Third time was not a charm....4K room

[Hydro-Soil]

With the lucas formula, do you use any additives beyond of the GH flora micro & bloom?

Update: Found some of the Lucas threads, reading up now.

True Lucas Formula is Nutes only, no additives.

If you're using PBP you DO need to add 5ml/gal of Cal/Mag.


MAKE SURE YOU'RE USING RO WATER! Or at least VERY clean tap water. (RO preferred)

If your water pressure is low, get a booster pump for your RO machine or you may end up with a high ppm anyway.


Edit: 550? If you're running Lucas shouldn't you be at around 900? (@ .5 conversion)

 

[Seed Buyer]

I was suggest raising your lights. They look very close for not being air cooled. I have had similar problems that I associated w/ nutes and pH but couldn't figure out. Raised the lights and the problem stopped. You can always easy them back down to the canopy if rasing them doesn't help. Sending some good karma your way!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I just want to reiterate here that full str Lucas formula WILL NOT BURN YOUR PLANTS.

It will make your pH really nice and stable, if you're using RO water.


I don't know what is in your tap water so that is an unknown variable in your setup there.

Some people have a lot of zinc in their water, others have heavy metals. I know I can't use my tap water without an RO machine and even then I'm suspect.

 

[Greyskull]

i would suggest flooding your trays for 15minutes per cycle, 3-5x per day, rather than 5min per flood.

you really want to have those cubes soaking in the nutrient solution

I have a friend who top drips into 4x4 cubes... he was only feeding his plants 20sec per day. they looked like your - burnt. he started increasing the feed frequency (ie gave the plants more food to suck on) and all of a sudden his plants have started looking much better.

my 2 cents... good luck

 

[quicklikeabunny]

Ok, gonna try to give another quick update here and respond to all of you who have been so kind in trying to help me. My water comes out of the tap around 75ppm. I don't have an RO setup at this time, but I will be adding one in the future. I found a place locally that will test my water for me. Since I have a broken leg I have to wait until my wife is available to take a sample down for me.

I previously had 6K in air cooled lights in the room. This round I went to the umbrella hoods w/ vertical bulbs in an effort to reduce the light intensity. I now believe I had the same nute issue each round. I will be going back to the 6K air cooled lights on my next round. Currently I have 24-30 inches of clearance from the bulb. The lights are all the way up right now. The temp at the canopy is about 76 degrees, and leaving your hand there under the light for even a long time doesn't seem to feel hot, only mildly warm, so I think I'm ok there.

As for nutes, I'm now running FNB in all tubs maintaining between 1300ppm and 1400 ppm. I'm watering 3x a day, the pump runs for 5 min, and it takes about 10 minutes to drain when not going through the overflow. The moisture balance seems good right now.

I have the CO2 turned off for the time being to help in keeping things simple.

 

[quicklikeabunny]

I have my next round going in veg right now...hopefully it will be a little smoother sailing this time.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Well, true to your namesake you were quite quick on that turnaround.

I think you're going to be pleased with your efforts. Did you say 75ppm? I thought you posted 175ppm? You should have fewer issues than I thought you might with only 75ppm. Still shoot for around 1300ppm until you find what the ladies prefer.

Your pen is .7 conversion right? If it's .5 conversion you need to be at 900-950ppm

 

[quicklikeabunny]

I may have been quick on this one, but I was in turtle mode on my last 3. I think I got lucky on the turn around. I cannot explain how many hours I have sat with my girls trying to figure out what to do, then making changes and waiting. I know that last thing you want to do when experiencing issues is ad more nutes, but it came down to that being the only thing I hadn't tried in the last 6 months. The thing that got the ball rolling was the second pic of the phosphorous deficiency here:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688

Once I saw that and starting stepping back and thinking about things it all started to make sense. The fact that I was so strict on the ph staying in a narrow range only fueled the fire.

I scrolled back through this thread, I think that was a type-o and I meant 70....the ppm out the tap varies slightly from week to week, but normally is in between 70 and 75.

The pen I have runs a .7 conversion.

Being as though I had this issue for my last 4 cycles, I'm very relieved to see it subsiding. I have changed hoods, bulbs, ventilation, cut down my tables to lower them away more from the lights, gone to digital timers, changes soup mixes, watering habits, how I maintain my ph...Just all sorts of things. I'm sure these will be stunted some from all of this, but they are looking alright. I'm at 3 weeks and things have progressed from a few hairs to actual little nuggets. Now that I think i have identified the issue, I'm looking forward to the next round.

I hope that by going to the FNG in my veg room and not sticking to a strict 5.9-6.1 ph range that I can avoid the lockout and deficiencies. If I get that fixed, go back to my 6 air cooled 1k's, and fire up the CO2 again. That all should make for some nice stuff

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I hope that by going to the FNG in my veg room and not sticking to a strict 5.9-6.1 ph range that I can avoid the lockout and deficiencies. If I get that fixed, go back to my 6 air cooled 1k's, and fire up the CO2 again. That all should make for some nice stuff

Super glad to see things turning around for you.
I have supreme issues with anxiety and I can't imagine myself coping with it that well. Way to go!

With the FNG you're going to need to find the strength your strains feed at. Once you find it you'll notice that your pH is just swinging back and forth in a healthy way and you shouldn't have to adjust it except every few weeks.

Rock and Roll!

 

[Joe Hawkins]

Thats definatley a PH and Nute problem most likely exaserbated by your use of CO2, Good advice, dump the co2 and just have constant ventilation, plants release co2 while not photosynthesising (ie lights off) and if your constantly ventilating there will be ample co2 in the air. our plant roots need O2 at the rootzone and from what I gather as co2 is heavy is likely to congregate around your rootzone, and maybe fucking up the balance.

Also you mentioned you flush 3 times inbetween nutes?

SO SO SO wrong! That water stays nuted all the time, Keep at about 700 ppm for 1st 3 weeks and then up to 1100- 1200ppm the rest.

 

[quicklikeabunny]

On these most recent rounds I flushed as many times as it took to get the runoff ppm to an acceptable level. I actually mixed up ph'd water in a spare res, then using a pump I top watered all the rockwool. The ph'd water was around 75ppm, and the tray was draining at first between 800-900ppm. I continued this process with fresh water until the spread wasn't so great. Once runoff was down to only 25ppm greater I called it good, mixed up some soup and gave em some grub.

I believe this would be considered extreme in most cases, but my babies were having issues, and I needed to try to get them back to ground zero and erase what I could of the imbalances. They apparently liked it, as they have pulled out of their funk and decided to act like good lil plants

The issue I was having was happening previously, and in a much worse way. Dropping the light intensity and adding the CO2 seamed to help it some this round, but as we all know with plants you have to have ALL of the fundamental elements to grow em healthy. I have quite the elaborate setup now to control the CO2, ventilation, and mixing of the air in the room. regardless, for now I'm on the keep it simple bandwagon.