Ph problems

[Matriumcauthon]

I'm currently on my second grow, well maybe third if you count the autos in between the first two. With all my plants before this I was using fox farms oceans forest soil with no problems. This last time they ran out so I figured I'd try the happy frog soil from fox farms... I'm regretting that now. So far all my plants ive used it in are reading a runoff ph of about 4, even with me starting out with 7.0 water. Note I'm using the drops so everything is in a rough range.

I've been giving them water phd up to natural the last couple waterings with no discernable change. Should I ph up the water more, or will that harm the plants? If so how much? Or should I go and flush 2-3 times the fabric pot volume? Or something else entirely?

[MeEasy]

Not sure what stage of the game you are in but runoff ph is pretty hard to read because you could have just measured some salt you just rinsed out of your soil. Are your plants doing ok? I've always used happy frog so don't know ocean stuff but never had a problem with frog

[Matriumcauthon]

These plants are in veg, and to make sure I tested first runoff, then tested again after a minute, and then again as it looked to be nearly done and all reacted bright red/4 to the drops. Almost all 6 of my photoperiod plants are showing strange nuts deficiencies or growing oddly in a couple cases so theres definitely problems.

And yeah id seen a number of folks mention using happy frog which is why I tried it instead of waiting for more oceans forest :/

[MeEasy]

I never checked my runoff and now I grow organic so I don't test any ph or even water to runoff. The only suggestion I can say is to flush with phd water until you get a good ph then put a lite dose of nutes at the very end. At least that will give you a fresh start but make sure you let your soil dry out good before watering again you don't want a swamp at the bottom you'll end up with root problems
good luck my friend

edit = make sure you ph the lite dose of nutes at the end I'd hate for you to have to start over. That just made me think of something else you are checking ph after you add your nutes?? I was trying to help a guy the other day and we kept going back and forth until he said "I check the ph in my water before I put my nutes in every time " I was like oop there it is. Just in case I wanted to share that

[Matriumcauthon]

Yeah I normally ph my water to the 6.5 range after adding nutes lol. I'm using fabric pots so no fear of swamping my roots, made that mistake my very first failed attempt 😅 thanks ill give them a flush tonight and hope that helps.

[gbauto]

How do the plants look?
Any leaf contortion or signs of deficiencies or toxicity.
You could target your feed ph @ 8.0 and that should get you in your 6.5 target ph.

[Matriumcauthon]

about half of them are showing signs of multiple nutrient deficiencies, yellow leaves, mottled leaves, small brown spots (too big for insect spots) and the ones not showing signs yet have begun slowing their growth. i only realized there was a ph issue when i started asking on here about something that looked strange, the veins of the leaves yellowing while the rest of the leaf remained green and someone pointed out PH as a likely culprit.

[MeEasy]

I would never give a plant water outside the desired range. Stay between 6 and 7 since your ph is 4 give ph 7 until you get the runoff of at least 6 then mix up some nutrients and ph it close to 6.7 to bring the ph up a little more.

also anytime your plants are sick it's a good idea to lift your lights up to take the pressure off your plants until they are in better shape then you can drop it back down. This helps the recovery time

[Matriumcauthon]

the light thing is good to know, though mine already had that by virtue of growing next to an autoflower in flowering. i kept having to raise the light to avoid lightburn on the auto already so the plants having problems have about half again the manufacturer suggested distance between them and the light

[MeEasy]

Good us pushing lights down on top of these plants is hard on em especially when they are sick. I went over to the main site to read over their ideas here's the link if you want to see it

https://www.growweedeasy.com/flushing-sick-cannabis#how-to-flush-sick-cannabis-plants

[Matriumcauthon]

thanks, i didnt realize there was a flushing guide lol. theres so much info there its hard to get through it all though slowly i am article by article lol best read up on this before i start that fun. thanks!

[Gluteous]

Never had issues with HappyFrog. I like a mix of HF and OF.

[dphipps1020]

Mix the soils together and you should be fine. I've never had an issue with mine that way.

[Tersky]

i would suggest not testing runoff from fabric pots as the runoff is not usually accurate, especially if the pots have been used before. Salts get soaked up into the fabric and taint the runoff and eventually create salt buildup on outside of pots that looks like white crusty stuff. I tried testing runoff in fabric pots early on and killed a couple plants chasing runoff ph. I stopped testing runoff and just started making sure ph going in was in the correct range and stopped having issues.

[Matriumcauthon]

Thats good to know, I noticed the crust in the pots I used the first time and plan to give any a thorough cleaning and soak before reusing them. Though in my case my ph was super low, the worst plant which was growing tiny yellow leaves began to perked up and greened up within 12 hours of flushing with phd water.

I did notice though that even though I put 15 gallons through each pot, slowly so it didn't all run out the sides, my plants never showed signs of overwatering... at least if they did it was over an hour after I flushed them and they perked up by the next morning.

[gbauto]

^^^ this ^^^