EC was too high... flushed... plants going from bad to worse

Hi everyone.

First post on this rollitup site. Looking forward to a long and prosperous future

So to cut a long story short I was growing these girls in pots with coco and perlite, watering by hand. EC was too high. They were showing problems and I thought I needed to raise the EC so I had it up to 1.8-2.0 and ph around 5.5-6.2.

I'm using R/O water also and was told that my EC is way too high. I should have it 1.4-1.6 EC max but at their stage of growth (vegging about 10 weeks now) they should be on EC 1.0.

So I flushed with 0.5 EC using R/O water and low strength General Hydroponics three part.

Right now it looks to me like... god I dunno.. maybe extreme calcium deficiency or lockout.

I just want to get some thoughts and feedback before I do anything. Right now they're sitting in 0.5 EC solution in AutoPots. I'm thinking about flushing them out with 0.2 EC and then running them on 1.1 EC solution and hope to god they get better.

I don't want to start flowering them until they are on the mend.... any help appreciated.

Any ideas guys?

I don't want to do anything else until someone tells me what's the best thing to do right now.

I wouldn't have guessed they were over fed, but if you ec was that high then that must be the problem. You should have some cal mag in your ro water. I would keep the ec below .8 until they start looking better.

Aren't the auto pots a bottom feed system?

Are you hand watering from the top?

Why are they sitting in nutes?

Were you collecting your runoff?

Were you testing the EC of your runoff vs the EC of your mix?


Was it higher or lower?

Higher EC in runoff would mean feeding too strong.

Lower EC in runoff would mean feeding too lightly.


If the auto pots are bottom feeding then you could have salt build up.




J

Tell you the truth I'd run at least 1.4 to 1.5 ( that's only 700 to 750 ppm's ) for that size of plants, I think they're starving.

jondamon said:

Aren't the auto pots a bottom feed system?
Yes they are a bottom feed system
Are you hand watering from the top?
I was feeding them by hand and watering from the top until I recently transplanted into the autopots
Why are they sitting in nutes?
The autopot system works that way...
Were you collecting your runoff?
I was collecting run off but to be honest I dont' think I was measuring it... duh... rookie mistake huh
Were you testing the EC of your runoff vs the EC of your mix?
I tested the EC run of just there now. Going by the autopot instructions it says to turn off the res and let the plants drink the water in the pots. Then water by hand from the top. Then measure the run off collected in the pot. I watered with 0.2EC water and 5.8PH . My run off ranged a little from plant to plant (I did 5 plants in total) from 0.3 - 0.6 EC run off and 6.3-6.5PH.
Was it higher or lower?
See above
Higher EC in runoff would mean feeding too strong.
Lower EC in runoff would mean feeding too lightly.
It's higher but I'm not sure if it's so high as that I should feed them stronger or not.
If the auto pots are bottom feeding then you could have salt build up.
J

Click to expand...

Thanks for your message J I've added my notes above in bold

Coco IMO needs to be watered from the top and allowed to have 20% runoff.

Otherwise salt accumulation occurs and creates a harsh rootzone EC like you're experiencing.

Runoff pH in coco is always whacked out.

You need to use distilled water with some coco stewed in it. Drained and strained and then test pH of the remaining water.

IMO you would be better off hand watering and collecting your runoff to test EC.



J

Hi guys thanks for your messages. I was really glad to wake up this morning (first thing I did was come and check too see if I had any replies) and I had three replies. So that's great thank you.

To update I did a little run off test this morning which is highlighted above in bold.

I checked my reservoir and it was only at 0.5 EC and 5.8 PH

Since the run off didn't seem to be too high EC and two of you guys seem to think the girls are possibly starving I adjusted the EC up a little to 0.8 EC in a day or two I'll adjust it up again to 1.0 EC

Also since the PH run off of the pots was so high I lowered the PH in the res to 5.2 PH.

I hope that is a wise choice of action... let me know what you think.

Lastly I was feeling around inside the res with my hand and noticed the walls of the res are quite slippery. Like slime or oil. On top of the water I notice some kind of oily effect. I'm using GHE Flora Series 3 part plus some GHE Diamond Nectar (Humic acids)
http://www.hydroparadise.com/479-2860-thickbox/pack-ghe-flora-series-expert-1-l-eau-dure.jpg

I have a water chiller keeping the water temperature at 20 degrees Celsius (68 f) and there is a pump inside the res keeping the water consistently moving. Do I have something to worry about with this?

I don't think it's the cause of my problem I think the problem was definitely caused by EC too high early in life and now possibly salt build up or being underfed now for too long. However I'm curious if this is a problem or not.

bumping this post up as it hasn't had any more views recently