Could a Sump Pump be ruining my grow?

[ballplayer 2]

Hey guys looking for some advice from other more mechanically inclined than myself.

I have a mechanical room near my grow. Inside said mechanical room I have a sump pump, an ejector pump, and a gas furnace.

Is it possible that fumes could be emanating from any/all these appliances which are killing my plants?

I first started growing 6 years ago, and had decent to very good success. For the last three years I have had nothing but failures attempting to grow anything. I got so sick of losing cannabis seeds, I have been growing nothing but tomatoes and peppers for the last two years. With virtually zero success.

My germination techniques are still good, and get about 90% each time. My root growth is fantastic. I have tried Sunshine Mix, Light Warrior, Rockwool, and Rapid Rooters. My plants germinate, and then freak the F out when they start trying to grow true leaves.

I have LITERALLY lost about 100 tomato seedlings over the last two months. I figure even if I tried to fuck up that many plants, at least a few would still come out ok. I'm not going to go into detail about my growing methods in this post, because I am mainly wondering about the possibility of toxic vapors leaking into my basement. I have another thread in the GENERAL GARDENING/VEGGIES FLOWERS section detailing all the methods I have tried.

The leaves generally just get all fucked up looking--off color, micronute def, twisting, stunted.

I should also note I have had water in my basement once or twice, and the shit began not too long after that. That problem has been fixed now, but it might be too late. I also have been having my yard treated by Trugreen to keep weeds out.

I am going to try starting more tomato seeds far away from this space in a sunny window area and see if the air quality in my basement is the cause of my problems, as I suspect they are.

Thank you all so much for any knowledge you all have with issues such as these. Please offer me some help/ideas if you can. Thank you.

 

[bigdaddyc9]

Your culprit I think is Truegreen leechate or a chemical they are using is coming through into your basement.Maybe a mold issue due to flooding? Something is amiss. BigD

 

[fishheadbob]

Interesting. Your gas furnace isn't emmitting any fumes in warm months except maybe a tiny amount if there's a pilot light, so even if it were somehow malfunctioning when in use, doesn't sound like that's a culprit. Even if it was, it's like you're supplementing with CO2.
Truegreen would have to be pumping a tremendous amount of herbicide for it to be turning up in your sump water to the extent that the fumes cause damage. Your neighborhood would be full of birth defects if they were going that heavy. Plus, when it's not the wet season there shouldn't be that much water movement to your sump ? You could test your sump water by using it to water a houseplant or something expendable; see if the water kills the plant.
A gas hot water tank, if you have one, could have a malfunctioning exhaust. This seems an unlikely suspect.
I'm not sure what you mean by ejector pump. Is this a deep well water pump for a well ? If so, that's just an electric motor in your utility room and shouldn't be an issue.
Wait a minute. Did I say WATER WELL. I would suspect your issues lie in your water. Well or city water. Drop $20 on a water test and see what's up there.

 

[ballplayer 2]

Bob, I have been mixing RO and city Water (from a neighboring city health club, which is much cleaner than my tap at home) to an EC of 0.1-0.2 as my base water supply. I pH my water every time, pH meter nearly spot on when checked against testing solution.

I do have a gas water heater, and it is very possible the exhaust is malfunctioning, I do catch a whiff of gas from time to time. How much impact would mold underneath the drywall have on attempted grows? It is likely there is some there, how much, I'm not certain. My sump runs VERY often. My foundation is dug in pretty deep. The only time it does not run as much is during winter, but still pretty often even then.

It has to be the air quality. must be. I'm just wondering what it could be. Is Radon a possibilty?

The ejector pump is a wastewater ejector pump.

Thank you for your interest and help.

 

[High Country]

Is this Truegreen a herbicide, how long have you being using it. Is there the chance of spray drift?

 

[ballplayer 2]

Yes Trugreen has been spraying an herbicide. This is for an indoor, not OD. I dont know what you mean by drift to be honest. The guy screwed up a veggie garden of mine pretty badly a few years ago from spraying on a windy day. He was instructed to never spray near my garden area again.

 

[fishheadbob]

I am stumped. Living in the Northeast on shale I assume I have radon in my basement, it doesn't affect growth for me. I don't know what mold might do to a grow, it doesn't seem like it would help. If you own the place you ought to get rid of the mold for lots of reasons.
Maybe just opening a window if that's possible might bring in some better air, but I'm really grasping at straws about now. I also thought about a dehumidifier, but that's just throwing money at a problem without knowing what the problem is. I don't know how to test overall air quality.

 

[ballplayer 2]

All the plants I have tried growing recently get so weird looking. For instance my tomatoes look like they have P deficiency (weird color green and undersides of leaves turn purple). The leaves are somewhat deformed and small. The veins are red. The leaves look almost blistered, they get like small dark bumps on the top. When I say dark bumps don't think necrotic spots, think tiny pinpoint dark spots where the hair/fur on the leaf is. There are no necortic spots actually, no tip burn either. The plants stay way small with NO vigor, and basicaly stay in a state of stasis all the while looking progressively more sickly as the weeks progress. It looks like micronute def, or overdose. But I dont believe that is the case. I use some tapwater. I also have Earthjuice Microblast on hand. Nothing helps.

In MJ the leaves would sometimes look blistered, twist, and even in severe cases get like rips/holes in the leaves in the absence of pests. Like the worst pH lockout you could imagine. However, the pH was spot on, confirmed through runoff. Just to make sure I would add Dolomite lime to half of my peat based mixes, only enough to get the pH to 6.2-6.6 though.

These problems occurred across all types of media: Sunshine Mix, Light Warrior, Rockwool, Rapid Rooters. The plants take on a sickly look basically upon emergence. Fertilzer; No fertilizer;Nothing changes. Medium kept moist and watered through;Medium kept on the dry side with little or no runoff. They always look the same. Especially the tomatoes.

This happens underneath standard floros, T5 HO, and under my 400 MH's. The plants always look the same.

 

[dtfsux]

Heres a cheap experiment. get some tomato plants from home depot, walmart etc. Put them in some cheap soil, the cheapest you can find. My wife has 30-40 veggies growing in a $2/bag soil and $1.50 manure mix.

Plant 3 of them outside, and 3 of them inside. Use the same soil mix, nutes etc. If they all die, the problem is you. If the inside ones die, then the problem is environment.


Or you could try a simple hydro set up like ebb and flo. you could set up a rubbermaid container, cement pan, pump and hydroton plus nutes. Probably be under $100.


While I do not think the mold is great, I do not think it would affect the plants that much. You see some of these grow houses that get busted and are all moldy? They still grew weed in those houses.

I think they have a mold test kit at home depot. I think you send the kit back to a lab for a report.

Like said before, if you have mold, you want it gone for personal reasons.


Is the area you grow in sealed? Do you bring in any fresh air through a fan?

Drift means overspray, is there any chance the spray is getting on the plants. Since it is indoors, obviously that is unlikely. Maybe through ventilation if you have it?

There has to be something going on. Growing plants is not that hard. Cannabis is not hard to grow decently, and neither are those tomato plants. We just water the tomato plants every couple days and my wife feeds them some MG.