Plants are slowly dying

Hello RIU,

Here's the deal. Plants have been drooping for two weeks now. The leaves never reach towards the light even after watering. The plants are about 8-10 weeks old, in 5 gallon pots with 1:1 ratio of vermifire soil (coco + peat Moss ) and ready grow coco. I have been using the earth juice organic line (grow, bloom, meta k, microblast, catalyst) for my feed. For the veg, my current stage, I am giving 15 ml of grow per gallon, 5 ml of bloom per gallon, 5 ml of microblast per gallon, and catalyst at 5ml per gallon. I have been aerating for 24-36 hours before feeding.

Here are the symptoms:
Drooping leaves
Slow growth
Leaves yellowing
Clawing leaves
Slow root growth

I have been giving them a mix every 3 days. Initially at first I thought it was a ph problem so I checked the runoff and it was coming out around 8.5-9.0.
I then watered with 6.0 water but the runoff ph stayed unchanged so after waiting a few days I watered with a 4.3 water and now the run off has significantly dropped to 7.3, so I'm getting to where I need to be slowly. My question is, do you guys think it was my high ph runoff that has been affecting my plant?

I don't think I'm over watering as I waited for it to dry out almost completely before watering again and yet the leaves were still cupping down even after that watering and never reached back up to the light. The Temps in the room are staying at 76-80 consistently. It never goes above 81 in that room. Humidity is at around 30% but jumps to 45-50% when watering so nothing crazy there. I didn't add any soil amendments although now I think I probably should have buffered it with some dolomite or crab shell.

Please help !!

Earth juice is notorious for nute lockout. I run 1 feed to 2 waterings. Do you make a tea with the earth juice if not you may want to try it. Takes about 2 days for it to raise the ph level. I also find that ej is really bad for promoting fungas gnats.

tell me about your fertilizer

give me pics of the back of each bottle showing the % info for the listed elements

for example;
N.......... 5%
P...........0%
K...........11%
Ca..........3%

and so on

also tell us.. how much water do you add to each pot each time you water?

nobody important 666 said:

Earth juice is notorious for nute lockout. I run 1 feed to 2 waterings. Do you make a tea with the earth juice if not you may want to try it. Takes about 2 days for it to raise the ph level. I also find that ej is really bad for promoting fungas gnats.

Click to expand...

hes trying to lower the ph

dense medium that traps nutrients. giving fert mix every three days might be too much for such a dense medium. you really shouldn't base your understanding of pH on runoff. this doesn't necessarily mean your grow medium is the same. it only tells you the pH of the runoff. I think you have the typicall issue of over fert and excessive pH worry. if you grow medium has fert in it, then you're making things bad by ferting so much. If it doesn't, I still think you're over ferting. pH the water/fert mix prior to giving it if you want. but don't worry about runoff. mid 6 is the good range for a soil kind of grow. people say treat coco like hydro, meaning lower pH, but info on vermifire states that there are nutes in the soil already. you shouldn't need to give any more until you've grown for a while and you're certain that you need to add more, weeks after starting. I suspect that what you doing with the runoff is washing out the natural pH buffers, like calcium, which could be why your runoff pH is higher than you're expecting.
from their website:
CAUTION: VERMIFIRE IS HOT! IT MAY BURN SEEDLINGS!
NO NEED TO FERTILIZE FOR FIRST TWO WEEKS!
Analysis

• 1.6-1-0.6
• Total Nitrogen (N) 1.6%
• 0.152% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
• 0.1% Nitrate Nitrogen
• 0.408% Other Water Soluble Nitrogen
• 0.94% Water Insoluble Nitrogen
• Available Phosphate (P2O2) 1%
• Soluble Potash (K2O) 0.6%
• Calcium (Ca) 1%

Hey nobody!

Thanks for your input it is appreciated. I was not aware that earth juice was so hot. I thought that because it was organic, it wouldn't burn my plants. I'm definitely taking that into consideration now. I will try this ! Thanks
Btw, I do Aerate it, but for some reason the solution never gets up to above 5.0 even after aeration.

nobody important 666 said:

Earth juice is notorious for nute lockout. I run 1 feed to 2 waterings. Do you make a tea with the earth juice if not you may want to try it. Takes about 2 days for it to raise the ph level. I also find that ej is really bad for promoting fungas gnats.

Click to expand...

Hey im4satori!

Thanks for your reply. I'm using the earth juice line. The grow is 2-1-1. I'm using at 15 ml per gallon. I'm watering about .50 to a full gallon per 5 gallon pot. I see about 20% run off.

I just realized that in the earth juice micronutrient mix, no calcium is provided. All this time, I thought that there was calcium in there! It did look like there was a calcium deficiency in the room.

im4satori said:

tell me about your fertilizer

give me pics of the back of each bottle showing the % info for the listed elements

for example;
N.......... 5%
P...........0%
K...........11%
Ca..........3%

and so on

also tell us.. how much water do you add to each pot each time you water?

Click to expand...

Hey Polish!

Appreciate your insights! That's definitely something that I'm considering now. I will scale back on the nute feedings. I'm going to water tonight with just calmag and see how they react to that! I will report back once I see the girls reactions.

polishpollack said:

dense medium that traps nutrients. giving fert mix every three days might be too much for such a dense medium. you really shouldn't base your understanding of pH on runoff. this doesn't necessarily mean your grow medium is the same. it only tells you the pH of the runoff. I think you have the typicall issue of over fert and excessive pH worry. if you grow medium has fert in it, then you're making things bad by ferting so much. If it doesn't, I still think you're over ferting. pH the water/fert mix prior to giving it if you want. but don't worry about runoff. mid 6 is the good range for a soil kind of grow. people say treat coco like hydro, meaning lower pH, but info on vermifire states that there are nutes in the soil already. you shouldn't need to give any more until you've grown for a while and you're certain that you need to add more, weeks after starting. I suspect that what you doing with the runoff is washing out the natural pH buffers, like calcium, which could be why your runoff pH is higher than you're expecting.
from their website:
CAUTION: VERMIFIRE IS HOT! IT MAY BURN SEEDLINGS!
NO NEED TO FERTILIZE FOR FIRST TWO WEEKS!
Analysis

• 1.6-1-0.6
• Total Nitrogen (N) 1.6%
• 0.152% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
• 0.1% Nitrate Nitrogen
• 0.408% Other Water Soluble Nitrogen
• 0.94% Water Insoluble Nitrogen
• Available Phosphate (P2O2) 1%
• Soluble Potash (K2O) 0.6%
• Calcium (Ca) 1%

Click to expand...

In my opinion a toxic level of some salt/fertilizer. I would run 5 gal of tapwater through each and finish with a half dose of general light fert, like this, about 1/2 tsp per gallon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004A27DJA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

im sorry but your issue is your nutes

id switch brands or figure out what your missing

theres no calcium (zero) and not enough potassium

to make it work you need calmag to add calcium and a bloom booster to add some potassium and maybe some Epsom salt.
do you have a bloom additive that could be combined with it?

Yes, I was giving it 5ml of earth juice bloom with every watering for the P-K which is a 0-3-1.
I've essentially narrowed it down to 3 things
1. Overfertilization
2. Root bound (unlikely)
3. Cal deficiency.

I hit them with 10mL per gal of safer gro calcium tonight at 6.5 ph. The earth juice microblast has all your micros except calcium.

im4satori said:

im sorry but your issue is your nutes

id switch brands or figure out what your missing

theres no calcium (zero) and not enough potassium

to make it work you need calmag to add calcium and a bloom booster to add some potassium and maybe some Epsom salt.
do you have a bloom additive that could be combined with it?

Click to expand...

that doesn't actually help

too much P not enough K

switch brands or get a bloom booster that has a good amount of K and not too much P

Check PH and flush nutes, adjust ph, ad nutes again at half strength.