Dying leaves

Greetings all,

I am a first time grower that has been inspired after reading through these forums for the past few months. I started a grow about 3 weeks ago and everything was going quite well until this week.

As you can see from the pictures my plants leaves are curling upwards and in and the leaf tips are turning brown. The leaves are also turning a little yellow. The problem seemed to start with the leaves starting to look wavy and lighter than normal. Then I began to notice the brown. I initially thought nute burn, but I haven't added any nutes to the soil yet. Could the Miracle Grow be that strong?

I am using Miracle grow that I purchased from Home Depot and the pH is around 5.8. The temperature is around 88F/31C and gets down to about 70F/21C with the lights off. I am on an 18/6 lighting cycle using 6 23W CFLs and 2 46W CFLs. I have been watering using tap water that I let sit out for 48+ hours to let chemicals evaporate out.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

im new at this too but just a guess it could be from all those lights. im only using 2 13 watt 900 lumen lights and my plants growing alright

alpal said:

Greetings all,

I am a first time grower that has been inspired after reading through these forums for the past few months. I started a grow about 3 weeks ago and everything was going quite well until this week.

As you can see from the pictures my plants leaves are curling upwards and in and the leaf tips are turning brown. The leaves are also turning a little yellow. The problem seemed to start with the leaves starting to look wavy and lighter than normal. Then I began to notice the brown. I initially thought nute burn, but I haven't added any nutes to the soil yet. Could the Miracle Grow be that strong?

I am using Miracle grow that I purchased from Home Depot and the pH is around 5.8. The temperature is around 88F/31C and gets down to about 70F/21C with the lights off. I am on an 18/6 lighting cycle using 6 23W CFLs and 2 46W CFLs. I have been watering using tap water that I let sit out for 48+ hours to let chemicals evaporate out.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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I think it is mg with a slight k deficiency which makes me think ur tap water is loaded with calcium. its hard to say we don't know exactly what is in ur tap water. U could have 200ppm of calcium and that would lock out mg, and potassium.
One way we can check is to test the runoff PH. Do u have a PH testing device?
Its not too much light! Haha No such thing unless they are an inch tall..

Looks to me like heat stress

haha well thanks for clearing that up for me in the future lol

Thanks for all your posts, greatly appreciated!!

Phelps,

I have a PH meter and will measure my runoff next time I water. What should I be looking for?? Is there a way to test my tap water to check the calcium content??

Danielle,

It is quite warm in the enclosure I am using and I was wondering if heat stress was the problem. I have my plants really close to the lights and they give off quite a bit of heat. I can put my hand near the plants and it is warm but comfortable. Definitely no danger of burning. I have two computer fans (one blowing in and one blowing out) on the enclosure, but it doesnt seem to be getting rid of the heat very well. The enclosure stays around 88F while the lights are on. The humidity is also pretty low. Any recommendations for addressing this problem??

every1 has missed that your saying its getting
88F and now close to your plants.
im gonna go with heat stress only cause it seems
to be more on the new growth than old and your leaves
look so dry

alpal said:

Thanks for all your posts, greatly appreciated!!

Phelps,

I have a PH meter and will measure my runoff next time I water. What should I be looking for?? Is there a way to test my tap water to check the calcium content??

Danielle,

It is quite warm in the enclosure I am using and I was wondering if heat stress was the problem. I have my plants really close to the lights and they give off quite a bit of heat. I can put my hand near the plants and it is warm but comfortable. Definitely no danger of burning. I have two computer fans (one blowing in and one blowing out) on the enclosure, but it doesnt seem to be getting rid of the heat very well. The enclosure stays around 88F while the lights are on. The humidity is also pretty low. Any recommendations for addressing this problem??

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Whoa, sorry, I missed the heat thing. Get the temps down first and foremost and let us know if that does it. U should have both of ur fans venting out up high, along with a hole big enough to draw air thru the cab down low. Just make a new hole next to ur current exhaust fan and put ur intake fan in there as a second exhaust and make the intake hole (where the intake fan used to be) bigger so enough air can move thru easily. It is always better to have 500 cfm of air exhausting than to have 250 intake and 250 exhausting. That should get u down to wherre u need to be w/o buying anything.
About the water for future ref's...
Where I live u can take the water in to the municipal building and get a test done for $25. It will tell u how much mg, ca, fe, cl, and all kinds of other shit thats in there. Where u are it may even be free. Also the average ca and mg hardness can also be found online for most cities that have a municipal water utility. That is only a guesstimate as they do an average for the whole city. U may live near limestone rocks and u may have more than is listed.

When u take a runoff reading u want the runoff to be close to the water's ph that u added. Say u add water that u ph'd to 6.0 If it comes out higher than the water u added u have ca build up. In that case flush with ph'd tap water until the ph is consistent.
From now on as long as u use tap water u need to waterr to the point that u get 15% runoff. That way everytime u add more calcium it will rinse out some of the old stuff. If u keep watering w/o runoff it builds up.

Im not sure on the nute content of MG, but it could be time to add some nutes also, first focus on the heat, then we can work from there..

adamcreary said:

haha well thanks for clearing that up for me in the future lol

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Actually bro, I'm sorry! It turns out u were right, it was from all those lights. Not because of all the light but all the heat that the lights are causing.
Sometimes the smartest people are the ones who havent have their heads polluted with all these deficiency pics. Good job! I'd rep u if I knew how, do they even still do that here? I always see people saying +Rep, but I think it is just a saying now since I cant find the rep button..

adamcreary said:

haha well thanks for clearing that up for me in the future lol

Click to expand...

Actually bro, I'm sorry! It turns out u were right, it was from all those lights. Not because of all the light but all the heat that the lights are causing.
Sometimes the smartest people are the ones who havent have their heads polluted with all these deficiency pics. Good job! I'd rep u if I knew how, do they even still do that here? I always see people saying +Rep, but I think it is just a saying now since I cant find the rep button..

PS: ALPAL, u will be better off turning a couple lights off to get the temp down to 79F max. After a second look at the pics it is definately heat stress, but u say the plants got lighter so I think u will also be ready for nutes after the heat issue is cleared up.
Good luck!!

Thanks to you all, I am going to work on getting the heat taken care of and let you all know how it does. While I am at it, any suggestions on good, cheap vegging nutes? I am trying to conserve cash. Thanks again!!

alpal said:

Thanks to you all, I am going to work on getting the heat taken care of and let you all know how it does. While I am at it, any suggestions on good, cheap vegging nutes? I am trying to conserve cash. Thanks again!!

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If u want good cheap, easy nutes I will suggest the lucas formula. The simplest way to use this program is to get a quart of Floranova Bloom. U can use it for the whole grow, veg and bloom. Tons of people do it and have amazing results if they follow a few rules. It is about $20-$30 for a quart, but that quart will last u forever. As for the rules, they are simple, u want to feed at 5ml/gal (1 teaspoon) every three waterings, the other waterings will be RO (reverse osmosis) water without PH adjuster. U dont use any adjuster because when u add the RO water to the nutes that are already hanging out in the root zone, the nutes will lower the PH automatically. U want to use reverse osmosis water if possible, there are ways around it but for the $.80 a gal u cant go wrong. If u have a dehumidifier in your basement or grow room running u can use the water that collects, that is distilled water, just as good as RO. With just about any nutrients u want to use good water or u end up loading up on salts and then stunting growth when u have to flush all the time.