Is Cal-Mag + the right fix???

Hi! I ran into some problems, and I want to run it by you guys to see if i am treating for the correctly deficiancy.


I'm not sure if it was light bleaching, or Mg or Iron or Zinc????

Some info on my Grow....
2x4 tent, 600w cooltube, no Co2, Temp is in the low 80's.
Im running 75% strength, 2 part nutes. PH is 5.8, I correct if it falls out of 5.7-6.2 range
50% strength of humic, fluvic, kelp, KoolBloom, Florolicious Plus.


I've raised my light 15" above the tops, the back of my hand does not feel hot and yet its still yellowing. Next I added some Cal-Mag+ 5 days ago, I do not see a difference, so I came back to RIU again and read zinc def. also looks very similar. So Guys what do you think.

Or am I just adding too much crap in my res????

Today's Pics. Day #30 12/12

anybody???

what should i add if its zinc def.???

I'm not a hydro grower, but if it was looking like that in my dirt I'd be thinking excess P and K, likely from the KoolBloom. I wouldn't touch a bloom food again till after the plants finish stretch in flower. Excess P can show as a micronutriant def, and excess K can inhibit N, Mg and Ca. Good luck.

Looks like pH is wrong and causing a nute lockout. Are you sure of the accuracy of your tester? 5.8 seems spot on for hydro. I am more familiar in soil, and only use half strength nutes every other watering. Sorry, don't know about hydro and nutes. I think light bleaching looks different than what your pictures suggest. Nute burn, or lockout are my only thoughts.

Thankyou You got it right on the button. I went to check my ph pen and its showing 8.1 on 7 buffer solution. I'm going to correct it now, plus i'll hold off on heavy nutes until they recover.


I'm having a hard time calibrating my PH pen, I might have let it dried out too much.... anyways until i get a new one or get it fixed. can i minus 1.1 if ph 7 shows 8.12 and ph 4 shows 5.10?

also when the plant is recovered, will i see improvement on the leaves that are showing symptoms, or only the new growth will be healthy?

scratchme said:

I'm not a hydro grower, but if it was looking like that in my dirt I'd be thinking excess P and K, likely from the KoolBloom. I wouldn't touch a bloom food again till after the plants finish stretch in flower. Excess P can show as a micronutriant def, and excess K can inhibit N, Mg and Ca. Good luck.

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I am sure the root of the problem is due to my ph pen all out of whack. Should i go dump the res right away and start with weaker nutes and without KoolBloom? or should just add ph up and carry on? my plants have stopped streching. I guess what i'm asking is if my plants are starved due to ph lockout, when i fix ph problem should i give them smaller meals to slowly get them use to it? or should i give them a normal meal for them to fill up on?.... Am i even making any sense? Thanks

Hey mate, I have seen this problem with a soil grow, we flushed all plants untill the run off reached good levels.

I'm not sure what every item in your lineup is doing to the NPK, but the koolbloom/florolicious mixed 50/50 would be around a NPK of 2 23 14. My plants are much happier around a 3 1 2 ratio. I used to follow all the recipes for "mj nutes" and chased my tail constantly trying to fix problems. I highly recommend reading some of Uncle Ben's threads and follow the links to sites about general plant nutrition and move away from the "mj nutes". My plants have never looked better in doing so. For a 1 stop vegging nute, that's good in hydro too, I know he recommends (among others) Foliage Pro 9-3-6.

This doesn't mean you can't improve your PH, but unless your PH is wildly out of line like under 5 or over 8 I think getting your plants a proper ratio of food will be a bigger improvement than PH. I have tap water that's 925ppm, PH 8.2, and alkalinity of 290. I was using tons of PH down to get my PH down around 5.8 for some weeks and after awhile tested my runoff at 5.3. The plants were looking great even at that rate, and I wouldn't have known if I hadn't tested it. I think MJ is a lot more PH tolerant than these message boards give it credit for.

^^Toblerone^^ said:

Thankyou You got it right on the button. I went to check my ph pen and its showing 8.1 on 7 buffer solution. I'm going to correct it now, plus i'll hold off on heavy nutes until they recover.


I'm having a hard time calibrating my PH pen, I might have let it dried out too much.... anyways until i get a new one or get it fixed. can i minus 1.1 if ph 7 shows 8.12 and ph 4 shows 5.10?

also when the plant is recovered, will i see improvement on the leaves that are showing symptoms, or only the new growth will be healthy?

Click to expand...

I would get a manual tester like the drops and the little vial with the pH color chart. This is good for after you fix or replace your pen as well, so you have a backup.

In soil, a flush would be indicated. I would flush with no nute water that I ph'd to the opposite end of the spectrum. Example in soil would be, I find a 5.0 pH level. I would then flush with perhaps 8.0 pH level water without any nutes until I reached 6.5. So however you would do that in hydro to get to 5.8.

After I reached the 6.5 (5.8 for you), I would wait maybe 2 days before adding any nutes at all. This could be different in hydro, no idea. I'm pretty sure the leaves may heal somewhat, but will still be messed up looking.

scratchme said:

I think MJ is a lot more PH tolerant than these message boards give it credit for.

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Perhaps, but this has to be up there with overwatering and overfeeding (nute burn) as a top problem for newbie mj growers.

thanks again everybody. i'll post some pics here again once they are back to health.