I need some advice. CalMag issues, cramped room.

fandango

Well-Known Member
I agree with you. This run was super unorganized and i just needed to figure out which strains im going to keep and i ended up having too many plants to begin with which messed me up. Next run i plan to either get some kind of tables or atleast some kind of automated watering system
I switched to flood and drain,12 days veg only.Now the plants end up about 24" tall and the light gets down to the base.
Plant count is high,25 plants per light.Not worried because who will come in my house to check?
 

pink isn't well

Active Member
HI, I had the dreaded Calmag issue on week 5 (change of lights time). I was using canna nutes and canna coco.
Firstly, It's my first grow, so it took a little while to find out what the issue was.

It was caused by (as far as I can tell).. PH problems. calmag only gets used at certain ph levels. This was probably caused by not removing runoff and letting the pots sit in it. Ph gets thrown at root zone. Even though through veg, this was ok for the plants. not at week 5 it isn't. So again its about water and nutes it seems, I was aslo underfeeding a little because the pots were sitting in wet and not draining they were staying moist, so I would not feed that day and when i did, the runoff would mix with old run off sending ph crazy and causing a lockout. Big school boy error.

Anyway the good news is, They will bounce back.

1- Flush with ph water.
2- Feed plants a heavier feed if you have been underfeeding.
3- add calmag to your feed (5ml) per 5 ltr.
4- add some calmag to a water sprayer and spray directly to plant but dont soak it or do this more than say 3x a week.

Letting your rootzone dry cant be good as, I find with coco, it seems to want to rise ph to around 7.
so feed daily at 5.9 or 6 to give root zone full ph range of 5. rising to 7.

Cut away older larger yellow or rusted leafs, they are crispy to touch and will not go back to full health in my experience.

This is my first grow, so other ppl may disagree with me and say I'm advising you wrong. Thats cool I got loads to learn,
but this will NOT go away unless you fix it and will keep hurting you and your babies. It seems to go and comes back, (maybe cause theyr mobile and semi mobile conditions, so it keeps coming back in slighty different areas. its a bugger of a problem.

Anyway what I said worked for me. heres the evidence.

First four pics are just after I flushed. You can still see the issue.

The second four are after a delimbing and defoilation and a heavier feed. (believe it or not only 3 weeks later) Good luck
 

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The Nine

Active Member
You are right i need to put a trellis up. The plant i tied up ended up falling over in the middle of the night!. Im just hand watering this run. Watering twice a day now but for the last couple weeks i let them get way too dry a few times and i think that is where the deficiencies came from. I have 4 different strains. Slymer(chernobyl), super sour diesel, violator kush, and souther'n comfort(mass. super skunk crosses with dirty dawg). The slymer are the biggest plants and also dry out the fastest. They are also the plants with the worst calmag issues but have the frostiest buds so far. The next biggest are the southern comforts but they look great. I bumped the cal mag up to 5ml per gallon for about a week and now i just dropped it back down to 2ml per gallon and bumped the base nutes up a little bit.
How do you suggest i attach the trellis to the drywall with minimal damage?
Like someone else said..just a couple of screws into the stud uprights.
get some cheap roofing batten and some cheap hooks, cut the roofing batten to about 50mm less than the wall you are attaching it to, screw the hooks into the batten first to obtain a suitable loading/spread of the trellis when hooked on, then screw this batten into the aforementioned studs. do the sides after that, hooking the first meter of trellis in place then start sliding your plants under and tucking the tops through the trellis to support them and allow good air circulation around them.
I really think you should invest in a watering system now..a cheap pump from an aquarium suppliers, a water but, some drippers and supply pipe (dont forget the little barbed connectors, get spares too) and a timer.I would also suggest you get some over sized trays for your pots to collect the run off, you can pack your plants up so they dont sit in the nutrient solution in the trays with anything impervious.

If your pots are very undersized, your plant will require much more feeding, perhaps 3 or 4 times per day, A timed dripper system will allow you to fine tune your watering needs, each pot usually has 4 drippers,, but you can swap them around so the plants are watered more evenly, then you just have to get the amounts and the feed intervals right..but these are best installed whilst you are installing the trellis and plants.

I think you are right there, that the lack of nutes and feed is the underlying cause the the cal mag lock out.

With regards to which plant to keep, the biggest, strongest healthiest ones, with the thickest stems would be my priority, right down to the opposite.


Hope this helps in any way..good luck man, I seriously dont envy the job you got on there..but on the plus side, this will defo get your head back into a growing mindset..your next one will be soooooooo much better than this one.
Everyday is a learning day eh? :)
 

SourD420

Well-Known Member
Like someone else said..just a couple of screws into the stud uprights.
get some cheap roofing batten and some cheap hooks, cut the roofing batten to about 50mm less than the wall you are attaching it to, screw the hooks into the batten first to obtain a suitable loading/spread of the trellis when hooked on, then screw this batten into the aforementioned studs. do the sides after that, hooking the first meter of trellis in place then start sliding your plants under and tucking the tops through the trellis to support them and allow good air circulation around them.
I really think you should invest in a watering system now..a cheap pump from an aquarium suppliers, a water but, some drippers and supply pipe (dont forget the little barbed connectors, get spares too) and a timer.I would also suggest you get some over sized trays for your pots to collect the run off, you can pack your plants up so they dont sit in the nutrient solution in the trays with anything impervious.

If your pots are very undersized, your plant will require much more feeding, perhaps 3 or 4 times per day, A timed dripper system will allow you to fine tune your watering needs, each pot usually has 4 drippers,, but you can swap them around so the plants are watered more evenly, then you just have to get the amounts and the feed intervals right..but these are best installed whilst you are installing the trellis and plants.

I think you are right there, that the lack of nutes and feed is the underlying cause the the cal mag lock out.

With regards to which plant to keep, the biggest, strongest healthiest ones, with the thickest stems would be my priority, right down to the opposite.


Hope this helps in any way..good luck man, I seriously dont envy the job you got on there..but on the plus side, this will defo get your head back into a growing mindset..your next one will be soooooooo much better than this one.
Everyday is a learning day eh? :)
Managed to get a trellis up without having to move very many plants so thats a plus. Its mainly just thrown over and helping the main and tallest branches. Ya this run helped me learn alot to get back into the swing of things. I cant wait for my next run. I need to start popping open some of my seed packs and get some nice new females. Just got a few gage green stuff the other day im really excited for along with a bunch of others. I do agree with you i should have a drip system setup. I already have a good pump and it wouldnt be too hard to setup. Im about to be at the beginning of week 4 now tho so im going to just stick it out hand water and setup an automated system next run. Since i did undersize the pots im watering about 1.5-2 times a day but its not too much trouble. The whole under canopy is lollipopped and i can crawl around under there and get to every plant no problem. The crawling around on the concrete definitely isnt great tho haha. Could use some knee pads
 
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SourD420

Well-Known Member
HI, I had the dreaded Calmag issue on week 5 (change of lights time). I was using canna nutes and canna coco.
Firstly, It's my first grow, so it took a little while to find out what the issue was.

It was caused by (as far as I can tell).. PH problems. calmag only gets used at certain ph levels. This was probably caused by not removing runoff and letting the pots sit in it. Ph gets thrown at root zone. Even though through veg, this was ok for the plants. not at week 5 it isn't. So again its about water and nutes it seems, I was aslo underfeeding a little because the pots were sitting in wet and not draining they were staying moist, so I would not feed that day and when i did, the runoff would mix with old run off sending ph crazy and causing a lockout. Big school boy error.

Anyway the good news is, They will bounce back.

1- Flush with ph water.
2- Feed plants a heavier feed if you have been underfeeding.
3- add calmag to your feed (5ml) per 5 ltr.
4- add some calmag to a water sprayer and spray directly to plant but dont soak it or do this more than say 3x a week.

Letting your rootzone dry cant be good as, I find with coco, it seems to want to rise ph to around 7.
so feed daily at 5.9 or 6 to give root zone full ph range of 5. rising to 7.

Cut away older larger yellow or rusted leafs, they are crispy to touch and will not go back to full health in my experience.

This is my first grow, so other ppl may disagree with me and say I'm advising you wrong. Thats cool I got loads to learn,
but this will NOT go away unless you fix it and will keep hurting you and your babies. It seems to go and comes back, (maybe cause theyr mobile and semi mobile conditions, so it keeps coming back in slighty different areas. its a bugger of a problem.

Anyway what I said worked for me. heres the evidence.

First four pics are just after I flushed. You can still see the issue.

The second four are after a delimbing and defoilation and a heavier feed. (believe it or not only 3 weeks later) Good luck
Ya i have the same issue with the damn runoff. I would dump it out when they were small but the only way to get the runoff out now is with a shop vac. I was doing that but now i cant even get the shop vac in the room. I try to get just a little bit of runoff everyday now but not so much to the point where its high enough to make the pots soak in it. Now that im not letting them dry out the last few days they look much better. I also just recalibrated my bluelab meter and im pretty sure it was reading atleast 3-5 points high so i was probably feeding them at 5.3-5.5 for the first couple weeks of flower so im sure that didnt help the fact the pots were getting too dry...The deficient leaves are still there of course but it looks like the newer leaves are staying nice and green. I agree with you i take off the crispy leaves if they are low enough down the plant but if it is one of the main leaves on a branch i will leave it until it tells me it wants to come off.
 

The Nine

Active Member
Managed to get a trellis up without having to move very many plants so thats a plus. Its mainly just thrown over and helping the main and tallest branches. Ya this run helped me learn alot to get back into the swing of things. I cant wait for my next run. I need to start popping open some of my seed packs and get some nice new females. Just got a few gage green stuff the other day im really excited for along with a bunch of others. I do agree with you i should have a drip system setup. I already have a good pump and it wouldnt be too hard to setup. Im about to be at the beginning of week 4 now tho so im going to just stick it out hand water and setup an automated system next run. Since i did undersize the pots im watering about 1.5-2 times a day but its not too much trouble. The whole under canopy is lollipopped and i can crawl around under there and get to every plant no problem. The crawling around on the concrete definitely isnt great tho haha. Could use some knee pads
well done sourd420 :)
You will be greatly rewarded for all your effort.
I admire your determination to handwater through to the end.
I would water an hour after the lights come on, then check them 4 hour later to see if they need anymore, then 4 hours later again to see if they need a small amount to see them through the night..a lot of work, but a hands on approach like that if you have the time will see each pot get a personal treatment which will give you good results for each plant.

Post some pics if you get chance mate, of your girls in full bloom so we can appreciate all your endeavours.

Happy growing :)
 

pink isn't well

Active Member
Managed to get a trellis up without having to move very many plants so thats a plus. Its mainly just thrown over and helping the main and tallest branches. Ya this run helped me learn alot to get back into the swing of things. I cant wait for my next run. I need to start popping open some of my seed packs and get some nice new females. Just got a few gage green stuff the other day im really excited for along with a bunch of others. I do agree with you i should have a drip system setup. I already have a good pump and it wouldnt be too hard to setup. Im about to be at the beginning of week 4 now tho so im going to just stick it out hand water and setup an automated system next run. Since i did undersize the pots im watering about 1.5-2 times a day but its not too much trouble. The whole under canopy is lollipopped and i can crawl around under there and get to every plant no problem. The crawling around on the concrete definitely isnt great tho haha. Could use some knee pads
Sounds like a plan, but be quick to act and be vigilant, cause this damn calmag for me went, (or looked like it went), but would pop up somewhere.. slow growth.. 'tis a bitch. good luck let us know if it gets over it
 

SourD420

Well-Known Member
well done sourd420 :)
You will be greatly rewarded for all your effort.
I admire your determination to handwater through to the end.
I would water an hour after the lights come on, then check them 4 hour later to see if they need anymore, then 4 hours later again to see if they need a small amount to see them through the night..a lot of work, but a hands on approach like that if you have the time will see each pot get a personal treatment which will give you good results for each plant.

Post some pics if you get chance mate, of your girls in full bloom so we can appreciate all your endeavours.

Happy growing :)
Thanks you I appreciate the kind words! Wrapping up week 7 now and im getting more and more excited! It has definitely been alot of work to try and keep these ladies with plenty of water. Got a few crispy leaves here and there and was fighting the cal mag issues almost all the way thru but so far i must say Im pretty happy with how everything looks. I will try to take some pictures before i chop and then after trim so i can share them with everyone here. Thanks everyone!
 

The Nine

Active Member
Thanks you I appreciate the kind words! Wrapping up week 7 now and im getting more and more excited! It has definitely been alot of work to try and keep these ladies with plenty of water. Got a few crispy leaves here and there and was fighting the cal mag issues almost all the way thru but so far i must say Im pretty happy with how everything looks. I will try to take some pictures before i chop and then after trim so i can share them with everyone here. Thanks everyone!
Welcome mate
The experience you have gained cannot be bought and will make your next one even better

Would like to see pics of the finished plants :)
 
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