if any one could help me to solve it.

The plants seem to be showing sings of a mg or N deficiency. This im quite sure of however the cause of the problem still remains elusive. I will explain my setup in as much detail as I can below.

WATER:
Drip system with res beneath. Waters drips from 2gph drippers every day for fifteen min. Water is also enriched with air from an air pump and stones. Now I am using drinking water and b/c I am on well water where I live and it must be softened. The water I am using says it has been carbon filtered and Ozonated. It has a ppm of roughly 120 and a ph of 7.1. My tapwater has a ppm of roughly 400 and a ph of 7.0 after being softened by a softener that uses salt in its process. I have a strange feeling I should be using this water instead of the drinking water.

GROWING MEDIUM:
I am using a mixture of bcuzz hydro mix which is a soilless mixture of Spagnum moss (or Peat i cant remember) and perlite and Vermiculite. 3parts hydro mix 1 part Perlite 1 part Verm.
The plants were started in Jiffy pellets and then placed into three inch mesh pots and topped with the growing medium.
The pots are lined with black plastic in order to prevent the roots from growing through and to help keep soil from drying out too quickly. The bottom of the pot remains without plastic and is completely mesh. My reasoning for the pots is a lower risk of transplant shock into bigger pots when it becomes time by allowing the roots to just grow through the first container

NUTES:
Primary growth Nutes: Flora Nova 7-4-10
Stimulaters: Superthrive and Bcuzz Growth 1-0-.7

LIGHT:
Period: 18/6

I am currently using around 300w of cfl lighting inside a reflector with 2 62w 2700k lights and 4 42w 6700k lights to incorperated as much of the light spectrum as possible.

The lights are roughly 6 inches above the plants at all times

GROW CHAMBER:
The grow chamber is divided into two levels one for seedlings and clones and one for mama which i am working on creating

The walls are totaly covered in mylar reflective material.
There is 1 osculating tower fan
There are 2 70 cfm fans for exaust
There are 2 70 cfm fans for intake
There is one 70 cfm fan for airflow between chambers

There are timers for both the pumps and the lights

One major problem I have with the grow room is heat. Where I live the outside air temp is around 95 this time of year and it is extremely hard to cool a house. I try to keep the temp in the house around 75 degrees however my grow chamber temps have reached as high as 92 degrees with an average temp of around 87. I know this is too high without co2 enrichment and am currently keeping the door to the chamber open as much as possible to keep the temps down around 80 degrees.

CURRENT

I have been growing Aurora Indica and AK-48 for about three weeks now. At first the plants were growing perfectly. I slowly first giving them a nute concentration of around 400 ppm (including initial water ppm of 120) and a week ago I increased it to around 600 ppm total. Soon after that i notices a slight yellowing of the leaves and then what I diagnosed as a mg deficiency. I quickly added epson salt the the res and stated floraly feeding them the a light solution of nutes and epson salt. The problem seemed to stop until I stoped Floral feeding around 2 days ago. The ph has averaged around 6.6 in the res. Now the problem seems to continue and I dont know what is locking up my plants. I feel like there could be just a lack of all nutes because i am now noticing red spots on the leaf stems which I think is an indicator of a p deficiency. I will attach some pics of everything in order to get a better look at what might be wrong. Please Help!
 

Quickee

Well-Known Member
well if they are really small spots it could be calcium but dont take my advise till i see some pics
 

George W.

Member
Here are some pics of the grow room and plants
 

Attachments

George W.

Member
Is There a way to get a faster response from people that I should consider. I need help now and am starting to get worried about my plants health.
 

Wrigley

Member
Could look like Calcium Deficiency. the leaves will start to yellow at the tips, and sides, and later wither up and die. calcium deficiency can also make the stem weak and "puny?" (don't know if that properly translated)
Calcium deficiency also make the leaves curl upwards.

added a picture of calcium deficiency

maby you can answer a newbie question of mine?
say i go and buy a 250w CFL, that requires a ballast. that ballast needs to be a 250w+ ballast right?
 

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George W.

Member
maby you can answer a newbie question of mine? say i go and buy a 250w CFL said:
I have a 250w cfl in my mother chamber and it does not require a ballast. it screws into a large lighting recepticle just like a household bulb does. You need an adapter to shrink the plug in from a large to a standard sized screw in. I found it on ebay and with shipping it cost around $75.
 

Attachments

Wrigley

Member
I have a 250w cfl in my mother chamber and it does not require a ballast. it screws into a large lighting recepticle just like a household bulb does. You need an adapter to shrink the plug in from a large to a standard sized screw in. I found it on ebay and with shipping it cost around $75.
ahh... i meant to write HPS instead of CFL :P

btw, did the calcium deficiency help ya?
 

George W.

Member
Im not sure what the problem is I know that there is a defecieny of some sort however i am not sure what is causing the nut lock out. maybe ph or high temps. I realy could use some help
 

George W.

Member
I have some new pics of the girls. They are looking slightly bettter but little has changed. The spread of the difeciency has stoped I think but im still trying to figure out what caused it. To make the diagnosis easier I have broken down what I was doing before.

Grow room Temps: High 85-90+
PH in Res: 6.7 avg
Nute Strenth: 700ppm (Was using drinking water with baseline ppm of 130)
Medium: Soilless mixture 3" mesh pots
Nutes: Super Thrive, Bcuzz Grow, Flora Nova Grow.
Watering: Every day for fifteen minuets drip system
Now I have changed a few things

Grow room Temps: Better 78-82
PH in Res: 6.0 avg
Nute Streanth: 450 ppm grow (Switched to Fox Farm Grow big)
150 ppm Cal Max
15 ppm Base line
45 ppm Super thrive and bcuzz growth stim
Total 660 ppm
Also added a root culture
Watering: Floral feed daily watering when soil is dry

Please can anyone figure out what I was doing wrong and are there any sugesstions on things i should be doing.

Some people said to flush others said to back off nutes some say mg and cal difficiency others said ph. that just sounds like everything is wrong lol.

I want to know what locked out the nutes from the plants.
 

George W.

Member
Thanks for the info. I feel that I know what happened to my plants and now I have taken steps to correct the problem and they are looking better. I think at first my PH was to high and the plants were showing sings of a MG or CL difeciency. I increased the ppm and added epson salts to try and fix that problem. However in doing so I gave the plants a slight nute burn. Freeking out I tried everything to fix it on my own but I owe credit to the people on this sight for educating me on what I was doing wrong. Today I flushed with PH adjusted water only and floraly fed a diluted nute solution. I think the flushing will get rid of any salt build up from my previous mistake. I will also have adjusted my ph to around 5.9 to prevent furthur lock out. Hope the next week will show large sings of improvement.

Thanks to all that were willing and able to help.

Smoke till you Choke

George W. (and by the way in my parts George W. is another name for weed not any political affiliation on my part I dont believe in a goverment that has no room for weed in their agenda)
 
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