Need a little help guys

Running my normal biobizz reg I’ve used for a long time.just started getting issues tho.my water quality is different at my new location it has a EC of 0.6 and ph is 7.4 to 7.5. bennies Are the only thing I use outside of the biobizz line and my soil is ocean forest.its worked great for years and never have had to ph or run cal mag.just wanting to know what’s goin on here and how to address it cause it has to be something with my water.Im learning that there’s always somthing new to learn.thanks guys I hope we can figure it out and get them back on track cause there slowing down a lot.

BioBizzCrushin said:

Running my normal biobizz reg I’ve used for a long time.just started getting issues tho.my water quality is different at my new location it has a EC of 0.6 and ph is 7.4 to 7.5. bennies Are the only thing I use outside of the biobizz line and my soil is ocean forest.its worked great for years and never have had to ph or run cal mag.just wanting to know what’s goin on here and how to address it cause it has to be something with my water.Im learning that there’s always somthing new to learn.thanks guys I hope we can figure it out and get them back on track cause there slowing down a lot.

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Do you ph down your water or just use it at 7.4-5? what size pot is that?

You should have had 7 bladed leaves by now at that size. Something is definitely off.
How many weeks has it been in veg?
What kind of environment is set up for the grow?

I'm puzzled. I have 3 plants only 2-3 inches tall with 5-7 blades already. I'm worried for this one you have.

BioBizzCrushin said:

Running my normal biobizz reg I’ve used for a long time.just started getting issues tho.my water quality is different at my new location it has a EC of 0.6 and ph is 7.4 to 7.5. bennies Are the only thing I use outside of the biobizz line and my soil is ocean forest.its worked great for years and never have had to ph or run cal mag.just wanting to know what’s goin on here and how to address it cause it has to be something with my water.Im learning that there’s always somthing new to learn.thanks guys I hope we can figure it out and get them back on track cause there slowing down a lot.

Click to expand...

Do you know why your water quality is different? Or just that it's different?

I had the same issue. Used the same soil, same organic inputs, same everything as I did when I lived in Southern California when I moved out of state.

Suddenly, I had a host of phantom deficiencies, stunted growth, lockouts, etc. Turned out, my well water's pH was 8.0 and its because of how heavily calcified my well water is. I spent over a year pulling my fucking hair out trying to figure out why my SAME methods weren't working suddenly.

Had my water tested, and turns out my well water is pretty much liquid dolomite lime/liquid calcium carbonate. The excess Calcium (carbonate, more specifically) was building up as salts in my soil because the Ca content in my water + calcium inputs in my soil resulted in more Calcium than the plants could intake. The result was excess Ca salts in my soil (Ca in water in insoluble, so it will NOT runoff).

I removed every trace of Calcium input from my soil, no more Crab Meal, OSF, and gypsum. Problem solved. No more pH lockout, no more phantom deficiencies, no more issues.



Here's how I confirmed it. I went to a water machine, filled a 1 gallon jug up with RO water. I then took 4 solo cups.

Cup 1: My soil saturated in RO water
Cup 2: My soil saturated in my water

My results? Cup 1's pH was a perfect 6.5, but cup 2? 8.0 pH, just like my water.

Turns out, my water was acting as a buffer. I removed all Calcium and buffer inputs in my soil and haven't had a single issue since.

It was cheaper for me to simply remove Calcium inputs from my soil, as opposed to getting an RO system installed.

Not saying this is for sure your issue, but something to consider.

Best way to know if this is your issue is if you use fabric pots. One day, I noticed the same scaling on my faucets on the bottoms of my fabric pots after I finished a grow. It took my well over a year to figure out that's what my problem was.

The ec is was .2 to .3 where I was at before.temps and everything are dialed and no huge swings.these are 6 inch pots and where just replanted from a 4 inch a week ago.im using my same method That has always Works .right now they should be blowing up in size and I should be about to flip.I think I might buy a ro system.just didn’t want to pay for all the waste water

BioBizzCrushin said:

Running my normal biobizz reg I’ve used for a long time.just started getting issues tho.my water quality is different at my new location it has a EC of 0.6 and ph is 7.4 to 7.5. bennies Are the only thing I use outside of the biobizz line and my soil is ocean forest.its worked great for years and never have had to ph or run cal mag.just wanting to know what’s goin on here and how to address it cause it has to be something with my water.Im learning that there’s always somthing new to learn.thanks guys I hope we can figure it out and get them back on track cause there slowing down a lot.

Click to expand...

You don’t need nutes for the first 3 4 weeks and if you have hard water you don’t need cal mag and to ph it.

kratos015 said:

Do you know why your water quality is different? Or just that it's different?

I had the same issue. Used the same soil, same organic inputs, same everything as I did when I lived in Southern California when I moved out of state.

Suddenly, I had a host of phantom deficiencies, stunted growth, lockouts, etc. Turned out, my well water's pH was 8.0 and its because of how heavily calcified my well water is. I spent over a year pulling my fucking hair out trying to figure out why my SAME methods weren't working suddenly.

Had my water tested, and turns out my well water is pretty much liquid dolomite lime/liquid calcium carbonate. The excess Calcium (carbonate, more specifically) was building up as salts in my soil because the Ca content in my water + calcium inputs in my soil resulted in more Calcium than the plants could intake. The result was excess Ca salts in my soil (Ca in water in insoluble, so it will NOT runoff).

I removed every trace of Calcium input from my soil, no more Crab Meal, OSF, and gypsum. Problem solved. No more pH lockout, no more phantom deficiencies, no more issues.



Here's how I confirmed it. I went to a water machine, filled a 1 gallon jug up with RO water. I then took 4 solo cups.

Cup 1: My soil saturated in RO water
Cup 2: My soil saturated in my water

My results? Cup 1's pH was a perfect 6.5, but cup 2? 8.0 pH, just like my water.

Turns out, my water was acting as a buffer. I removed all Calcium and buffer inputs in my soil and haven't had a single issue since.

It was cheaper for me to simply remove Calcium inputs from my soil, as opposed to getting an RO system installed.

Not saying this is for sure your issue, but something to consider.

Best way to know if this is your issue is if you use fabric pots. One day, I noticed the same scaling on my faucets on the bottoms of my fabric pots after I finished a grow. It took my well over a year to figure out that's what my problem was.

Click to expand...

I'm in a similar situation, and you opened my eyes like a year ago about this. I also have slightly hard well water. I discovered that citric acid water can help flush some Ca out, or at least make it more easily removed.

I know you know your shit, but you should check it out.

kratos015 said:

Do you know why your water quality is different? Or just that it's different?

I had the same issue. Used the same soil, same organic inputs, same everything as I did when I lived in Southern California when I moved out of state.

Suddenly, I had a host of phantom deficiencies, stunted growth, lockouts, etc. Turned out, my well water's pH was 8.0 and its because of how heavily calcified my well water is. I spent over a year pulling my fucking hair out trying to figure out why my SAME methods weren't working suddenly.

Had my water tested, and turns out my well water is pretty much liquid dolomite lime/liquid calcium carbonate. The excess Calcium (carbonate, more specifically) was building up as salts in my soil because the Ca content in my water + calcium inputs in my soil resulted in more Calcium than the plants could intake. The result was excess Ca salts in my soil (Ca in water in insoluble, so it will NOT runoff).

I removed every trace of Calcium input from my soil, no more Crab Meal, OSF, and gypsum. Problem solved. No more pH lockout, no more phantom deficiencies, no more issues.



Here's how I confirmed it. I went to a water machine, filled a 1 gallon jug up with RO water. I then took 4 solo cups.

Cup 1: My soil saturated in RO water
Cup 2: My soil saturated in my water

My results? Cup 1's pH was a perfect 6.5, but cup 2? 8.0 pH, just like my water.

Turns out, my water was acting as a buffer. I removed all Calcium and buffer inputs in my soil and haven't had a single issue since.

It was cheaper for me to simply remove Calcium inputs from my soil, as opposed to getting an RO system installed.

Not saying this is for sure your issue, but something to consider.

Best way to know if this is your issue is if you use fabric pots. One day, I noticed the same scaling on my faucets on the bottoms of my fabric pots after I finished a grow. It took my well over a year to figure out that's what my problem was.

Click to expand...

If stuff that contains calcium is Out of your soil, what's In there? And more specifically, what do you use for Phosphorus?

kratos015 said:

Do you know why your water quality is different? Or just that it's different?

I had the same issue. Used the same soil, same organic inputs, same everything as I did when I lived in Southern California when I moved out of state.

Suddenly, I had a host of phantom deficiencies, stunted growth, lockouts, etc. Turned out, my well water's pH was 8.0 and its because of how heavily calcified my well water is. I spent over a year pulling my fucking hair out trying to figure out why my SAME methods weren't working suddenly.

Had my water tested, and turns out my well water is pretty much liquid dolomite lime/liquid calcium carbonate. The excess Calcium (carbonate, more specifically) was building up as salts in my soil because the Ca content in my water + calcium inputs in my soil resulted in more Calcium than the plants could intake. The result was excess Ca salts in my soil (Ca in water in insoluble, so it will NOT runoff).

I removed every trace of Calcium input from my soil, no more Crab Meal, OSF, and gypsum. Problem solved. No more pH lockout, no more phantom deficiencies, no more issues.



Here's how I confirmed it. I went to a water machine, filled a 1 gallon jug up with RO water. I then took 4 solo cups.

Cup 1: My soil saturated in RO water
Cup 2: My soil saturated in my water

My results? Cup 1's pH was a perfect 6.5, but cup 2? 8.0 pH, just like my water.

Turns out, my water was acting as a buffer. I removed all Calcium and buffer inputs in my soil and haven't had a single issue since.

It was cheaper for me to simply remove Calcium inputs from my soil, as opposed to getting an RO system installed.

Not saying this is for sure your issue, but something to consider.

Best way to know if this is your issue is if you use fabric pots. One day, I noticed the same scaling on my faucets on the bottoms of my fabric pots after I finished a grow. It took my well over a year to figure out that's what my problem was.

Click to expand...

Can you post the results of that water test?

kratos015 said:

I removed every trace of Calcium input from my soil, no more Crab Meal, OSF, and gypsum. Problem solved. No more pH lockout, no more phantom deficiencies, no more issues.

Click to expand...

How are you removing the calcium from your water? I thought of installing an RO system myself, but the amount of waste water kind of turned me off TBH. I've been thinking of a little rainwater catch system though.

youraveragehorticulturist said:

If stuff that contains calcium is Out of your soil, what's In there? And more specifically, what do you use for Phosphorus?

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Base is 40% peat/40% perlite/20% compost. Basalt is my sole mineral input. Only organic inputs I mix into the soil are Neem Meal and Kelp Meal, that's it. Those two ingredients cover all the bases for me, in conjunction with a product called TM-7.

4 weeks before flower, I used to use Down to Earth's Organic Rose and Flower Fert as a top dress covered with compost. Nice light 4-8-4 NPK, good ingredients, and DtE products have never failed me.

I since moved on to a new product, forget the name of it, but my local Ace Hardware had it. Instead of paying $20 per 5lbs of Rose and Flower mix, I'm not paying $17 for a huge 15 lb bag of this stuff. I'll get the name of it when I go back outside tomorrow, caught my eye because the ingredients are light, NPK is like 3-8-4 or something like that, and is much cheaper.

~4 weeks prior to flower, I top dress with a flower oriented blend, Karanja Meal, then cover both with compost. I do this every 1-2 weeks, unless I'm outdoors. Some plants outdoors require 1-2 top dresses per week. Karanja has zero NPK, I only use Neem Meal when I first make the soil or as a top dress when the plants are in veg.

Guano can be used for P in a pinch, under two conditions. 1) Its used sparingly, so as to avoid burn from how quickly it decomposes. 2) The P is <8. More than 8 phosphorus in your NPK hurts more than it helps, certain fungi cannot live in soils too high in Phosphorus and this isn't including the potential issues with lock out if your soil has too much P in it.

I strongly favor the flowering mixes I listed above over Guano, no worry about burning your roots with those, so I can apply them liberally and the only consequence is potential diminishing returns. But, for $17 per 15 lbs, diminishing returns isn't the biggest concern.

waktoo said:

Can you post the results of that water test?

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I'll see if my wife remembers where it is and share if its found. Lots of limestone where I live.

Northwood said:

How are you removing the calcium from your water? I thought of installing an RO system myself, but the amount of waste water kind of turned me off TBH. I've been thinking of a little rainwater catch system though.

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Removing the Ca from my water would prove too expense, and as you said, the waste.

Rather than attempting to remove the Ca from my water, I simply worked with it and use it to my advantage now. I eliminated Crab Meal, Gypsum, and OSF from my mix and problem solved. I have zero buffering agents in my soil, the water buffers the soil for me. Which is still an absolute mindfuck to think about for me.

Was hard to notice at first, because the issues would always arise in flower for me. But that's because of the amount of water used in flower compared to seedling/veg stages.

Removing every trace of Ca from my soil fixed all of my issues.

PadawanWarrior said:

I'm in a similar situation, and you opened my eyes like a year ago about this. I also have slightly hard well water. I discovered that citric acid water can help flush some Ca out, or at least make it more easily removed.

I know you know your shit, but you should check it out.

Click to expand...

I have citric acid on deck actually for a ph down I picked up so I will give it a shot

Kaotic said:

You don’t need nutes for the first 3 4 weeks and if you have hard water you don’t need cal mag and to ph it.

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I’ve always feed them nutrients right out the gate.bennies and HG gold for the first week then once they have taken root I hit them with biogrow.ive never had issues. Been using this reg sense 2007 and no issues until this new locations water quality.

BioBizzCrushin said:

I have citric acid on deck actually for a ph down I picked up so I will give it a shot

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Citric acid with calcium carbonate or bicarbonate will create calcium citrate which is a highly soluble salt. In water it forms free Ca++ cations which are then easily taken up by plants. Vinegar is effective for this as well, as calcium acetate is formed which is another extremely soluble form of calcium. This is one way to transform the calcium in your water to a very available form for your plants. Another way is to let bacteria do it, but they would only make a small portion available to your plants at any one time (more of a long steady supply). It depends on what you want to achieve of course.

For those who want to do the opposite: The only way to remove calcium and its cations from water apart from RO and distillation that I know of is to increase the pH until the soluble salts precipitate to insoluble forms that can later be filtered out. You can use calcium hydroxide for this. It will remove excess Mg from your water as well. After your water is filtered, you can then pH it to the right level for your application.

This all sounds like a lot of trouble to me. Hence I'd rather set up something with rainwater or something, or else do what @kratos015 did, and learn to take advantage of it by cutting down other inputs that contain a lot of calcium. My 2 cents anyway.

There's a lot of good stuff here! I have so much to learn, even guys growing simple organic methods have some serious horticultural knowledge! It's funny when you are the "expert" in your circle, then swim into a bigger pond!

Anyway, I was just curious if this could be something simple like fluctuating ph? You mention having citric acid "on deck" and someone earlier asked if you ph your water which I didn't notice an answer to in the thread.

I had read somewhere that in some municipalities, you can get some wild swings in ph when they perform adjustments and maintenance on the water system. I know most growers have their soil setup to buffer ph, but maybe your source is impacting this?

I don't want to sound like I know what I'm talking about, I just thought it might be an easy thing to check?

Relic79 said:

There's a lot of good stuff here! I have so much to learn, even guys growing simple organic methods have some serious horticultural knowledge! It's funny when you are the "expert" in your circle, then swim into a bigger pond!

Anyway, I was just curious if this could be something simple like fluctuating ph? You mention having citric acid "on deck" and someone earlier asked if you ph your water which I didn't notice an answer to in the thread.

I had read somewhere that in some municipalities, you can get some wild swings in ph when they perform adjustments and maintenance on the water system. I know most growers have their soil setup to buffer ph, but maybe your source is impacting this?

I don't want to sound like I know what I'm talking about, I just thought it might be an easy thing to check?

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Nope that shit happens forsure.i check my ph for swings but I don’t adjust unless it’s over like 7.2 .my soil and microbes buffer that shit out.never had to worry about ph with biobizz sense I started using it in 2007.biobizz normally lowers my ph once mixed up but not as much with this water.my run off was about 6.2 to 6.5.thinking maybe a calmag foliar feed on one plant to see what it does.I Also have two hydrologic stealth 300 GPD units laying around that I think I’m just goin to say fuck it and hook them up.I need 75 to a 100 gallons every other day so I should probably hook up both cause it will probably have less waste water with two connected together.How many PPM’s should I add back of calmag Or should I not even bother for a little bit?

Freedom Club said:

BioBizz sucks

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Been pulling tuff with the Bizz for a long time.you have a bad run or somthing with it?

Relic79 said:

There's a lot of good stuff here! I have so much to learn, even guys growing simple organic methods have some serious horticultural knowledge! It's funny when you are the "expert" in your circle, then swim into a bigger pond!

Anyway, I was just curious if this could be something simple like fluctuating ph? You mention having citric acid "on deck" and someone earlier asked if you ph your water which I didn't notice an answer to in the thread.

I had read somewhere that in some municipalities, you can get some wild swings in ph when they perform adjustments and maintenance on the water system. I know most growers have their soil setup to buffer ph, but maybe your source is impacting this?

I don't want to sound like I know what I'm talking about, I just thought it might be an easy thing to check?

Click to expand...

The microbes in conjunction with the dry amendments will regulate your soil's pH just fine. In fact, the microbes will actually change the pH of the soil as needed.

The wild swings will be entirely dependent on the buffer in your water and/or soil. Try an experiment sometime with pH Up and pH Down, use your own water source and get a gallon of RO water from one of those water machines.

Take note of how easy it is to change the pH of the RO water compared to your home's water.

This is because RO water has no minerals/etc (<10 ppm) in it, so there's nothing to buffer the pH of RO water making it more susceptible to wild pH swings.

Your home's water, on the other hand, will likely have anywhere between 100-450ppm. Depending on what the ppms are, you may or may not have issues with buffering the water.

For instance; I'm on a well and surrounded by limestone. As a result, my water is heavily calcified due to the Calcium Carbonate content in it as a result of the limestone. I can dump an entire bottle of pH down in the water and it will not budge from 8.0 pH.

So, the idea of "not having to worry about pH in organics" is a bit of a half-truth. If your soil is good, then you don't have to worry about the pH of your soil. The pH of your water on the other hand? Definitely something you have to worry about.

My city water in California was okay to use, caused me no problem.s I moved out of state, used the exact same soil recipe, but started experiencing pH lockout and a whole host of other issues. Come to find out its because I was watering with 8.0 pH water while also using a buffer for the peat moss.

Make sure you know what kind of water you're using. If in doubt, RO water from water machines is safest to use. However, unless you're growing in a tent then this isn't very practical. Grabbing RO water for 4-8 5g pots in a tent is simple enough. Doing that for over a dozen plants outdoors in 20+ gallons of soil on the other hand? Not so practical lol