Cal/Mag and Canna

[ozgrower90]

hey i've got two plants in canna coco aswell and there having problems, their about 5 weeks into veg, some curling of leaves(upwards), black tips on the new growth and white brownish tips on the lower leaves, some older fan leaves are turning a pale green almost yellow, and the stems are reddish. I was thinking its a nute burn(even though I feed very lightly) so I havent fed for 1 week now and they still look like shit. was wondering if its a deffiency or a nutrient burn. Should I give them a light feed and see....it's kinda scary
thanks a lot
oh and the nutes are from a hydro shop which they make themselves(no npk number!!!!) They are working fine though or.. were

 

[shishkebab]

i have some cal/mag issues so i was thinking of spraying the leaves with a mineral water with cal/mag added. what do you think?

 

[onegreenday]

AHA... we may finaly be nearing the truth !

I use Cana A+B and have never had any problems [London tap, Spanish well] but a freind in [Spanish] town has problems due to some shitty local water. I am planning to 'fix' it by using a Brita water filter [carbon] thanks to a tip from the guys in the Soil forum. Basically, it tastes better, has lower EC and lower Ph, so may well be a better starting point for him. I use it on my babies as well and they seem really happy.

I have never used CalMag, nor ever needed to, before I read carguy & dongle's input I thought RO & CalMag was an internet fad, now I understand the water is different in the Americas.

I spoke to the head of GHE about RO, as people here had made me wonder about giving it a go, specifically the concept that you remove the crap [EC 7/8] and make all of your feed's EC just hydro nutrient. He said this is not the case, as you end up putting pretty much what you took out back in, at great expense and with obvious added risks of complication, getting it wrong, for no gain..... and that the entire product is specifically developed to work with with tap water.

GHE, Canna, Hydrotops & Growth Technology all make great feeds for Europe and our typical Hard Water, but, what holds true for us is not the same for all the Americans.

I think I ran into this with Pawtucket, RI water; the city said the "hardness"
is 48 PPM (which is an indirect measure of calcium & magnesium)

I doubt that's enough for a good grow in coir.

So I used a liquid calcium & epsom salts and the grow went ok.

Some liquid calcium has magnesium included.
Be sure to check.

 

[onegreenday]

i have some cal/mag issues so i was thinking of spraying the leaves with a mineral water with cal/mag added. what do you think?

Calplex by Organicare is a foliar feed (derived from calcium carbonate)

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

I have just spotted that canna are making specific nutrients ... if you need them. N, Ca & Mg [and others] should all be available in separate bottles.

European water is different to US water, if your water is really bad, use RO, which is different again and requires more care to get right.

My playing around with the Brita filter is going well, I use 50% of the pH- I am without it....personally I would certainly recommend trying it before going the whole hog and using RO.

 

[AceHaze]

Hi ChaosCatalunya!
I also got a Brita filter and I would like to ask you, how often you change the filter, cause the ec rises, when the filter is getting older. My tap water got an ec of 0,65, and the brita filtered water is about 0,2 ec. I´m about to start my first coco grow with the Hesi line and i´m wondering, if i should use the filtered water, my tab water or a mix of both... Maybe there´s anybody out there, who could tell me which ec suits best to the hesi line?

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Hi ChaosCatalunya!
I also got a Brita filter and I would like to ask you, how often you change the filter, cause the ec rises, when the filter is getting older. My tap water got an ec of 0,65, and the brita filtered water is about 0,2 ec. I´m about to start my first coco grow with the Hesi line and i´m wondering, if i should use the filtered water, my tab water or a mix of both... Maybe there´s anybody out there, who could tell me which ec suits best to the hesi line?

Hi Ace,

I am caning mine, @20L a day so think it will last 15 days at best, not the 30 they say [trying to sell lots of filters] .. but I am playing about with it and guess what I find may well not hold true for you & your water .. let alone with Hesi, heard good things about their stuff, but do not run them.

 

[AceHaze]

Thanx 4 the info Chaos!
I will share my expierience with you!
Good luck!

 

[eman]

there are trace elements that are removed in RO water that the girls actually need, like some of the guys are saying, canna doesnt put high amounts of these nutrients in their products. my tap EC is .7

wow someone else with water as hard as mine

ive been mixing it with RO to get it down to 125-150 and its been working perfect with canna a+b

 

[eman]

been running into trouble about 4 weeks of flowering....

gonna increase the ro/tap mix to 200ppm and see how it does...

 

[onegreenday]

Hi ChaosCatalunya!
I also got a Brita filter and I would like to ask you, how often you change the filter, cause the ec rises, when the filter is getting older. My tap water got an ec of 0,65, and the brita filtered water is about 0,2 ec. I´m about to start my first coco grow with the Hesi line and i´m wondering, if i should use the filtered water, my tab water or a mix of both... Maybe there´s anybody out there, who could tell me which ec suits best to the hesi line?

My city water is 120 PPM , with a hardness of 48PPM (indirect measure of cal/mag)

I use a double undersink filter for drinking water and it does not
reduce my PPM on my meter.

I emailed my filter guy & he says block filters won't reduce PPM
but only a RO system will knock down PPM.

I'm surprised the Brita reduces your PPM and wonder why my
double cartridge filter is not reducing my PPM.

Any ideas? They are quality filters from KXtech.com
Matrikk +1 and Matrikk +Pb1

 

[AceHaze]

My city water is 120 PPM , with a hardness of 48PPM (indirect measure of cal/mag)

I use a double undersink filter for drinking water and it does not
reduce my PPM on my meter.

I emailed my filter guy & he says block filters won't reduce PPM
but only a RO system will knock down PPM.

I'm surprised the Brita reduces your PPM and wonder why my
double cartridge filter is not reducing my PPM.

Any ideas? They are quality filters from KXtech.com
Matrikk +1 and Matrikk +Pb1

I have no clue, why yout filter doesn´t affect your ppm...
My plants recently showed some signs of cal/mag def., thats why I switched to mixing my Brita filtered water (ec=0,3) with tap water (ec=0,6) at a 50/50 ratio. I hope this does the trick! I also think about switching to Canna Coco AB, cause it seems easier to use. If you need a lot of water every day, then using the Brita filter is a pain in the ass, cause you can only filter 1 liter at time! I´m thinking about building some divice, where I "implant" my filter- that would save a lot of time!!
Peace, Ace

P.S If my calculation of ppm to ec is correct (ppm:500= ec), then your tap water even seem a little too "clean" for most of the european fertilizers. So why do you want to to lower the ec of your tap water?

 

[mrbarry]

WHEN USING CANNA NUTES WITH CANNA COCO YOU MUST ADD 200-250 PPM'S OF CAL/MAG THROUGH OUT THE GROW UP UNTIL FINAL FLUSH.

THIS IS THE INFO CANNA HAS GIVIN ME.

IT DOESNT MATTER IF YOU GET THE 200 PPM FROM YOUR TAP WATER OR YOU GET IT FROM ADDING CAL/MAG.

 

[Greyskull]

all kinds of great nuggets in this thread

way to go everybody! keep them coming

 

[AceHaze]

I switched from hesi to Canna a/b and i also had problems with cal/mag. I´m using tap water with ec=0,65 and I usually water my mother plants with 5.8 ph and 1.3 ec. To solve the cal/mag issue I use BioBizz Alg-A-Mic at 2ml/liter. It´s really great stuff, especially when you live in an area where cal/mag products are hardly available. A friend of mine got an RO device and he mixes 50/50 with tap water. He uses 3ml Alg-A-Mic per liter and everything is fine, too!

Peace Ace

 

[stoneypenguin]

My last run I was paranoid about salt build up in Coco and was running RO water and Canna A&B. I ended up with severe deficiencies that resulted in decreased yield and overall plant size.

Since then I have added Cal/Mag and use Greyskulls feeding schedule since I already had the exact same nutes in his line up (except sweet, currently using blackstrap molasses). I’m also using tap water (200ppm) and adding a bit of vitamin c take care of any chloramine. Happy to report much better results this time around, 3 weeks in and they are already larger than the last run at harvest.

 

[onegreenday]

I wish Canna would put that in their feed schedule.
They have a nice folder on coco & nutrients but
nothing on the cal/mag issue.