First time in COCO, plz help before its too late

[Ministro]

Hey fellas, long time since my last thread here at icmag.

I just started a coco grow.... i started my cuttings in 1 liter coco pots and they all looked good in the 2 week vegg period. Now they are in 12 liter pots and already 10 days into flowering.
Im already seeing some new leaves with the edges a bit light green like a ph problem....... i have 3 strains runing but only one strain in showing this symptom.
Im pretty worried and i really dont know what to do. i read that coco locks up some micro nutrients but im now quite sure what is the problem.
Im using biobizz nutrients.... Bio grow, bio bloom, alga mic, bioheaven and top max.....
and for worse, my ph meter went missing. i thought the ph was too acid, but reading some i understood that 6.0 is ideal for coco....
my water ph with nutes on is arround 6.4
any directions? any of them are preciated.
peace

 

[crippled1]

Do you ever flush your medium? You might try it, you're not going to hurt anything. Just use plain water. Measure the ppms and then measure the ppms of the water running out of your pots. If the runoff is alot higher then keep flushing.
Some pictures would help with fixing your problem.
Pick up a copy of Marijuana Garden Saver. It's cheap and can really help you diagnose problems just by looking at the pictures.
If you don't get a ph meter you are never going to know if you have a ph problem.

 

[gaiusmarius]

coco ph is ideally at 5.7 to 5.9

need to see pics to to be able to answer in more detail

get your ph meter, or test strips at least. ph is vital for the nutrient uptake of the plant

 

[dunkydunk]

Yep, pH should be 5.8, and a 1 ltr. to 12 ltr. container is a pretty big jump. You might not have enough roots to keep the coco free of dead spots. Pop one your plants out of it's pot, if it's more coco then dense roots, then you need more roots. Get to know your pH, and pour balanced nutes through the coco. Let the coco dry down to 50% weight before you water again, that will make the roots stretch out.

I think of coco as a million billion little sponges. Ideally, there would be tiny roots in every little sponge, sopping up the juice, from the sponge.

 

[Ministro]

dunky:

I made a flush yesterday, and checked a plant rootball, roots look pretty white and healthy. its not fully of roots but theres still coco spots that may be more rooted.
After hours of searching after home moving i found the damn ph meter. i measured water ph without nutes and it is 6.9
The flush i made yesterday was with that water. i drained most of nutrients but not fully drained, i mean i didnt flushed it completely of nutrients. After the flush i sprayed a compound of micro elements and now im planing what to do to now have further problems.
Ill take pics in a few hours and post the pics later.
When you say ph should be 5.8 that means that the ph with the nutes on it should be that?

thx for the replies

 

[Ministro]

here are the pics

 

[Ministro]

more

 

[gaiusmarius]

yes the water with nutes added need to be ph 5.8, you can go to a pharmacy and ask for some phosphoric acid, even if it's diluted to 50% you only need to add a small amount of the phosphoric acid to your nutrient/water mixture to drop the ph, if it drops too much add tap water again to push it back up. 5.8 would be best for the plants. you can buy phosphoric acid in the grow shop too, they call it ph minus (flower phase)

 

[dunkydunk]

Yep, the solution going in needs to be 5.8. When you get a handle on that, give the plants another flush to 'replace' the high ph nutrient that's already soaked into the coco. It might not happen all at once, as pH counterbuffering can take some time. After two or three goes, you should be on track. A properly calibrated pH meter is an indispensable tool.

All told your plants don't look that bad, they're off-color, but they're not dieing back or spotting. Get your nutes in order and they should green up.

Oh, and when I say flush, I mean flush with nutes, not plain water.

And if the root mass is dense enough to hold the coco together, then that's a good start. They should continue to get more dense up until the strech stops and the buds set.

 

[Ministro]

thanks a lot for the input guys, take care

 

[R3ZIN]

if you only had two choices of PH say 5.5 or 6.2 for coco what would you choose? Slightly more acidic or slightly more alkali.

 

[R3ZIN]

if you only had two choices of PH say 5.5 or 6.2 for coco what would you choose? Slightly more acidic or slightly more alkali.

Bueller?

 

[dgr]

I'd try 5.5 and if that didn't work, I'd try 6.2. Or maybe I'd mix them 50/50 and end up somewhere I wanted to be.

How can you only have those two choices? You using drops that aren't terribly accurate? If you could hit exactly 6.2 with them and then count drops of pH down to hit 5.5, you could add half that amount of down to get near what you'd want.

 

[R3ZIN]

Heheheh Thanks DGR I like your thinking.

 

[dusto2k3]

yes the water with nutes added need to be ph 5.8, you can go to a pharmacy and ask for some phosphoric acid, even if it's diluted to 50% you only need to add a small amount of the phosphoric acid to your nutrient/water mixture to drop the ph, if it drops too much add tap water again to push it back up. 5.8 would be best for the plants. you can buy phosphoric acid in the grow shop too, they call it ph minus (flower phase)

yo gaius, there are different ph adjustment additives from each phase, veg and flower/bloom?

 

[Ministro]

Preciated by the input, since 3 weeks i posted problems with my ladies....
Really hard to get a ph down here, so i tryed with lemon juice and worked just fine. After 1 week i got aquarium ph minus and it worked nice since ive been using it.
Now that they are healthy, i see different grow patterns in buds compared with my last organic soil gro (2 months ago). a bit more thricomes now and they started to fill up, they have 38 days into 12/12 now and looking good. The only thing i didnt liked is that they didnt strech as allways, cause they got a bit stucked due to ph runoff
Ill try to upload some pics to not leave the thread ghosting arround, its allways good to post after u fixed problems so others can learn of iT.
Peace and laters

 

[gaiusmarius]

cool good news that your problems got resolved.

 

[Ministro]

pics

pics

Here are the shots taken from today (39 days into 12/12)
the pheno with some red pistils 12 days to go
the other with more white hairs 17 days to go....

 

[dunkydunk]

Jeezum, they sure look good and healthy now. Good going there, Ministro.

 

[Moppel]

looking good amigo, dont let senora de mercedes smoke it all.