Ok so they did this once before, the drooping leaves, purpling stems, slowing growth... I treated for a magnesium deficiency w CaMg+ and Epsom salts and they recovered fairly quickly. Since then I've been keeping pH at or a little over 6.0 and adding 50 ppm of CaMg+ before mixing my nutes. But they started this again after only a few days of getting em back to looking healthy, and I'm not sure they ever fully recovered so maybe the Mg- wasn't the issue, or at least not the only problem Idk what's going on, this is only my second grow w hydro, 5th overall so I'm still very much a newb; I'd love to get the opinions of some of you more experienced gardeners. I'm thinking about switching to water from the tap, maybe that'd help.
79f in the tent, 65-67 in the res... Got a 20-60 gal 3.5 watt, and a 30-60 gal 4.5 watt aquarium pump running to a 5" & 10" blue air stone, the kind from Walmart.
Drooping like the pics show usually means too wet to me. I have also seen this with root rot or pythium issues G/L
What I'd read said that anytime u had purpling stems and drooping that it was a magnesium def, that the only cause of the stems changing color was lack of Mg absorption, that the stuff about purple stems being ok for some strains was nonsense. Anybody have any thoughts on that? This is northern lights so I'm pretty sure the pure isn't strain specific, I've personally never seen any nl w purple in it. & it did go away mostly when I treated w camg and MgSO4
That is clear signs of oxygen starved roots. It never ceases to amaze me how many issues get misdiagnosed as mag and/or calcium deficiencies. Got pythium?
You read that where? There are many forms of stress that cause purple leaf stems and red/purple streaks on branches. If a plant that is getting sufficient water droops like that, the roots are not functioning properly.
I would concur: Insufficient DO and/or Pythium. Pythium wont thrive in an 02 rich environment so low O2 is an invitation to Pythium problems. Been there, done that & got the t-shirt... I looked up a couple of 4.5 watt air pumps and they were rated at 5-6 liters per minute. I battled with similar issues a few years ago. My resolution was "more air". I now run 110 lpm air pumps in 30 gallon RDWC systems. No more pythium or DO problems. I do also endeavor to keep my res temps below 72F. I cannot always do that though. One of my systems saw 77.6F res temp last week. I still have nice white healthy roots. Best of luck!
My res stays between 65-67, peaking at 70 rarely, I've got a little chiller hooked up. Today I moved my air pumps to outside the tent so the air going into the res will be cooler. But this am I tested with litmus drops and found my meter was 1.3 off so I've been running too low for who knows how long, hopefully things will start to go better since I fixed that. Gonna try to order a higher quality pump come payday
What are those hoses going into the net pots? are you pumping air in like that? What kind of air stones are you using in the res? Your temperatures are great, you shouldn't have any issues due to that IMO. My guess is you need (a lot) more air volume, and better method of mixing the air with the water. You need the top part of the res to be foamy bubbles when the air pump(s) are running, not liquid with a few bubbles on top. More air volume. There's no replacement for displacement.
I have two blue ten inches from Wally World and one of the green six inch jardin I think the brand is from amazon. I've got a cpl five inch blue ones and severAl little one inch cylinders from walmart I could switch out. Those hoses aren't just blowing air into the hydroton lol, I had hoses unhooked when I took the pic and the were just laying there. Normally when I look in my res it's got the foamy bubbles like u mentioned, but at times it looks the other way w just a few bubbles popping. U think the like thirty five dollar hydrofarm pump that comes w the six outlet manifold will do? Planning to order one end of next wk. Thanks for all the help guys
Can't find exactly where I saw that but there's several places, including here in the sick plant sections where it says purpling stems are from either a magnesium or phosphorus def, and I'm sure with my pH being more like 5 than the 6.3 my meter was reading that neither were being absorbed very well lol. Don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing I need more DO in the res, was just saying... I wanna say I saw it on growweedeasy dot com...
Good point. When I see anything going on with my girls the FIRST thing I look at is pH. If that is good then I continue troubleshooting. If pH is out of whack, I fix that then watch for changes. If it does not resolve then I continue troubleshooting. It is a good idea to keep calibration solution on hand for your pH & TDS meters. I check/recalibrate mine every two weeks. As to the air pump my personal recommendation would be a minimum of 2lpm per gallon of nutrient solution in your system. In mine I run 3-4 lpm per gallon of solution.
I'm sure I got that, and I had the calibration solution on hand. That one was totally on me not maintaining me equipment like I oughta, live and learn... Thanks guys, hopefully I'll be posting pics of healthier looking plants here n a few days