7) a) Leaves are curled under like a ram's horn, and are dark green, gray, brown, or gold. >> Over-fertilization (too much N). http://www.weedfarmer.com/cannabis/nutrientdisorders_guide.php Plants are Jack Herer and White Rhino from Nirvana under Daylight CFL's (6500k). Each plant is getting a measured 2k-3k lumens. Plants are 12 days old. This is my first grow. Above is what I gathered that might be the problem with my gro. I tried to use a 300 ppm nute solution when the first saw leaves formed. Eventually they sagged like this and I can not get them out of this sagging. There are two plants that curled greatly and have purple under the leaves. I have leeched the cubes with PH adjusted water and have leached this morning again with regular water. This issue is not resolving and has continued since I transplanted the seedlings.. What should I do??
I hate giving advice on ppls plants but here goes. Not a good idea, NEVER feed seedlings even in hydro till day 15 and then only if they look a little pale. Now they are in shock and look quite sick. I'd only feed them water @ PH 5.8 till they start growing again but that could take a week looking at them. A few questions tho, Did you soak the clay balls in PH adjusted solution? if so what was the PH What's the PH of the water you feed with and the temperature?
Hey Max, Yeah I had a lot of trouble finding correct info on seedlings and such. For instance, my General Hydroponics (FloraNova) label says that 300ppm is good for seedlings so I just followed that label and the hords of people saying that you should add nutrients when the first saw leaves appear. Guess they were wrong becuase look at my plants. My PH for the water was 5.8 since that's what most said was the best for hydro. I'll change it to 5.5 now. I didn't soak the pellets in PH adjusted water because they are supposed to be nutral. DUring flush drain testing it didn't affect the PH. I thoroughly rinsed them. The Rockwool was soaked overnight in PH adjusted water though. I'm hoping for the roots to go through the rockwool and into the pellets. The water I'm not sure the temperature. From tap I give it luke warm then let it get to room temp. This sounds silly but hydro costs are very expensive where I live and I didn't want to put another 75w in my hydro buckets and thought I would do without.. is this a good idea? The CFL's are 27w a piece and have a cool light. the seedlings were doing very very well under them until I added the nutes. I have 160w in CFL right now giving my 20 seedlings 2k-3k lumens a plant. I'm very proud of this accomplishment =).
PH should be 5.8, I made a mistake in the post and corrected it but I guess you were a bit faster than me. I'd get a water thermometer and test the water temp. It's not as important as the PH but as long as you don't get much of a temp swing between feedings then room temp is good. Personally I'd get an aquarium water heater from the tropical fish shop. The tap water, you do let it stand for 24 hours before using it dont you? Also do you have an air pump and stone, you can reduce the standing time for the water while oxygenating it at the same time. I guess you just gotta wait now and hope the recovery don't take long. Keep us updated on the progress. I think you chose some great MJ, I smoked the Jack Herer while working in Holland and loved it. One of the BEST
Hi, Good you responded because I had the vinegar out hehe.. My PH/EC meter has a thermometer built in. The water is not that warm. It's around 18 degrees or so. I don't have an air pump or stone to reduce wiring for the grow room and power consumption. I need a fairly big one. I read that you don't need to oxegenate water in a flush drain system because the roots are always getting oxygen. I was thinking of cutting the leaves off because there's new growth... maybe I should try heheh? Yeah man.. Although it's from Nirvana, I really hope the Herrer comes out well. Wish I could find C99 or White Russian for cheap
Vinegar? I guess your on a budget, I'd only use that if it was a real EMERGENCY. Get some PH down & up, it's cheap from the tropical fish shop if the hydro store is expensive. Also don't soak the rockwool so much, you should see some air in there if the roots haven't broken out yet. I'd suggest watering by hand till recovery begins.
I find the PH down doesn't work for several hours as vinegar gives immediate results. I know I should only use it for soil though. I'll be watering by hand until the recovery to see what happens. I do have a budget but not enough for C02. I have 2 400w HPS ready to go for flowering. Although I have to say that i'm very dissapointed with the lumen output as compared to the CFL's. I was able to get 2k-3k lumens only within 16" x 16" from arouond 1.5ft from the bulb. I can get similar with CFL with only 54w of power from CFL. I guess it's my reflector so I'll so play around with other ones.
Just a thought, what is your conversion factor on your ec/ppm meter? It could very well be the cause of all your probs. As fro nutes the seedlings can handle 150ppm until there about a week old then start raising it. As for not using an air stone and pump bad Idea. More O2 to the roots mean healthier plant. Just add air to the resevior. As for the PH 5.5-5.8 is correct. Did you just adjust ph adjust your water or did you actually use rockwool conditioner. The conditioner will change the ph of rockwool for the whole grow and ph adjusted water, well lets say have fun controlling your PH. That looks like a great setup, to bad your not using better lighting, most ppl who go hydro use HID lights.
Yes I agree about the CFL output up close but the degradation is fast, penetration of HID is so much better than CFL. Do a test and you will agree. I used 400W MH for veg and in a different grow op 400W CFL, the MH was immensely better once the plant got past 1ft. Some ppl have heat issues with HID's but with CFL I tended to need a heater once the plants got big. If you use a CFL for blooming then the buds are lose, less dense. Can't wait to see how these take off, do you have pics of the others or are they all sick? EDIT: I just posted this, chimera great input. << Crush, chimera is very experienced.
Hey Chimera, I dont know the conversion factor. I have a Hanna all in one monitor. It's meant to be plugged in all the time and be mounted on the wall. All i know is that when I measure with PH 4 and PH 7 it's accurate. Also the PPM seems to have matched what the GH FloraNova said - 1/2 tsp per gallon for 300 ppm solution. I don't know the actual conversion rate though. I was hoping that I could get away with not using an air store for power consumption reasons... if i had free power than i would be all game for the heater and ait pump. I figured that would put me up to 500w an hour which is too much power consumption for where I live. I didn't use actual rockwool conditioner becuase I've never seen it at the store. I just used PH soaking like the directions said. To be honest, I wanted use the Rockwool as little as possible and get it out of my hydro becuase of the PH. I really only wanted it for seedling growth and have the roots go into the pellets and then hopefully discard the cubes later. I will eventually need to order some when I clone I guess . Actually this setup is meant for seedling/clone/small plant growth. A custom built ebb flow table will be built for the big boys and they'll get the HID lighting which I need to find a good hood for. I realize the CFL's don't have good light distance like the HID's or even incandecents, but they do seem to give most bang for the buck with the right hood. I spent hours trying to get the most out of the CFL's and below is the best design I was able to get. Again, I'm very, very dissapointed with performance of the HPS lumens per sq. ft. (I have a light meter). The Flouro's were the most disapointing of all the lights I tested.
Hi max, Yeah I have a set of 400w MH conversion bulbs and HPS. The conversion bulbs add ~80w of power from my outlet for over 500w total in power. (I also have an electriciy tester hehe). When I saw how little lumens the MH and HPS put out as compared to the CFL's, I decided to go CFL becuase each plant could get 2000 lumens garunteed. The flouros were my origional idea, but when I was getting a 1500 lumen maximum when pressed against the bulb (although phillips said it was 3000.. maybe it was for two bulbs combined in the package ), then I decided to scrap my whole flouro idea and go CFL when my house lights blew the meter off the chart. The HID blew the meter WAY off the cart, but moved 18 inches away, it got down to 3000 lumens. Moved 16" to the left of right or forward backward it went down to 2000 at best. I tried everyting to up the lumens but that's the best it would do. I have an M style reflector (like the letter M). ONe of those. So I'm going to try different reflectors. All I want from the HID's is 3 x 3 ft. I don' feel that's too much to ask. Because the ratings of the bulb claim 26,000 lumens, poeple just mathematically divide that by the sq. ft. they are using and think they are getting that many lumens per sq ft. I can say that doing this is false. I find that the best investment I made (beside the PH/EC meter of course) is the light meter becuase you can measure the lumens for sure that each plant is getting. I do agree that the nature of CFL and especially floursent reapidly decrease each inch you move away from the light. The HID decreases less, but does NOT create a miracle 3 x 3 area or such. More like 1.3 ft. But again I now have to test with different hoods to see if it's just my low quality 'M' hood. The CFL's seem to be good if the plant is short or in early stages of growth tho so I'll use that becasue it's cheaper in energy. I'd like to upload some video's actually or maybe start a grow journal if that's OK.
I think your depending on the light meter to much, tell me what does it read during noon time on a sunny day? Why I ask is that I seriously think you are getting inaccurate readings or the bulbs your using are very old. The MH and HPS are going to blow cfl's and floros away every time for distances of 6" to 3ft. Don't remove the rockwool as you will damage your roots. Truth is you have to live with this one mistake, the good and bad of it is that you are going to have to monitor it more closely. I don't know where you get your info on PH-up and down but it works immediately as well and is good(useful) to your plants and stable(same results every time), vinegar is neither. I'm adding a link that has some really good info on PH and TDS meters, it also contains a ppm feed chart that is way better than the 1 at GH's. I also, use flora nova are you using the floralicious as a supplement(highly recommend it), and you'll want a bud booster. gota go, I'll check back later.
Hey Shimera, At Sunlight it blows it off the chart which is 5000. The HID does also at a foot and so does the 27watt CFL if you stick it right up to the bulb. But the flouros were extreremely poor performers. I bought new bulbs and it was a +30% increase from the old ones. Phillips said that they were 3000 lumens. Sure they are if you do 1500 x 2 in the package. The issue witht he HID's is that yes they blow it off the chart, but they just don't have the sq. ft. that the CFL's *can* produce for much less wattage. Of coursel the CFL light doesn't travel far so I would't use it for tall plants and that's why I bought them. I should take some video's and upload them. I got my PH down from Super Pet or Pet Smart. They had a brand that was toxic, and they had another that wasn't. So I picked the cheaper one. It almost does nothing until you wait the next morning and it seems to work. The vinegar is 1 tsp per 1 gallon of water to bring it down a point I believe. I don't want to use vinegar, but it's the only thing that will show the PH monitor move when I pour it in. I think I'll return the PH down and get the other brand because I agree that the PH down should be working like the vinegar. For the FloraNova I'm not using anything else mostly because a lot of the local hydro sellers mark up the price 3x to what is available in the US. I do want some supplements for sure. I'll buy what you tell me to. I want to get the rockwool conditioner so whatever you recommend I'll get to in that order.
Use ebay, you can get it all and if the conditioner doesn't come up, just follow the rockwool to individual E-Stores, you'll find it there. I use floralicious(its the companion to the FloraNova). In the past I've used pk 13/14 for a bloom boost however, I'm going to go for an organic one for my next grow so I have no recommendation, You'll also want to pick up some epsom salt if you don't have it. I put in a big pinch every nute change, never have to worry about mag def. get PH-up&Down by GH. My dual port air pump only uses 6 watts, get one. I forgot the link to the PH/TDS meter with feed chart thing forgot it last time so here it is. http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/static/articles/0406_tdspH.asp Note: food charts are only guides, never start out with anything but the lower value. The best way to keep your plant happy with the food it gets is to "listen to it". How you say, if the ppm reading goes down between checking raise your nute level, if it rises your to hot, dilute it. Hey good luck. PM me if you have other Qs. Link to my current grow. http://forum.grasscity.com/general-indoor-growing/111300-picts-dagirls-hopefully.html
That's an interesting article about meters, thanks chimera. You think there would be a single standard. Why do manufacturers do that eh? Anyhow, I'm interested in the light meter you use Crush. What is it. I found an article on light and how to measure it correctly HERE it does sound as tho you've done your homework on the subject. I'm not sure if you can upload video to this site, you gotta host it somewhere and link it somehow. I've never done it but have seen some on here. Would be nice and I think others will appreciate it also. I think what you have done so far is great, only a few noob mistakes but I'm sure there not the end of the world. Let us know when they start to recover and DONT chop leaves off, even when they get big. Just bend them and move them out the way.