Something is going on here..(pics)

[TheGreenHornet]

Hey guys.. My plants are 70 days old, 1 ft tall, and I am using the GH Flora series..

They are at 600ppm nutes, in a bubbleponics/dwc, pH is 5.8, and the temp is 75.

I have yellowing bottom leaves, progressing towards the top, with necrosis spreading. Dead brown/black/grey patches appear on the sides and tips.. I have an awesome medical team that has tried to help me with these babies so far, but cant figure it out.. obviously I am doing something wrong..

I flushed her a day ago with regular pH'd water.. 100ppm or so.. and the burn/necrosis slowed, but they yellowing continued.. I thought it was a nitrogen def so I juiced it back up to 600ppm.. which by most accounts is low. I have two concise questions..

If the ppm is too low (and I am not feeding them enough) then why do I have burns?
and if it is too high then why do I have yellowing? I cannot possibly be suffering from a cal-mag def.. I put 3ml of Cal-Mag Plus into the res, and the flora series has adequate Mag in it..

the only thing I can think of is a calcium overload..? maybe?
anyways thanks in advance for the help everyone - tgh

please no responses from those who have never grown a plant in their life

 

[cickcne200]

Okay it looks like it could be several different things, did the P.h. of your res ever stray way off? this could have caused a nutrient lockout which could have caused the plant to look how it does. The yellow leaves with the purple stem indicates to me a phosphourous defficiency, and the yellow looks like a nitrogen deffiency, it also appears to be missing a few micronutrients like zinc and iron, which cause the yellow leaf with the green veins. You may need to try a different kind of nutes with all the micros and the correct ratios. When using a 3 part nutrient mix such as GH flora, it can be difficult to get the correct mix and correct ratios. A good two part is alot easier I feel. I hope something in here helps you out bud.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

Thanks dude. I did have pH go way the fuck off, you're totally right. I was having really bad fluctuations, I am guessing because of the buffering capacity of my RO water - anyways I compensated for this by pH'ing it down to like 4.5, and then it would come back up to 6.4 within 5 or 6 hours.. so it was really fucked. I have flushed them twice and now they are on plain water again.. I have been watching my pH every couple of hours and it hasn't strayed into under 5.3 or over 6.6 in the past 48 hrs. I dont know if I should feed them or keep them on the filtered water for a few more days..

Thanks again -tgh

 

[dirtysnowball]

they are showing
N deficiency; yellowing and dieing leaves starting at the bottom of the plant. plant is a lime green color(it should be like a crayola crayon)
K deficiency; early sign is singed tips of most the leaves.

you should feed them 1/2 strength nutes 900ppm-1500ppm for best results. any more or less will result in smaller leaves and slower growth

but yeah your ph was the culprit but it seems that its calmed down now. time to feed!

 

[trickJames]

Multiple deficiencies like that is either lockout which could be from PH, but I'm guessing you have some root rot going on if your water temp is near 80. If your PH fluctuates but stays within the desirable range it shouldn't be a major problem. RO'd water shouldn't swing like that though. Are you on a well or city water? How long did you let your system run with the PH out of whack? How long ago did this happen?

79 is too hot for DWC. 80 degrees and root rot is almost assured. Are your roots white or brown? Notice an off smell in your root mass?
Plant looks stringy.. not branching really, which to me is another sign that something is going on with your root system. Plants with healthy roots usually will branch more than this. This is just a main stem with some leaves. I'm imagining your root system is primarily the tap root with very little lateral root growth, basically the mirror image of your plant.

If your roots are all funky and brown hit with H202 to kill any bacteria in your rhyzosphere and it will also add more O2 which you need. Add more airstones and cool your water down. The small blue plastic single cube icepacks in your reservoir might help until you can get a chiller, not too much though. Once you get that settled add roots excellurator to your feed or hygrozyme to get everything in there healthy again.

Calcium deficiency would begin with some spotting. What you have looks like multiple mobile nutrient deficiencies. Flora series has plenty of NPK in it. I think your plants just can't uptake nutes cuz the roots are getting eaten by Pythium.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

Thanks to Dirty and trick ;

My pH problems all started when I went out of town for 48 hrs on a fishing trip. This was about three weeks ago. The temp was like 80 when I got back, and the pH was at 7.2 or so....I lost one of my plants as well... So went from 5 to 4 plants in the DWC 3.5 gal tote.
I flushed immediately, and started feeding them at 300.. things went really well, and roots started to develop strongly on 2/4 plants I had left, the other two had stunted root growth. They were still green looking and healthy for the most part and recovered, but then the JackHammer took ill whenever I rose the ppm and the other plants had some curved leaves... and then somewhere in between then and now things really really went downhill.The one that was initially the strongest I planned on keeping as mom, so transplanted her into hempy, even though she also showed yellowing at the bottom and tip burn on some leaves.. anyway shit got bad somewhere in the last two weeks. I have lady bugs and have suspected thrips and aphids and fungus gnats...even root aphids..I recently bought some gnatrol but haven't used it as it recommends use only on strong plants. - I want to figure out if it is something else before bombing her with chems.

the roots are a little brown, but have developed more in the past 2 weeks than the leaves have.. the leaves seemed to have gotten worse while the roots benefited from the multiple flushed I have been doing. I will post root pics in a moment and upload to this post

This is my main thread, its only like 15 pgs from beginning to end, but if you get a moment the past 6 or 7 should be where the problems start, It has LOTS of pics

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/437974-my-1st-bubbleponics.html

 

[trickJames]

I'm going to tell you straight up. I do a lot of consulting work in CO and CA for industrial grows. There is a reason none of them I have ever been in, run DWC. It's a major pain in the ass. I also run a huge hydroshop out here in Colorado. 85% of my DWC customers are always having issues. Either temp, PH, or O2. Too much dumb shit can go wrong with DWC and you have to not only maintain the room temp but now you have to deal with res temps staying in a narrow acceptable range and making sure your res is hyper saturated with O2 all the time.

I'd get through this grow and get my hands on an ebb and flow table ASAP. About as easy as you can get for hydro and you will get the results you are looking for. And also here is another tip. Take good care of your trimeter. I read in your journal you were having problems with it. Take care of it, it is your friend. If you have to store it, use the storage solution for the PH electrode. Not the GH 7.0. That shit will ruin the electrode in a year.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

Here dey be

Ignore the ppm, the tri-meter is fucked. I just filled it up with RO store bought and pH'd it down to 4.6, added a few ice cubes of tap, and now..less than 5 minutes later.. it is back up to 6.0 pretty much. The pH drops confirm this

If I add 1 gal of tap to every 2 gal of RO filtered, the pH stays in place much longer.. but the water ppm is over 500, and pretty much poison, so I went with straight RO this time.. no nutes yet.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

also - I hear the same from others concerning DWC. I am going to go all hempy and soil after I can get these girls healthy.. they go into hempies

 

[Jonus]

When it comes to hydro, the state of the roots are everything. Once the roots get stressed the plant begins to suffer. Preventing root stress is the key. Managing your pH meticulously and regular nutrient changes can prevent many of the problems that hydro growers encounter. In particular root rot which can happen when you use organic nutrient or organic based additives. There are a range of additives out there to pretreat your nutrient tank with, some are chlorine based and others are hydrogen peroxide based. They will help prevent root rot from taking hold thus prevent root stress which leads to what you see in the pics above.

 

[tommyo3000]

Here dey be

Ignore the ppm, the tri-meter is fucked. I just filled it up with RO store bought and pH'd it down to 4.6, added a few ice cubes of tap, and now..less than 5 minutes later.. it is back up to 6.0 pretty much. The pH drops confirm this

If I add 1 gal of tap to every 2 gal of RO filtered, the pH stays in place much longer.. but the water ppm is over 500, and pretty much poison, so I went with straight RO this time.. no nutes yet.

Giving your plants straight RO water for more than an hour is not recommended. That's why if you flush, you should use a light nute mix and not plain water. It causes some reverse osmosis in the roots...

Don't ever let your Rez temps up high -- over 80. If you cannot achieve this, buy a chiller or whatever works with your system.

When you had the high Rez temps you got bacterial overgrowth. You should have flushed a bit (hours) and mixed up fresh three part nutes with no additives except calmag. Also be sure to put a bit of calmag in RO water first. Then the three part with the Flora Micro first. Cut out all other additives except KoolBloom. Use nuts full strength 1000PPM or 1200PPM. They need nice fresh nutes with the right EC or PPM. Lastly, keep the Rez aerated and cool and change frequently.

If your particular hydroponic setup won't allow you to do the things I suggest, it is not a good style of system if you wanna grow hydroponically in the tried and true methods from universities, etc.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

dude.. (sigh).. did you read the first page of the thread?

 

[tommyo3000]

Yeah, I read it, which is why I gave you a heads-up about not using plain water in any hydro system for any length of time. I don't think anyone chimed in to mention that. As for the rest of my comment, it is just basic hydro ranting..
Best of luck!

 

[TheGreenHornet]

Yea dude, no one has mentioned that before. Why would RO water be bad for your plants? That's nuts man.. not saying your wrong but there are tons and tons of people who use nothing but RO water... it is the most effective way of filtering it to date, so why would it have negative effects?

 

[303]

My grape ape looks like that when I use tap water, its super hard therefore locking out cal/mag. I bought R/O since, and I don't add cal mag, my GH 3 part has enough in it.. My plants since been happy. Anotherwards IMO skip the cal mag..

 

[tommyo3000]

Yea dude, no one has mentioned that before. Why would RO water be bad for your plants? That's nuts man.. not saying your wrong but there are tons and tons of people who use nothing but RO water... it is the most effective way of filtering it to date, so why would it have negative effects?

Hello again. Water quality is a very complicated thing. The issue of using straight 0PPM is that it is injurious to plants. 0PPM water has less salt in it than the roots. Every second your R/O water is in contact with the roots, they will be forced to do exactly the opposite thing that they normally do, which is absorbing nutrients and water through osmosis. They will lose nutrients from their cells
as they are pulled into the R/O water. They are not made to do that, which is why they will suffer.

 

[TheGreenHornet]

I know that roots do -to some degree, have reverse osmosis themselves. They exchange nutrients back and forth and not just absorption- But my RO water is not 0ppm, it is like 30-40ppm. I also have been using nutrients, so it is never at below that.. And in the past tried to remedy the situation by adding 1gal tap to 3 gal RO... and still am having this problem.

Thanks for your genuine interest in helping and I apologize for my exasperated and slightly disrespectful comment regarding whether or not you had read the complete thread.
From time to time people make comments without having read the full symptoms and explanation, and therefore is completely unhelpful.
I can tell you are very knowledgeable on the subject, the problem however, is not due to the water I believe. I had completely healthy plants for a few weeks AFTER switching to all RO water,(in fact the healthiest they had been all grow) and now am still having issues.

Thanks again Tommy, if you think of anything else let me know.