Striped Stems

[Badgermonkey]

SKUNKITY/SATIVA; 6th generation culled for potency, short, bushy traits.
How long has this problem been going on? ~1 week
Are you growing in a PVC grow tent? (example: Hydrohut or any other non brand tents) No, Panda paper closet (plastic black on one side/white on the other
What system are you running? (DWC? Ebb flow? Aero? Water Farm? Flood Tables? and so on...) Manual watering
What STRAIN are you growing? Skunk/Sativa cross, 6th generation
What was the establishing technique? (Were they seed or clone?) Seed
What is the age of your plants? ~1 month
How long have they been in there mixture they are in now?(coco,soiless etc..) always
How tall are the plants? ~6"/10cm
What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
What Technique are you using? ?
What substrate/medium are you using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc.) Coir
What is the Water temperature? Ambient/70°
What color are your roots? White? Brown? Are your roots slimy? No, they are Perfect (roots on 4" plant when transplanting):

What Nutrient's are you using?(If growing soiless) Canna; per directions
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* Just went from Canna A+B @7ml to 12ml; 8ml Rhizotonic, 10ml Cannazym; plus 5ml Earth Juice Microblast, Superthrive 1ml, Brer Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses 5ml per gallon. *added 3ml of Canna PK 13/14 to last watering
How often are you feeding? (If using soiless) When pots weigh very little, before wilt
How often are you giving nutrients? (If using soiless) Every watering
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients? N/A
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect) N/A
What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using? Not measured
What is the pH of the "Tank"? ~6 with or without nute's
Are you sure your calibration is correct on your equiptment? N/A
When was your last watering? Day before yesterday/3 days ago
What is your water temps? Ambient ~70°
When was your last feeding change? (ie. grow-bloom-micro-additional) 3 days ago
How often do you clean your system: example: Flush out water replace with clean water and nutrients? *Every time (no tank)
What size bulb are you using? T5 2', 8 bulb/natural sunshine 6 hours a day *weather and traffic permitting
What is the distance to the canopy? 4-6" (7-10cm)
What is your RH Factor(Relative Humidity)? <45%
What is the canopy temperature? ~80° day/68° night
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include flucutaion range) Max 85-65 (+/_20°); ~12° is typical
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) ventilation is adequate, 8" fan pulling fresh air and blowing across plants
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ? Runs 24/7
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? Yes
The abode:
You can just ignore the sick clone on the right *sigh

Is your water HARD or SOFT? Hard - 550-650ppm before nutes
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? Tap
Are you using water from a water softener? No
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched? No
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so, What and When? Pyrethrins - Clean Air Purge III - I spray it 2-3 times a day, 1 squirt into the fan each time
Are plant's infected with pest's No

Hey Stitch 'n company! First time caller, luv ya, luv yer show 8). The reason you're hearing from me is that from your post I decided that my plants had a Calcium deficiency:
Since I added the Earth Juice Microblast I think that will stop; I've been adjusting my pH down to ~6; using a GH dropper to measure water samples. Any advice on this is welcome.
The reason I write is this morning I noticed that the stems were entirely purple between 2 internodes, then striped for the next (purple veins on a green stem). This faded out after a few hours of the light being on, but is still there. I don't know why it's like this, but the stems go from green to purple, usually fading somewhere between the two colors; the distinct change of color at the internode is what trips me out:



You can see the change of color at the internode in this pic:












Another plant has yellowish/brownish new growth on it, which I've never seen before and it seems growing has stagnated on this plant:

I'm going to treat this as a pH issue, since there seems to be several problems developing all at once, and I just recently started adjusting my water pH (it's ~7pH from the tap) - unless I get some better ideas from the heads here. 8)

I don't really know how to post on a forum, i have a brilliant word doc that seems to have been reformatted to crap. Trying to re-add the pertinent pics.

 

[SOTF420]

Is your water HARD or SOFT? Hard - 550-650ppm before nutes
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? Tap

This is definitely your problem. Nutrient imbalance from minerals and various other nasty shit in the tap water. 550 - 650 ppm? That is really really high for tap.

You must use clean water if you expect healthy plants, period. Distilled or RO in your case.

 

[Badgermonkey]

Less Striped

Less Striped

I put about .5gal of 33%pH adjusted nute mix/67% ~7pH water on the most purple-stemmed and the yellowing new growth plant, they seem to be a lot more lively and less odd-colored now, got a good amount of afternoon sun too which they love. Here's a pic of the veg room too.

Thanks for the input, the guys at my shop said the ppm was high for tap water, but not extreme. From reading the post under mine, it seems even though I buffered my coir with the mix* I use to water/feed with, I haven't flushed it. Canna says their's is pre-rinsed and just needs buffering, figured GH would be as considerate - guess not.

I have 3 that are almost ready for harvest, but look weird. I don't know if they're done yet. The best looking one went hermie, I put some Dutch Master's Reverse on it, and it seemed to stop seeding everything. They all looked a lot healthier a month ago - any advice on those would be greatly appreciated; I'm about ready to chalk it up as growing 101 and move on - the ugliest one is a great smoke, haven't been impressed by the others.

*my seedling mix, which is Canna A+B 6ml each, Rhizotonic 10ml, Superthrive 1ml, and about 1 tablespoon Rooter's Mychorizae (sp) per gallon. (Rooter's was added to about 4 gallons of coir).

 

[SOTF420]

You sound like you have everything dialed in except for the water, trust me dude that ppm range is really really high for tap water. Most people don't have more than 200 ppm max. Many people's nutrients don't exceed 500 -600 ppm in veg! Invest a few hundred bucks in a simple RO water machine, they are available in under the sink versions from Home Depot - go with the top of the line GE Profile one it makes like 2 - 3 gallons per filling and will keep refilling itself all day as it comes with a holding tank that goes under the sink, etc and the filters last quite a long time. (there are 3 of them) It seems alot harder to put in than it really is, basically you just put drain tube (for RO waste water) in sink drain pipe with a simple drilled hole and tap into the clean water supply with the provided adapter and you are ready to go it's pretty much automated after that. Once you start growing with clean water you will be amazed at how much healthier your plants will be overall. The problem is that mineral salts build up in the growing medium from your very high ppm water and throw all the ratios out of wack as well as lock out important elements. The water coming from that said RO filter is like 10 - 15 ppm and Neutral PH range. Get yourself & your precious plants some nice clean water, ASAP. Your plants will thank you and it's great for drinking too.

 

[cashmunny]

I'll second (or third) the conclusion that it's a water problem. I had the same issue, my water is 700 ppm. My stems were all purple. A flush with RO water and using only RO water subsequent to that solved the issue.

Don't add more nutes. That will only compound the problem. It may take a couple weeks for your nute lockout problem to resolve once you start using RO water. But it will resolve itself. The stems will slowly turn back to green.

Good luck!

 

[Badgermonkey]

Well cool, since winter is here I suppose I can use the $250 or so I was going to invest in a ventilation system and buy a water filter instead. Thanks for the quick responses!

Any thoughts on the blooming plants?

*I edited the attachments, there is an actual pic of the veg room there now

 

[SOTF420]

Thoughts on the blooming plants....hmmm, well I would smoke them.

 

[Badgermonkey]

I'm working on it

*puff puff* passes to SOTF420

 

[SOTF420]

*smokes that shit down to the roach*


aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh yeah

Not bad, but kinda tastes like tap water lol j/k

 

[cashmunny]

Well cool, since winter is here I suppose I can use the $250 or so I was going to invest in a ventilation system and buy a water filter instead. Thanks for the quick responses!

Any thoughts on the blooming plants?

*I edited the attachments, there is an actual pic of the veg room there now

I'm not sure how big a grow you have but you can buy RO water from vending machines that is less than 10 ppm. But if you have a bunch of plants it's a PITA to do it that way. For a small grow it's more economical than buying an RO filter.

With the flowering plants, try mixing up 2 teaspoons of Florakleen per gallon of RO water and flushing the hell out of them for a couple days. I'm talking major drain to waste with the flushing solution. Leave the florakleen in your soil overnight and repeat. It won't hurt the plants to leave the Florakleen in.

It will help, but the stem color may not return to green entirely if you are late in flower.

 

[Ziggaro]

I'm not sure how big a grow you have but you can buy RO water from vending machines that is less than 10 ppm. But if you have a bunch of plants it's a PITA to do it that way. For a small grow it's more economical than buying an RO filter.

Thats only true for a couple months.. Conservatively speaking, with 6 mature plants you'd probably use 20+ gallons/week.
Down at your corner store, RO water is going to cost you 50 cents/gal. Thats 10 bucks a week! In one year you're spending 520 dollars on water.
I was going to get a GE, but 10 gal/day means it makes less than a half gallon per hour. That can be a PITA while you're waiting for the tank to refill.
For 300 I got one that does 45 gal/day, made in USA of all USA parts by apec, and I am really happy with it. Its really was easy to set up if you can read instructions and use a drill, you just need basic tools. Maintenance costs for prefilters once a year is 30 dollars, and then roughly 100 dollars for the membrane and the 5th stage every 4-7 years.
My plants love it and I use it for everything. I even use it to boil water, since I always hated that white strip hard water leaves on the pot, and have found that water boils noticably faster. Powdered drinks dissolve better, although I still mix RO and tap for coffee since it is so acidic without the buffer lol
Sorry for the long post I'm a bit obsessive..

 

[SOTF420]

The GE makes much more than 10 gallons a day, if you just keep filling up jugs constantly you can stash alot of water. The filters are also readily available at home depot & lowes and are relatively cheap. The other issue with the bottles of water is that at some point is just does'nt look right bringing so many bottles of water in your house. It's a security breach by toting in all that water all the time and I have heard of RO machines being watched for growers, don't think it does'nt happen because it does. They are pretty easy to spot and most can't help but look like they are doing something "wrong". If you are filling up 5 gallon jugs or two or three or four of them all the time the you most likely are growing pot. If you are not a medical grower/patient this can be a very real risk and you also risk rippers watching you and possibly following you back to your house since they see you filling up water jugs.

There are also times you just don't feel like driving to get water and that can surely affect your plants because there will be times you just run out of water and can't go get it. Having a steady clean supply of water in the privacy of your home is priceless. It's like night & day.

 

[Badgermonkey]

I got a pUr 3 stage faucet filter, it was only $50 and filters out tons of crap. If the water tastes this much better for the plants like it does to me, its FTW.

They seem to dig it so far 8)