I just got up and running with a new grow and just as things were taking off, a problem has presented itself. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this before. First, some details. 400w MH DWC 5 gal buckets 3 airstones per bucket with hella air lucas formula (well kinda, at 1/2 strength right now) seeds germed in 1.5" grodan rockwool The light is about 18" from the tops and is sealed/air cooled and on 24/7 Water temp has yet to go above 69degrees and the room temps never go above 72 pH is monitered daily and adjusted to 5.8 when needed using r.o. water rh fluctuates between 40 and 50% without any conditioning I am growing two nirvanas white widow and one female seeds x line white widow/big bud. All seeds were put into the baskets on 8/31. The plant in question is the female seeds white widow/big bud. The nirvanas are thriving and looking exceptional. The fem x plant looks droopy and has some lower leaf issues. I first thought it was "overwatered" so I dropped the water level from the bottom of the basket down to 1 inch below. There hasn't been any improvement. I then searched the forums here for a similar issue but you know how that goes. One situation that was similar, the guy corrected it by boosting up to full strength nutes. Think I should do that? Or does someone have any other ideas? A couple pics for reference....
if the roots are thew your net pot increase to full strength nutes... see what happens nice tape job.... take some pics of the cabinet(im interested) and take pics of your roots....
A few more for detail. Problem leaf, plant, roots, soil counterpart, and some of the room. Sorry for the blurry root photo, I don't feel like going back down there. The blurry one is the problem plant, the in focus root shot is from one of the nirvana's.
alright, this shit isn't cooperating with me so forget the pics of the room. I will describe it. 3'-"4" x 5'-0" x 7'-0"H clear. I built it in the old coal cellar. I glued 1/2" pink board to the concrete walls and built steel stud walls in front of that and filled those with standard fiberglass batt insulation. I used all mold resistant gyp. board. I continued to tape, texture, prime, and paint it all, then covered it with mylar. Next time I will spend the extra cash on permaflect since mylar gets all scratched even when you dust it with a swiffer duster. I ran two 6" rigid exhaust ports through the floor joists above so I have two sexy 6" exhaust in the ceiling. I added a couple passive intakes (14x6 registers) and installed dust filters on them. Painted the conc. floor white and that made a huge difference. I also have a wicked cool bucket muffler that hides on a shelf and just looks like a bucket. on the subject, I increased the problem plant to full strength this morning so we will see how that goes. If it dies, it dies. That will only open up more room for the nirvana widows, which I know are hella good.
it looks like either a pH prob or they are too young for the strength of nutes you are using... If you're using 1/2 strength nutes you may want to cut them down with more H2O to about 1/4 strength... Most people on here agree that you shouldn't give your ladies nutes until week 3 of Veg.. but if you look at my journal where I grew a damn male my early growth burned up a little.. I thought it was a Cal/Mag problem and after I adjusted the Cal/Mag to 200ppm per gal and foliar sprayed with 1/4 strength cal/mag the leaves that were affected started to look alot better and all the new growth was fine.. Hope that helps you get an idea of what can help
Yeah kinetic, I normally wouldn't feed anything for a few weeks but this time I am in the buckets. Lucas says to start with 1/2 strength so that is what I did. I might be reading an old lucas thread though *shrug* The nirvanas are loving their situation, which is the same as the fem x, and those are what I really want. My pH is pretty steady, I only have to adjust it every 3 days and I monitor it twice daily.
Diz, your grow room sounds fantastic. Sorry about the issues you are having. From what I read, a magnesium deficiency will show itself as a "interveinal chlorosis with a puckered surface, with the tops of the puckers slowly going from chlorotic then necrotic". I don't know what stages yours went through, but like Kinetic said, it does seem a bit early for 1/2 strength. It could be overfert. As far as your other one doing well with it, genetics can always through in some curves. JaK
I bumped the problem plant to 1000ppm 24 hours ago and already the plant has stood back up completely, no drooping whatsoever. All leaf tips are pointing up and begging for light. Lucas is the man and has yet to let me down. I will throw up a pic tonight when I get my camera back. It shows me an OBVIOUS difference between hydro and soil. I don't think a soil plant this young would handle that concentration of nutes. Also, soil plants seem to take a few days to see a change and hydro is instant. I will have to include another side by side of the hydro and soil plants of the same strain, the hydro plant is 4x the size already.
It's funny how quick they react isn't it? I could see a difference in my plant within an hour of the light coming on... the leaves would all stand up really good and strong when the light was on and when it went off and I foliar sprayed them it would droop just like it would if it were outside.. Anyways, it sounds like you wrangled the situation back into your control..
Yeah, I got these problems under control just to have a power failure this morning. The biggest reason I like to grow hydro is that the plants react almost instantly. In soil it would have taken a week to see what I saw in a day. Now I have to research how to wire a generator in line so when the power fails, the geney will kick in and power the room.... if it is even possible.
I use an UPS (uninterpretable power supply) for "backup", but just for the stuff that really matters, such as the foggers, the pump and lamp cooling. Anything other then that requires a BIG UPS. I don't even try to power the lamp from the ups, but I do want it cooled properly in the event of a power failure. It gives me about 1/2 hour of backup power, and more if the "event" doesn't cause the lamp cooling to kick in. The lamp fan draws a lot of power.
This is the smallest I would use: APC SUA1500 SMART-UPS 1500VA USB AND SERIAL . NEW BATT. - eBay (item 290475156262 end time Sep-23-10 07:09:51 PDT) I wish I had a grow big enough to require this: http://cgi.ebay.com/Liebert-600-Ser...-/370427823319?pt=PCA_UPS&hash=item563f3804d7 WHOO HOO!