400w HPS, Blumats, Smartpots with Golden Label nutrients

omgwt · Sep 21, 2014

Hello guys, welcome to my grow room :tiphat:

I planted these a few months ago, and been vegging them pretty much for 2 months now
I have however stumbled upon a problem - I think it's the pH which was very high before this point, bought a pH meter the other day and have been running with pH 5.8 in my reservoir for about 3 days now.
Just to confirm this - mind giving me ideas what's causing the problems, if not pH? Thanks

I'm gonna get an EC after harvest since I've invested all my money into the grow, since I'm right now spending ~500 euros a month on weed for consumption I'm looking forward to investing a part of that amount into the grow once my first harvest is finished, to make my setup even better and more of a rolling system (mother plant and such)

My equipment:
Secret Jardin 120W (120x60x160 or something like that).
400w GIB Xtreme HPS bulb with some electronic ballast.
Golden Label nutrients for coco with some adds.
Blumat auto-watering system with a ~10gal (37L) reservoir
Smart Pots 3 gal (11L)
pH meter
285m3 fan silenced and run through a speedregulator, all in all my tent doesn't make more noise than a regular stationary computer.

Pictures from the early days til now:

omgwt · Sep 21, 2014

I just wanna add (since I don't seem able to edit my topic), that I'm running on an tight economy, hence why I couldn't repot all my plants at once and so on.

omgwt · Sep 21, 2014

omgwt · Sep 21, 2014

Oh yeah, I'm running FemaleSeeds PureAK and Iced Grapefruit, 3 of each!
Right now they look sick, i think it's because pH locking out nutrients, hopefully they will recover soon? Advice will be greatly appriciated!

Unclecrash · Sep 21, 2014

Have you raised the ppm or ec since you started the grow? If not they might want more food.

Weeded1s · Sep 21, 2014

Looks a mess but we all start somewhere ya? . I see tip burn so I assume you over nuted it at 1 point and while trying to recover is now lacking n due to lower leaf yellowing. Now the question is why is N not getting through . Ph 5.8 looks fine to me but your pots looked dry to me which could deff cause defficencys.
And now that I double checked..up your nutes on ph 5.8 and you should be golden. Those gals want fries..their fing hungry. Up ec to 1.2 and feed that for a week.
Lastly I dont use them but im sure most would agree...get your nutes, feed sched planned out and make sure it can work for mj (if u need help ask). ..maybe handwater for a bit to see the range your strain can take then once all dialed in add the blumats.
From what I heard recently every week or 2 handwater flush with same nutes and ph to clean media out.
Lets start their G.

Weeded1s · Sep 21, 2014

If upping ec is your only prob..which if everything else is spot on ..then thats that. Upping ec should take care of n prob and slight mag prob I c . Dont use your blumats til we get prob figuered out. Handwater (its easy enough).

Weeded1s · Sep 21, 2014

When plants finally show healthy signs we (the ic grow fam.) will talk about your drip speed without run off or overwatering or underwatering or the Infamous runoff let go. Point here is if you just want to be stubborn run the blumats on .9 ec and up feed ec by hand. But thats wishy washy to say the least.

Unclecrash · Sep 21, 2014

LOL I just did the same thing, I was worried because a buddy gave me the nutes in a water bottle so I was feeding her one teaspoon and im watching her die before me then it hit me, check with the tds meter it was way low like .4ec and its a big plant so I juiced her up till I hit 1ec and wow. I was standing there looking at her and I could swear I was seeing her green up before my eye's, no shit :woohoo:

Weeded1s · Sep 21, 2014

Btw that ec meter isnt a wait til next time thing..wash cars mow lawns or whateves...just get it somehow..its important!!! Without an ec we would just all be guessing and that gets really old really quick. If you ran gh m and b with ro id say 3.5/4.75 = .9 ec 4.5/7 = 1.1 1.2 and 6/9 =1.4 ec. If u add drip clean I get .1 ec per 1 ml per gal. Hope this helps u. Get an ec meter if your just starting out. Lights, medium, ph meter ec meter then get plants..otherwise your setting yourself up for failure to begin with.
Weeds and weeds and weeds.
Weeded1s

omgwt · Sep 21, 2014

I really can't afford an E/C Meter for atleast a week or two. I've been running the nutes according to schedule which was 0.5ml per liter, however now when I read on the big bottles they recommend up to 3 ml per liter, so I'm gonna try upping the nutes to 1,5ml per liter and see if it makes a difference

Unclecrash · Sep 22, 2014

Be careful go in small measures. The bottles are usually high. Ya thats what happened to me Im feeding 400ppm and the plant needs 1000+ it slowly turned yellow not as bad as yours but you could clearly tell it was suffering. And it was cool to watch it turn green in a matter of an hour or so. The EC or ppm is more important than the ph in my opinion. A friend of mine uses neither and is growing lb plants

Unclecrash · Sep 22, 2014

Also every time I checked my ppm against a bottle at said amounts it has never been the same could be part of my fault rushing a round and such Im using a syringe which could give me difference's, my 5ml could be a bit more or less to the next guys.

Unclecrash · Sep 22, 2014

You could also be getting lock outs from no meters. I only been doing it for a while and have allready seen how easy I can make a mistake or not wait long enough for the meter to drop another point or two.

omgwt · Sep 22, 2014

yes i absolutely think i locked out nutes when i didnt use pH meter. right now the tank is like 5.2 pH (recommended by GL in veg) and run-off was still 6.2 pH, so it should balance out soon. I've upped to the recommended 1ml per liter nutrients and they do look a bit better.
I am still looking at ordering an EC meter and some added nutrients that might benefit me (enzymes, rhizotonic and boost accelerator from canna)

omgwt · Sep 23, 2014

Update: a week after pH has been corrected to 5,5-5,9, nutes upped to 1ml/L A+B and Mg

I was wondering what you guys think of the 6th plant, it has obviously had the worst time of them all ... Could it be genetic too, tho? Should I let it bloom with the other 5 or should i just remove it and have more room for the others? I want to turn to 12/12 this weekend, because I can't really afford having them in veg longer

omgwt · Sep 23, 2014

Oh - and should I remove all the yellow/brown leaves and those that look the worse? Or just let them hang on there?

Unclecrash · Sep 24, 2014

Yes if they look like they will not come back, prune her up a bit. Just don't over do it. I like to pop a few off each day so not to over stress her.

Weeded1s · Sep 24, 2014

You can if over 50 % dead but I like to leave em as in nature when the plant is done with its leaves it drops them all by itself. On the complete flip side to that sometimes when I take old stuff off I feel the plant can focus its energy on new growth vs saving the messed up leaf. So up to u really, just watch out for mold starting on rotting sick leaves.

omgwt · Sep 29, 2014

My almost dead plant has pretty much done a full recovery imo! There are still some small leaves in the lower canopy that hasn't really changed, but look on the top!

On a side not I may have some spidermites in my tent, I found a web a couple of days ago and I've seen some fluffy white thing down at coco level... Why do these mites come into the grows to begin with? Just curious... Anyway, I'll be ordering some Pyrethrum 5EC when I can to conquer this.
The battered plant:

Still no E/C meter, and currently I can not buy anything else because of my very limited economy (double electrics bill kinda crushed my thoughts of buying some stuff this next week or two.)

Heres a couple of more pics:

400w HPS, Blumats, Smartpots with Golden Label nutrients

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