Constant problem at a building

[f-e]

f-e:The co2 i was using is NG.I’ve vented air with it on and off.The one I completely vented it was off,and it’s off as we speak with 300-350 ppm from fresh air coming in.
​​​​​​​

You did a full run without co2, and it went from healthy to ill?
The 4 weeks turnaround is a while. Was it getting beni's or h2o2 perhaps? I guess it's not air borne if it took so long. Or a virus. Making something in the pot a real possibility. Food/acid/mold/bacteria.

 

[FletchF.Fletch]

It is from something that was applied to the leaves. Spray was too concentrated, or applied when lights were on.

 

[f-e]

I have been toying with that idea Fletch. It's so pronounced, it's like calcium chloride use. Common as plant food, and common as weed killer. Common in building materials too. Crop after crop though. 4 weeks to get bad, 4 weeks to get better once relocated.


I have looked at the before and after filter reports in some detail. I still don't see which is which. Some stuff goes down, while some goes up. Overall, Calcium is barely changed. It's very low at 22ppm though. Mine is 170ppm and classed as moderately hard. 22ppm is low enough to cause problems. Peters think between 5 and 150 in range. Putting 22 at the top end of moderate. No... I'm not saying 22 is the top end of moderate. That would be silly. It's Peters saying it. 22ppm is bugger all, and our plant loves the stuff.


Edit: Are we seeing plants stripping the calcium buffer from the coco over a few weeks, running out of Calcium and buggering the substrate pH. Then they move location and get more Calcium, that takes weeks to repopulate the coco, getting the pH back in range, and getting to the point where free calcium is available again.

Hmm... that does kind of work.

10 Points to Jackspratt61 if so

 

[Hookah79]

f-e: The top analysis is the prefilter,and the bottom is after.If you zoom at the top left corner of the pic you could see the labels.

The one plant was moved to another location using the same nutes no bennies etc just basic 321 and silica.Fresh air on timer for first 2 weeks then a NG burner set at 500 ppm the following 2 weeks.Yes it did take a while to rebound.She’s now in a 5 gal pot.The lady i spoke too last week did say something about cal-mag being slightly off of some sort,but the convo changed.Again my nutes are the same as Jacks 321 but lower ec.I dont measure in grams just use my blue lab meter to hit .66 scale from Jacks to calnit.
so my water comes at 150 ppm.
I top it up to 600 with Jacks
Add 100 epsom salt to hit 700 ppm
Finish with 300 ppm calnit at 1000 ppm total.
Iam not really sure if i can add more epsom salt as Jack already has some magnesium sulfate in it.
I just don’t think the nutes are an issue if the same formula is being used somewhere else,which by the way i did go and purchase new batch of powders for this last batch.

FletchF.Fletch:Yes the plants were sprayed it’s possible that might’ve made em worse,but notice the 2 bigger plants dont look effected by that if that was the case.Idk maybe it’s just cause they’re older.

Jackspratt61:I will first thing tomorrow.

As of now i have both rooms exchanging air nonstop with wall/floor fans and scrubbers running atm.Idk how much longer will it take for this foam to completely finish off gassing if that’s the issue.

 

[Hookah79]

Some root shots from today.

 

[jackspratt61]

Some root shots from today.

What Ca sources do you have?

 

[Hookah79]

What Ca sources do you have?

Do you mean in the feed or on hand?

300 ppm of jacks cal-nitrate plus the 22 ppm of cal from tap.
I did give them some brix balance microbes last week without calmag.I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the calcium got washed out non the less.

I called the manager of the insulation company today,and he stated that he’s only had a call once about plants having issues which was caused by using some type of paint on the foamed ceiling which resulted into moisture sucked into it,whatever that meant.He also stated that 99% of it is off gassed and it would take about a year to completely be done.And not to worry since i have enough air exchange going on.

I started RO today so we’ll see.

 

[f-e]

f-e: The top analysis is the prefilter,and the bottom is after.If you zoom at the top left corner of the pic you could see the labels.

The one plant was moved to another location using the same nutes no bennies etc just basic 321 and silica.Fresh air on timer for first 2 weeks then a NG burner set at 500 ppm the following 2 weeks.Yes it did take a while to rebound.She’s now in a 5 gal pot.The lady i spoke too last week did say something about cal-mag being slightly off of some sort,but the convo changed.Again my nutes are the same as Jacks 321 but lower ec.I dont measure in grams just use my blue lab meter to hit .66 scale from Jacks to calnit.
so my water comes at 150 ppm.
I top it up to 600 with Jacks
Add 100 epsom salt to hit 700 ppm
Finish with 300 ppm calnit at 1000 ppm total.
Iam not really sure if i can add more epsom salt as Jack already has some magnesium sulfate in it.
I just don’t think the nutes are an issue if the same formula is being used somewhere else,which by the way i did go and purchase new batch of powders for this last batch.

FletchF.Fletch:Yes the plants were sprayed it’s possible that might’ve made em worse,but notice the 2 bigger plants dont look effected by that if that was the case.Idk maybe it’s just cause they’re older.

Jackspratt61:I will first thing tomorrow.

As of now i have both rooms exchanging air nonstop with wall/floor fans and scrubbers running atm.Idk how much longer will it take for this foam to completely finish off gassing if that’s the issue.

She uses 321 and you use something the same as 321. The same?

You just use your truncheon. I have found they read lower as the batteries fade, which can go on for months. I also have two here, one says 10 while one says 14 and I have another on standby that would say 12. They are my tool of choice, but you do need to keep your eye on them. The 10 and 14 meters read about the same to 6, then the 14 one gets ahead. Though sometimes they agree at 10 still. There is no hard and fast rule to it, as bio film grows over them. I saw someone using one without the cap on once. That gives some well wack readings. They are very sensitive to environmental changes. If you just own one, you never realise. I suspect all EC meters are the same. They need constant cleaning and not moving between different duties to give stable readings. Its easier to just have a few around and run them dirty. You get less drift.

Get some calibration solutions, or take it to the ladies at least. You need to see how much different they are. I don't think what you are doing will work though as different salts have different EC's. It's the reason behind the 500 640 and 700 scales. They are all reading EC and guessing the PPM of the salts, but different salts. That's how the PPM is on the truncheon twice, but differently. It's telling you what the ppm would be, it you used particular salts. With this in mind, you can't* add 50%? more by weight, measuring it in EC terms, if the salts are different

If you want to mix powders by weight or ppm (same thing) than you need scales. Mixing by EC won't represent the same amounts.

 

[f-e]

If the top image is before the filter, then passing through the filter gains N P K Ca & Mg.
What sort of filter adds all those. A used one installed backwards?

 

[Hookah79]

If the top image is before the filter, then passing through the filter gains N P K Ca & Mg.
What sort of filter adds all those. A used one installed backwards?

I know i have it installed properly,but gaining NPK is very strange too.Good catch F-e.The only few things I noticed at the time was aluminum going up from 0 to 0.15 and chloride still showing up in the analysis.I called Hydrologic about chloride still showing up in the analysis and was told that they’d replace both filters just to be told 2 days later that the filter mainly removes chlorine and not chloride,which i had assumed they were almost the same.

 

[Hookah79]

Strange that some of those symptoms they’re having resembles this here

 

[Creeperpark]

If your starting water is 150 ppm and your add 100 Epsom salts, that makes your starting water 250 ppm and is high for starting water. You want a 9 to 3 ratio for calcium and magnesium. If you are starting RO water today, its best to do it gradual, so mix the RO with the old water for week. RO water will give false pH readings, unless there is at least 120 to 150 ppm of something in it. So, I would recommend use cal-mag to fortify the RO and stabilize the water pH, and drop the Epsom salts completely. I use 130 ppm of cal-mag to stabilize my water before adding nutrients. 90 ppm calcium and 40 ppm mag and then add the rest of the nutrients. Always have your water tested by a private water testing company because the gov print outs are miss-leading to cover their ass's.

 

[Creeperpark]

Here's the way I see "Cation Exchange Capacity" and the importance of using clean water. If one has 100 steel b bs, some good bbs, and others bad bbs, mixed together and 70 magnets, Bs Bs being the nutrients and magnets being the plant receptor sites and release them to make contact. After they combine there will still be 30 b bs with no place to link up and be left out. Its the same with dirty water if you have more negative ions than positive ones then the positive are left out and have no place to link up and are of no use. The plant can't get those extra 30 needed because of blockage so it shows a deficiency. If doesn't find enough nutrients then all of the wasted energy results in the plants death.

 

[Creeperpark]

What’s up ICMaggers!,been a while for me.

So i keep having these constant problems at an old vacant building that we renovated.Both rooms are completely sealed with 2” closed cell spray foam top to bottom plus drywall/frp panels.I do run fresh air intake/exaust on a timers with dampers/hepa filters inline.

Iam going on my 3rd batch of plants that keep getting sick to the point that I discarded the previous 2 and this one could be on its way out again if something doesn’t change.The issue starts with leave tips turning brown and curling down,then it travels through the whole plant.Roots starts turning beige from pearl white.The plants stops eating with leaves curling and twisting.

I feed them Jacks 321 at 1.2-1.4 ec.I have tried every single environment possible.Co2 on/off,foggers to raise humidity,lowering/raising temps.Moved them from MH to Gavita DE.Treated them with root cleaners/enzymes etc.Moved from tupur to straight coco.Nothing seems to work.

Now the building was vacant for 10-15 yrs with a collapsed roof and used to be a mechanic shop of some sort.My water pressure is low so I suspect there could be some issues with it. So i went ahead and got it tested by JR Peters and they said that i have good water.I am currently using a big boy filter.So the tests show before and after.Could there be some bacteria ,etc growing in the underground pipes since they weren’t being used?.Couple of guys i know use only the same filter on the same street with no issues whatsoever,one who’s literally next door to me.

I had fellow growers inspect the plants to see if there was bugs on plants/roots but nada.We’re thinking it’s the water source and to try RO as to strip everything out.I am thinking it’s either the water or something off gassing of some sort??? .iam hand watering atm and i did find black mold/gunk inside the watering hose so idk that could be the culprit.I just hate to go invest money in an RO system when that might not be the isssue.I was thinking of calling the water department and complain about the low pressure,maybe they can repair the underground pipe which is copper where is sticks out.

Apologies for the long post.Appreciate your thoughts on this.

Have you found out what the problem is? It would be interesting to know what the final outcome is. .

 

[Hookah79]

Have you found out what the problem is? It would be interesting to know what the final outcome is. .

The plants are doing slightly better.I did put em in the hallway for one night and they automatically perked up.I raised the temps to 85-90 and lowered humidity to 45% with 24/7 air exchange.Not ideal for the plants but i am willing to lose em in order to get whatever that’s there to offgas.The flower room that’s unoccupied the temps are at 95 degrees with 45% humidity, and 24/7 air exchange.

when I first cracked the temps that high a strong smell of paint come out.I actually drove back home high from them fumes when I realized it.

I spoke to my contractor friend that set up the rooms and painted the foamed ceiling.He told me a fellow customer had the same issues for 3-4 cycles as he also remembered painting his foamed ceiling.

I didn’t have power at the time and we used torpedo heaters to dry out the paint,which he said put out humidity.The foam contractor said that the only issue he had with someone complaining of issues is when the paint used on foam trapped humidity.Which is kind of making sense.

The building was set up when it was getting cold and didn’t have enough power to run dehumidifiers and ventilations to help it offgas.So high humidity trapped everything in it.

Iam not ruling out water either.I am still trying to figure out what to test for,as the people i spoke to on the phone don’t know much about agriculture.

I will keep you posted.

 

[Creeperpark]

To de-fumigate or decontaminate the grow area you need to raise the temperatures to turn the chemicals from a chemical into a gas or vapor "sublimation" . Keep the temps around 85 to 95 F or 29 to 35 C for 48 hr. and put a few open bags of cat litter inside. You can open the bags flat on the floor or spread the litter over the area. Before you put the litter inside, go inside and smell after the heat has been on, and see if you smell chemicals. You may have to do a couple of times, but it will work well.
When feed as you go systems are used, its always best to use pure water to assure good cation exchange.

 

[Hookah79]

Well iam back for some updates and unfortunately iam still having the same issues.

I ended up replacing main water from the street all the way to the inside of the building,and that didn’t help.I went ahead and epoxied the concrete floors thinking maybe old oil spots were off gassing and that didn’t help either.I went back to filtering my water with RO and switched the nutes from Jacks to Atheena for the last 3 weeks and nada……

As i said previously plants come in healthy green and take a dive 10-14 days in.Tips will curl down go yellow then brown,til it completely dries up n falls.To me it looks like some type of calcium issues some have mentioned earlier.But what idk???.

I finally found someone to do a water analysis that i’ll enclose bellow.The other hypotheses is that there’s still something off gassing….

 

[Creeperpark]

The plant photo above shows a high pH or hydroxyl content and locking out micronutrients. Your old water was starving the plants from the high TDS that is in it. Always use pure water with every grow or expect problems. When you use RO water you need to fortify it with cal-mag. Mix enough to make 126 ppm or less in the water and let it set. After it sets and gets stable, mix in the fertilizer nutrients. I use a low ppm fertilizer mix with every watering to ensure the plants get a constant source of all the nutrients the plants need. Your City water is knocking the plant's chemistry off due to having to process all the shit in the water. Just do a small batch using RO with cal-mag and watch the plants take off.

 

[troutman]

1st thing, drop the pH to the 6.2- 6.5 range.

 

[Hookah79]

The plant photo above shows a high pH or hydroxyl content and locking out micronutrients. Your old water was starving the plants from the high TDS that is in it. Always use pure water with every grow or expect problems. When you use RO water you need to fortify it with cal-mag. Mix enough to make 126 ppm or less in the water and let it set. After it sets and gets stable, mix in the fertilizer nutrients. I use a low ppm fertilizer mix with every watering to ensure the plants get a constant source of all the nutrients the plants need. Your City water is knocking the plant's chemistry off due to having to process all the shit in the water. Just do a small batch using RO with cal-mag and watch the plants take off.

Shouldn’t the units on the same block be having the same issues then?. I know 2 of them that are only using a chlorine and sediments filter(big boy filter) with no issues whatsoever.Water comes out at 150 ppm ,one of them is literally next door to me .We are all getting water from the same main pipe from the street.One is using heavy 16 the other is Athena.

When using powder(Jacks or Athena)the cal-mag is split into part A and B.Are you suggesting to add a separate calmag first?.That would surely elevate my EC..

I have never had to us RO before and not even a chlorine filter thru tons of previous runs.My personal grow the water comes out at 150 ppm it aerates overnight and i just add Jacks A and B with no issues whatsoever.It even passed the metals part when i did flower analysis.