It's The Calcium Stupid!

Discussion in 'Sick Plants and Problems' started by NthDub, Apr 28, 2023.

  1. #1 NthDub, Apr 28, 2023
    Last edited: May 2, 2023
    Firstly, if anyone says "Oh yeah, I could of told you that", you know what you can do with your opinion! :D
    For anyone in very hard water areas:
    I've only done a few grows & every time no matter what I did, the leaves started to yellow early in flower & died
    I've asked here & on other forums for all my grows, & everyone said it was magnesium def, PK def, nitrogen def & nothing worked.
    I live in a very hard water area, & my water has 338ppm (if I phrased that correctly?), which means my water is basically liquid Calcium & Magnesium
    The simple solution that has taken me too fu**ing long to discover & ruined all my grows :mad: is the huge amounts of calcium in my water, is locking out the phosphorus & the plant is eating itself in flower
    I've been hammering my grows with magnesium & PK boosters & I couldn't work it out
    It'll take me a while to get the cash together to buy a good Reverse Osmosis System for under my sink
    It's too late for yet another grow
     
  2. #2 waktoo, Apr 29, 2023
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2023
    ... and probable alkalinity as well.

    You may want to take a few moments to research "irrigation water and alkalinity".
     
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  3. Is this like a week 4-5 of flower die off?

    What NPK ratio were you feeding since going to 12/12?

    The reason I ask is that week 4-5 is common for me to see leaf issues and drop. The fix for me was using a different NPK ratio that's more suited for veg.

    I live on a big limestone shelf and the water is laden with calcium carbonate.
     
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  4. Not sure where u r but I get my r/o water from an ice machine 1$/5gal
     
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  5. This is in about week 3 But it gets really bad, really fast.
    I've tried literally everything.
    Changed from AN to BioBizz
    Added calmag & Epsom Salts
    I'm giving them 1ml of Bloombastic per litre of water every watering. It has an NPK of 0-20-21
    I'm trying to get the money for an RO system for my next grow
     
  6. unfortunately we don't use ice machines. You can obviously buy bags of ice in the supermarket, but I wouldn't know what kind of water it is
     
  7. Have you always went straight to bloom nutrients when you switch to flower?

    Week 3 is congruent with what I was thinking. Have you ever considered using Veg nutrients into flower if not all the way through?
     
  8. Obviously you would not use ice on your plants. :rolleyes:
     
  9. I have only grown auto's, & I wait until white hairs are showing & I switch from Fish Mix to grow & I start with half of the recommended doseage of that & the flowering nutes.
     
  10. Gotcha. From my own experience, I had those issues and sticking with veg nutrients through flower helped a ton. I don't use bloom whatsoever anymore as it seems to screw things up more than help.

    What you can do is calculate the ppm of nitrogen and aim for ~160 for flower. That's a good low starting point that's worked for me.

    Also, the city just released their annual water report. Your city will put out a water report that may be worth looking at. My water has a TDS of 160, calcium 45 ppm, sodium 13, chloride 14, Ca Hardness 112 and pH ranges of 6.2-7.8. I'm curious what your numbers are like. You've definitely got a higher ppm.
     

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