The soil: 1 bag MG moisture control self feeding + 1 bag MG organic soil + 1 three gallon bag of perlite + 1 smaller bag of organic soil with an npk of .5, 0, 0 I went out of town for 4 days, watered right before I left and when I got back a few of the plants were really rough looking. A couple looked like zinc, magnesium, and potash deficient. I just got my senselife meter which really surprised me and I think I was choking them with too much co2. I'm fermenting sugar with yeast, I mixed up a batch more than a week ago and it's still keeping the room around 900-1200ppm. I add a couple dixie cups of sugar to my half empty bottles daily. Then I have a cool tube with the ductwork pulling the hot air down and blowing it at some fermenting jugs sitting on a cart under my plants, where the air then rises and I have another fan at the level of the plants blowing between the plant tops and the lights. When I first got the senselife meter, in the part of the room above the plants out of the wind from the fan I was getting readings over 2,200 ppm. I think being out of town and not opening the doors to let fresh air in for 4 days hurt it some, when I got back and opened the tent for the first time there was literally a cloud hovering above my plants and you could see a wind tunnel where the fan was pushing air faster and there was a little mold. It's a 4x4x6.5 tent and does have passive air vents. I use rainwater I collect for watering. The first thing I did when getting back to town was water, air out the tent, and move the lights closer to the plants. The plants now seem to be growing new growth faster than their old leaves are dying, but they are still deteriorating. A couple of the plants right under the light are getting rusty leaves, at the tops starting at the tips and growing inward. Even on a few new leaves at the top. I was planning to get some epsom salt, what ratio should I mix it with water? What else should I do? I haven't given any fertilizer yet as the soil has some in it. I tore off some of the rusty leaf tips and the rusty part was on the top, the bottom looked normal. They were also soft, not crispy, it was just like a regular leaf that was drained off it's green. Even as rough as they're looking they're twice as big as they were a week ago. I did have the fan speed on relatively high. I just slowed it down and moved the lights away a little bit.
looks like my same problem. I figured it to be a pH problem. Water pH was 7.48 which was causing nitrogen to get locked out. Nitrogen deffiency causes yellowing from the tip in starting with the oldest leaves first. I can't really tell from your pictures but what you think? Whats your pH? Should be close to 6.8 for soil. 5.5 for hydro. or just good ol' nute burn just a guess but, you will know best
Well I've been battling nute burn from the beginning. I need to get a ph meter, I have only the color coded strips and it shows to be about 7 from the chart. But I guess not much over 7 will start problems. Before I went on vacation last weekend I was at the store buying water and they were sold out of distilled water so i had to use spring water and I think that was the problem. I've been collecting rain but didn't have quite enough so I guess I can only use distilled water. I moved the lights up and sprayed the foliage with water a few times today and it looks like the new growth tips are growing a little faster. Damn spring water.
Well I know the one thing that the problem is NOT. It's most certainly not too much CO2. DIY co2 plain doesn't work.
Any reason diy co2 doesn't work? Just checked them after waking up and the co2 meter is hovering around 1350ppm right now in the center of my plant tops, RH is 50% and temp is 88 degrees. I'm just curious because you're contradicting everything I've read about co2. Please embellish.
CO2 works just fine, if you actually use a regulator / controller / co2 tank. The DIY plastic bottles with yeast and sugar are just wasting your time, making stinky smells and promoting possible mold growth. If you actually have a device that measures constant CO2 in ppm's then you already have the controller part ($400-600) and you just need a regulator and tank. But I'm guessing you're talking bout those syringes that you have to break each time you test. A few minutes of searching will show you that DIY co2 does nothing but make bad smells. Those CO2 buckets they sell are no better. If you want CO2 to actually work, you're looking at a bare minimum investment of $600 if you're good at finding deals. Much much higher if you go to a shop.
Ah, thanks for following up. I figured there's no point to guessing how much co2 you're making so I broke down and I bought the cheapest co2 meter I could find for a little over $200 which claims to be accurate to within 50ppm up to 10,000 ppm. I leave the meter in the center of my plants to get an average for the area. It has to stay plugged in as well. Ill likely get some tanks but was thinking of getting a reverse osmosis first and use the beermaking for the time being since I'll need 2 setups, one for flower/veg. With my current setup I have to have the veg out in the garden shed and the flowering in the house. I was also thinking of a controller that ran off propane or natural gas. I have access to both. The garden shed is fine for smell, far from any noses. When I come in the house I was thinking of connecting my exhaust to the sewer vent, I mean how often do you smell people's sewer? It leaves out the highest point of the house so I think it's a good idea, plus it's accessible.
So it's been almost a week. Mixed up some more sugar water and the senselife co2 monitor was at 1600ppm and has been dropping about 100ppm per day since. Today it was 1350ppm when i opened the tent for the first time this morning. I just checked it and it was at 1280ppm so dropping fairly steadily. Here's some pics of the problems. I plucked a lot of the dead fan leaves, now there are some that are half dead. I added epsom salt to the foliage spray and watered yesterday with pure rainwater. The leaves seem to die from the edges inward, from the tip back. Mainly the fan leaves, I just transplanted the them to 3 gallon pots (same size they're in) but added 2" of styrofoam peanuts to the bottom and drilled holes all around the pots to promote more airflow to help them dry faster. The bottoms of the pots were still soaked days after watering while the top several inches was dry. One plant has small white spots, and the dead part of the rest of the leaves seems to get really thin and more white than yellow. Any ideas on what I should do next? I haven't added any fertilizer as I think there might be too much in the soil.