Lower Leaf Drop Day 9 of Flower In Hydro

So yesterday I noticed some lowers were yellowing and found a few on the floor in the morning. Plants are pretty healthy but I had a lot of leaf drop last run and it started out nice too, but finished poor, and I'm hoping to not repeat that. I'm no expert grower but I'm no beginner either; somewhere in between and I can fuck them up so I'm hoping some of the great growers on here can help with this.
Lets start with some pics from yesterday morning.
The first one is the yellowing lowers on the first plant to show. Second pic is the same plant but up by the piece of paper is a main stalk fan that's a lot higher up and getting lime green.
The third one is another plant (same as the first, both are clones from the same mom) that I noticed today (day10 flower) and the fourth and fifth are it's neighbor (same mom again).
The sixth pic is all the leaves I collected off the floor this morning. They sure look nice and green but they dropped them.

Nutrients, you folks are gonna want to know about that. I run the full Gen Hydro line, FloraNova base, with the exception of the Armor Si and the Rapid Start. I use the Cyco Silicon in place of the SI and I haven't noticed a difference dropping the Rapid Start. My water is pretty cool; about 55 PPM and a little alkaline at around 7.8.
The first pic is my nutrient schedule for this month; hope it makes sense but I'll explain my system. On the first my PPM was 978 (500 scale), temp was 22.4c and the PH was 6.2. I have to admit to a fuck up at this point. You'll notice the note for mixing 5 gallons. The plants were killing the PPM in the reservoir in under a week so I mixed up 5 gallons of the GH line and put it in to the reservoir; twice..... I know it's against the rules but I thought I might get away with it as they were using 5-6 gallons of top up water a day. Well I got some sideways leaf curl and quit it. I started to up the nutes on mixing day instead. It only took a day or so for the tip curl to go; it wasn't bad and I don't think it's part of my problem.
I added 12 ml of Cyco PH down (love Cyco PH adjusters) and the tank got 8 gallons of tap water throughout the day.
You'll notice on the fourth I gave them a day of dark to flip. CO2 ran out on the 13th but it was back on by the 14th. I'm running around 1300 PPM +/- 200 PPM in flower.

What else can I tell you; my HVAC is pretty good. I'm in a 12 by 18 basement room; flowering in a 12 by 6 space. There are seven big plants in my Aeroflo; 6 are sour diesel clones and 1 is a GDP clone. My A/C is good https://www.rollitup.org/t/danby-15000-btu-air-conditioner.1043861/; I'm running 2 big Noma dehumidifiers (7.8 amps on the sticker but mostly 630 watts at the plug each). Temps are nice running just under tip curl at the canopy; humidity goes between 45 and 60 but it moves very quickly and spends most of it's time low 50's. The reservoir temps are great since the chiller went in https://www.rollitup.org/t/chiller-question.1049604/
I'll include a pic of the leaves on the floor this morning.
Next is an overall shot so you can see how big the plants are ( the one in the back by the air pump is the plant I noticed first). They measure 36 to 40 inches tall and go 24 to 30 inches wide.
In the last pic you can get an idea how far they are away from the side. I'm not running the extraction fan yet but it's geared up to blow into the rest of the room cause I can't vent; CO2.

So that's most of it I think but if you need more info; I got it.
I'm thinking a few things myself at this point. Could be nutes. I generally run my PPMs a little higher than this run but I've seen so many great grows on this site at way lower PPMs than me that I'm backing down my numbers. I also notice a big difference in the new label FloraNova line. I had bad leaf drop my last run but I defoliated the plants real hard and I blamed my leaf drop on that BUT I was 2 to 300 PPMs lower in my mixes than I used to be with the older label FloraNova Bloom. I am using the same ratios as the GH feed chart and coming in way lower than their target PPMs but it might not be the FloraNova; maybe. I think I read a post on that here recently.
If it's nutes though that wouldn't explain all those nice green leaves they dropped; that to me looks like light deprivation. Check out the last pic where I show how close the plastic is to the plants. They have real bushy tops and there's no side lighting so I'm wondering if those green leaves weren't dropped due to low light. I'm thinking I might have 2 issues going on; the low side light causing lowers to drop and maybe just at the edge of what they need for nutes so some of the lowers got chomped. Either way dropping lowers is a shitty way to go in week2 of flower and it'd be great to stop or slow it down.

I'm gonna include a link to the feedchart here so you can see how much PPM they call for; it's up at the top of each week.

I can change the nutes up. Add more of the FloraNova base; I'm still running the veg base.
I can change the Gen Hydro base I'm using; I have lots of the 3 part Flora series here but I have next to no experience with it.
I can go to Cyco nutes as I have the full line here.
Lastly I'm pretty sure I can go Jack's 3-2-1. I ordered it last week and the shipping says it's supposed to arrive today. I have zero experience with Jack's but after reading all the great reviews on here I had to try some.
I am thinking on some F series strips for side lights but it'd be hard to rig up for this grow as I have very limited side room to get the lights back from the plants, but not impossible.
Here's a few pics of my nute stash so you'll know I'm taking this seriously. I keep the Floralicious Plus and the FloraNectar in the fridge.

Lets try a bump up here from page 6.

The Jack's arrived yesterday so I think I'll do a reservoir change tomorrow to it. If it doesn't stop the leaf drop I can always change back to the GH nutes.

I get leaves like that on the bottom of plants. I just pull them off. The rest of the plant looks healthy. Cannabis just like other plants will lose lower leaves. They all aren't going to stay healthy and green the entire grow. The reason many never have dying leaves lower down on the plant is because they cut them off defoliating while they're still healthy and don't have any leaves there.

They do have a lot of lowers so it makes sense that they drop some of them for sure. There's a lot more today though, enough to make me want to switch nutes and see if it'll stop/slow it down.

MustGro said:

They do have a lot of lowers so it makes sense that they drop some of them for sure. There's a lot more today though, enough to make me want to switch nutes and see if it'll stop/slow it down.

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Well if it's spreading then something is amiss. I didn't initially look at all the photos you posted but looking at them now that's more than just normal leaf drop.

MustGro said:

What else can I tell you; my HVAC is pretty good. I'm in a 12 by 18 basement room; flowering in a 12 by 6 space. There are seven big plants in my Aeroflo; 6 are sour diesel clones and 1 is a GDP clone. My A/C is good https://www.rollitup.org/t/danby-15000-btu-air-conditioner.1043861/; I'm running 2 big Noma dehumidifiers (7.8 amps on the sticker but mostly 630 watts at the plug each). Temps are nice running just under tip curl at the canopy; humidity goes between 45 and 60 but it moves very quickly and spends most of it's time low 50's. The reservoir temps are great since the chiller went in https://www.rollitup.org/t/chiller-question.1049604/
I'll include a pic of the leaves on the floor this morning.
Next is an overall shot so you can see how big the plants are ( the one in the back by the air pump is the plant I noticed first). They measure 36 to 40 inches tall and go 24 to 30 inches wide.
In the last pic you can get an idea how far they are away from the side. I'm not running the extraction fan yet but it's geared up to blow into the rest of the room cause I can't vent; CO2.

Click to expand...

Your plants are fine. The first picture just shows leaves that aren't getting light yellowing and dropping off. That's not a problem. That's just how plants grow brother. No light = no photosynthesis = yellow death. After seeing your first photo I was about to reply and ask for a picture of the actual plant. Then I saw your followup post of your lush, healthy, green plants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your plants homie. If I were you I would strip all that shit beneath the canopy so you drive all the plant's growth energy to your canopy. Unless you're experiencing another problem you haven't mentioned you have no problem with your plant's health. They look vivacious and healthy sir. Seeing a dropped yellow leaf at the bottom of the plant where there is little to no light (because of the lush canopy up above blocking it ) is akin to you clipping your finger nails. Does it ever hurt when you clip your finger nails? Well it never hurts a plant to let go of a leaf that can't photosynthesize due to lack of light. You're way overthinking things homie

MustGro said:

I can change the nutes up. Add more of the FloraNova base; I'm still running the veg base.
I can change the Gen Hydro base I'm using; I have lots of the 3 part Flora series here but I have next to no experience with it.
I can go to Cyco nutes as I have the full line here.
Lastly I'm pretty sure I can go Jack's 3-2-1. I ordered it last week and the shipping says it's supposed to arrive today. I have zero experience with Jack's but after reading all the great reviews on here I had to try some.
I am thinking on some F series strips for side lights but it'd be hard to rig up for this grow as I have very limited side room to get the lights back from the plants, but not impossible.
Here's a few pics of my nute stash so you'll know I'm taking this seriously. I keep the Floralicious Plus and the FloraNectar in the fridge.

Click to expand...

When I saw that picture 3 words came out of my mouth: "oh my god."

xtsho said:

Well if it's spreading then something is amiss. I didn't initially look at all the photos you posted but looking at them now that's more than just normal leaf drop.

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You probably won't see it in the pics so well. I was digging around today and found more.

jonnynobody said:

Your plants are fine. The first picture just shows leaves that aren't getting light yellowing and dropping off. That's not a problem. That's just how plants grow brother. No light = no photosynthesis = yellow death. After seeing your first photo I was about to reply and ask for a picture of the actual plant. Then I saw your followup post of your lush, healthy, green plants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your plants homie. If I were you I would strip all that shit beneath the canopy so you drive all the plant's growth energy to your canopy. Unless you're experiencing another problem you haven't mentioned you have no problem with your plant's health. They look vivacious and healthy sir. Seeing a dropped yellow leaf at the bottom of the plant where there is little to no light (because of the lush canopy up above blocking it ) is akin to you clipping your finger nails. Does it ever hurt when you clip your finger nails? Well it never hurts a plant to let go of a leaf that can't photosynthesize due to lack of light. You're way overthinking things homie

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I appreciate the reply and the kind words. I'm well over 100 leaves dropped in 2 days though. Starting to fill up a box with them so I can keep track.

MustGro said:

The Jack's arrived yesterday so I think I'll do a reservoir change tomorrow to it. If it doesn't stop the leaf drop I can always change back to the GH nutes.

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I think the reason you didn't receive a lot of responses on this is because there is no evidence in your photos of a problem. Much ado about nothing. We've all been there

MustGro said:

I appreciate the reply and the kind words. I'm well over 100 leaves dropped in 2 days though. Starting to fill up a box with them so I can keep track.

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And all of these leaves are coming from the bottom of your plants? What stage of growth are you in?

jonnynobody said:

And all of these leaves are coming from the bottom of your plants? What stage of growth are you in?

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Just finishing up week 2 of flower; day 12 I think.

You desperately need to learn about and practice defoliating sir. You have way too much foliage in there. If your goal is to harvest the most leaves you can then you're right on track. If your goal is to harvest the most and largest flowers possible then you need to take my advice. Your canopy is too thick. Strip that useless lower growth. It's doing nothing for you but wasting your plant's growth energy, and now here you are thinking you have a plant health problem. Strip that shit off like a good gardener If it doesn't hit the canopy it's useless. Get rid of it.

MustGro said:

Just finishing up week 2 of flower; day 12 I think.

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Jeez buddy. You are at your last opportunity to defoliate here. The onset of week 3 is the last time you can defoliate. Watch some videos or threads on how other growers do it, and get it done. Time is of the essence. Otherwise you're on track to harvest a lot of fucking leaves

jonnynobody said:

Jeez buddy. You are at your last opportunity to defoliate here. The onset of week 3 is the last time you can defoliate. Watch some videos or threads on how other growers do it, and get it done. Time is of the essence. Otherwise you're on track to harvest a lot of fucking leaves

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Well it's like this. My last grow I defoliated pretty heavily and ran into problems. I had bad leaf drop in flower that I blamed on my attempts at defoliation. I've been reading lots of threads on here about it and there are many growers who don't do it. Now I can go either way myself; I'm really only interested in a quality product.
They'll make all kinds of shitty lower bud this way; you're right about that for sure. And I really hate trimming that shit up too. I have no problem defoliating them but I don't think it's the excess of leaves that's causing the drop and I'd like to get that stopped most of all.