Trying to Salvage this Grow

Parrottroop

Member
Hi all, looking for some advice as i'm at my wits end. This is my first grow, so please bear with me.

Strain - White Widow Autos
Soil - FF Happy Frog (added a top dressing of Perlite and Dolo Lime a week or two ago - will be adding these directly into the soil on my next grow)
Light - Mars Hydro TS1000
Indoor Grow Tent 2x2x4
Day Temp - 81F
Night Temp - 72F
Pot Size - Large Black Plastic Pot - 3.3gal; Fabric Pot - 2gal; Small green pots - 1gal

So one of my plants was showing some yellowing and browning a week ago, so after getting some advice and doing some reading, I flushed with some nutrient free 7ph water (43ppm) - my runoff was in the mid to high 5s previously so I am trying to bring the Ph up a bit. It seems that this yellowing/brown leaves are spreading to the other plants and i'm freaking out. I have included the runoff ppm and ph of the last watering (plant 3 is the one in the fabric pot who was doing the worst out of all of them, Plant 4 is the semi healthy large one):

Start (runoff from the last watering)
Plant 1 - 6.02ph/671ppm
Plant 2 - 5.9ph/742ppm
Plant 3 - 6.3ph/957ppm
Plant 4 - 6.2ph/576ppm

Input (ph'd water, no nutrients)
Plant 1 - 7.07ph/42 ppm
Plant 2 - 7.07ph/42 ppm
Plant 3 - 7.07ph/42 ppm
Plant 4 - 7.07ph/42 ppm

Runoff
Plant 1 - 6.1ph/582 ppm
Plant 2 - 6.02ph/420 ppm
Plant 3 - 6.48ph/548 ppm
Plant 4 - 6.96ph/589 ppm

The leaves seems bit dry as well, even after the watering. I've raised the lights a bit to see if that helps too. I don't believe overwatering is the issue, as they have been drying out (lifting pot method) every 3-4 days. They seem to perk up a bit after watering as well which makes me think they're doing ok on that side of things.

I'm at a loss and just hope they can make it to harvest (especially the big one in the back). Any other recommendations?? I originally thought it was a potassium deficiency but now I have no clue. On a positive note, there a few pistils changing color and there is definitely some trichome production on all four plants, which is great...i'm just hoping they will hold up another month or so until I can harvest :/
Any help would be so very appreciated!! I just want to be able to harvest something (anything!) at this point before giving another grow a shot - using everything I learned from my mistakes this time around.IMG_1254.JPGIMG_4919.JPGIMG_7250.JPGIMG_8963.JPGIMG_3578.JPG
 

Parrottroop

Member
So your not feeding them at all??

And run off means nothing
So I was overfeeding them, flushed them with plain water and they bounced back and looked great. Then I fed them 1/4 recommended strength nutes, and the yellow/browning started. If runoff ppm isn’t a good indicator of whether this is a deficiency or overfeeding, what can I do to nail this down?
 

Parrottroop

Member
Your feeding 7ph water, that's your issue as well as starving your plants

No clue what nutes you have or use since you didn't share that
Sorry, should’ve been more specific. I’m using Fox Farm Tiger Bloom, big Bloom, and CalMag. I bumped up the ph of the water going in because I was told that my runoff ph was too low (runoff was around 5.7 when I was giving 6.5 water). They seemed to have done better when I bumped up the water ph going in, but that was a week or two ago, and before the current issues started.
Clearly I’ve made a few mistakes throughout the grow which I’ve learned from (hopefully), but at this point I’m just hoping to get these babies to harvest.
 

Parrottroop

Member
Did u use grow big too??
I used grow big (about 1/4 rev strength) but it caused pretty severe nute burn, what I’m guessing is that the soil had enough to take the plants all the way to flower (which I plan on doing the next grow)...understood on the run off not being a great indicator, but I’m just trying to get as much data as I can in order to pin everything down.
I think my next run I’m going to hold off on any nutes at all until they show some deficiency, and focus more on ph and ppm going in than anything.
 

BobThe420Builder

Well-Known Member
Ffof will feed for 4-5 weeks, not including up potting

It's not a begginer soil, I tried

Get Promix HP or similar, then you can feed as directed a d not worrying about when the soul runs outa ooomf
 

Parrottroop

Member
Your current issue is as follows

pH too high

Not following the fox farm trio feed schedule

Period!!View attachment 4649677
Is
Ffof will feed for 4-5 weeks, not including up potting

It's not a begginer soil, I tried

Get Promix HP or similar, then you can feed as directed a d not worrying about when the soul runs outa ooomf
thanks!!! And noted. I imagine the feeding schedule above isn’t tailored to happy frog soil (which runs a little hot) or autoflowers (which are supposedly a bit sensitive to nutes)?
 

BobThe420Builder

Well-Known Member
Happy frog is not as hot as ocean forest

So I missed that...Happy won't feed as long as Ocean, so that has added to the issues as well
 

BobThe420Builder

Well-Known Member
A true los soil will run almost full term on water alone

Fix farm soils are not, thus the challenges new growers have with it

Like I said, try a peat based like Promix HP, where u use nutes start to finish
 

lime73

Weed Modifier
What water you using, ec/tds?
What is ec /tds after nutes mixed?
How much cal/mg you use, and when did you ph adjust, before or after you added nutes to water?
 

Parrottroop

Member
What water you using, ec/tds?
What is ec /tds after nutes mixed?
How much cal/mg you use, and when did you ph adjust, before or after you added nutes to water?
- Using tap water that comes out of the tap at 45ppm
- after mixing nutes (2mg calmag/2mg Tiger Bloom/7 mg big Bloom - per gallon)
- I always adjust the ph after mixing in the nutes and used ph up to get it to 7ph (again this was an attempt to raise the ph of the soil because runoff was around 5.7 and I was told that was too low for a soil runoff)
 

Parrottroop

Member
What water you using, ec/tds?
What is ec /tds after nutes mixed?
How much cal/mg you use, and when did you ph adjust, before or after you added nutes to water?
Sorry PPM of water with nutes was around 200ppm, although I only used plain water on the last watering.
 

Budzbuddha

Well-Known Member
Definitely overthinking medium ... HF out of bag floats around 6.3 ( ish ) ph out of bag ....
All you have to do is match the medium as far a watering and feed mixes - 6.5

Dolo needs time to break down and under most circumstances with HF or FFOF the prebuffer gets in soil already is enough.
EVERYTIME you run a runoff amount of water through it , you leach / unbalance it. The soil needs very little.

FF nute schedules should be taken with a grain of salt as those amounts listed can be too much and it is better suited only as a guide .
FF nute lines will salt up fast with heavy excess. Starting at 1/2 strength is a good base line , also not every bottled nute listed is necessary. The brown spots are from ph swings , which continue as you continue to flood medium.

Since you are in bloom , run a 1:1 mix of ( 1 tsp of Gro big and tiger bloom ) at 6.5.
Small bump to nitro , let plant settle in on ph and then run tiger . Also I would add a scoop or two of fresh HF on top soil and water in when container goes dry. Try to rebalance the medium and let it do the work.
 
Top