I grow DWC hydroponics. First time problems like this. But I've switched to a high power LED light. I've read Calcium/Magnesium is a LED problem they need more... Anyway idk.
Nutes I use is General Hydroponics Tri Part
I use distilled water
My step-by-step of adding nutes is this: I take distilled water. I take bottle 1 of base nutes add them stir wait a little take bottle 2 of base nutes stir wait a little and so on. And then after base nutes are done I add the Epsom Salt.
At first my EC meter wasn't reliable but now I have a better one which is reliable and calibrated and maintained a lot! So the numbers EC now are right.
How much magnesium sulfate: Right now it's 0.75g/gallon because I don't want to overdo it. But later in this text (at the end) there is a better view of how I've used the epsom salt.
I have a 400W LED grow light right now at 12.5% dimmed because I don't want to use too much and the light is a bit oversized for the plant at full strength so I dim it down a lot. (The light is ment for the flower room but right now it's in the veg room). The distance right now is about 16 inches because I rant out of hight but I still think its more of a nutrient deficiency because even the small one which is way smaller so more distance in between the light maybe 30+ inches. And she even started to show signs when she was even further away and light was dimmed to 10%.
To see how the deficiencies started and how they spread read further I can show you how it started and how it progressed with pictures. Sorry for the wall of text but I try to explain everyithing.
At first only one plant had signs of deficiencies. This was on 12/17/2022 I was feeding way too much and the EC skyrocketed. This went on for some days. Until I lowered the EC about 5 days later. The other plants were ok and growing but only one showed first signs (which is the smallest and almost not growing at all right now)
12/17/2022
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5 Days later the EC was very high and the other plants started to show signs too. I changed the res due to high EC and was feeding EC 1.05 (which consisted of about 0.6 EC base nutes and 0.45 EC Cal/Mag)
12/22/2022
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Now after changing the res I started to panic and changed the Res and nutrients strength/ratios a lot because deficiencies got even worse which made me panic. I for example first used less Cal/Mag. Then next res change a day later I used less base nutes and more Cal/Mag. I was down to EC 0.9 (0.45 base nutes and 0.45 Cal/Mag)
12/25/2022
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Since I paniced and the deficiencies got worse I was still changing the res and the nute strength/ratios on a daily basis. The lowes I went was about EC 0.78 (with base nutes 0.38 and Cal/Mag 0.4). As you can guess over the next days the deficiencies got even worse but all plants were growing except for the one who got damaged first... She stalled. The others grew even with deficiencies.
01/03/2023
Smallest Plant looks stalled compared to some days earlier.
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Other plant that still grows even with deficiencies
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I started to worry even more and started to ask on RIU for help! They advised me to use more base nutes because plants are starving and to use less Cal/Mag see how that goes. So on 01/03/2023 I changed the Res and EC was 1.0 (0.8 EC base nutes and 0.2 EC Cal/Mag)
Two days later I added more Cal/Mag because plant still got worse and still was panicing instead of beeing chill and don't change as much. (later I got more chill and didn't change as much as often). EC around 1.3 by now.
01/05/2023
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Now I stopped changing the Res on a daily basis because people told me to chill and I was only watching the EC raise/fall and acted acordingly (Adding Cal/Mag water when EC raises and adding Nute water if EC lowers) but the EC raised all the time so I was only adding water with Cal/Mag added to it. So the EC didn't change a lot after last res change for about 10 days it was in the 1.1-1.4 range and most of the time I've only added Cal/Mag water because the EC kept rising so I always tried to dilute it. (Maybe this was also a problem because the Cal/Mag accumulated over time)
01/15/2023
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By now I stopped panicing because people calmed me down but the deficiencies still kept going even after 15 days after the res change and about 0.45 EC Cal/Mag. I was still wondering and still asking people on RIU for help. I also suspected my PH/EC pens to be malfunctioning from beginning of the grow because they ALWAYS measured different number which didn't make sense to me. Some times I needed 0.5ml for 0.4EC and sometimes I needed 0.8ml to reach 0.45 EC which didn't make sense in my eyes so I ditched them and bought new better pens. As you can see on the 01/15/2023 pictured the deficiencies still went on (even with 0.45 EC Cal/Mag) but they progressed slower. And look at the growing speed of the smallest plant compared to the other! The plant who got deficient first is not growing at all in 10 days whereas the other plants grow even if deficient.
Anyway I started to use the new PH/EC pens which gave me more accurate readings and were stable now. But I made a stupid thing... I lowered the base nutrients again and increased the Cal/Mag. So on 01/15/2023 I changed the Res and it was EC 1.28 (now only 0.72 base nutes and 0.56 Cal/Mag)
Now 2 days later the deficiencies still progressed even after 0.56 EC Cal/Mag (but lower base nutes) so was asking for help again and people told me to raise the base EC because plant is starving (and to add epsom salt for magnesium instead of Cal/Mag but it took some time to get my hand on epsom salt so I only fed base nutes from now on).
01/17/2023
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I cut here because too much attachments. Next post goes on!
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