HELP! New grower, need some help.

[Tofasgt]

Hey guys, first post and also first time grower. In need of some help here.

The setup:
2xP1000 Viparspectra (22 inches above plants canopy)
Vivosun 6" exhaust (vented to the outside of the garage)
Fox Farms Happy Frog soil
3 Gal pots
2x hurricane 6" fans
homemade 4x2 grow box (2x 14x6 intake vents at the bottom)
plants are 4 weeks old (roughly)

I have the Fox Farm trio nutrients mix, but have only watered with the Big Bloom mixed with Cal-mag once (1 1/2 tsp cal-mag with 1tsp FF Big Bloom in 1 gallon of water pH'd at 6.3) the rest of the grow I have only used distilled water also pH'd at 6.3-6.5. Recently I've noticed the lower leaves tips turning brown and rolling backwards. Yesterday the lower leaves started turning yellow/brown. I'm guessing it's a deficiency of some sort but looking for some help identifying the deficiency and how to go about correcting it. The grow box stays around 77-79 degrees and around 50-55% RH. It seems like all growth has slowed substantially if any at all the past week. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Gingerbeard]

If you've been using distilled water and no nutes, your plant has been living on whatever nutes were in the soil. Looks like those nutes are done and your plants are nute starved. I've read that distilled water will actually suck nutrients out of the soil and needs a lot of extras.
I'm thinking you need to get some veg nutes into your plants and plan on extra vegging time to get your plant some recovery. What is yellow is done, but what is green is still growing. Keep your pH above 6.5 and keep up with the CalMag.
Are your seeds auto, fem, or regular?

[Tofasgt]

Wow I never even thought about that, and they are regular seeds. I'm really just experimenting with this grow and trying to learn all that I can. I'd like to get some harvest off of this but I'm honestly not expecting anything crazy. Thank you so much, I'll definitely be giving this a try as my feeding day is tomorrow. I'll add the big grow in with the big bloom and cal-mag this feeding and continue to watch the new growth. Thanks again.

[DeadlyFruit]

Agree with GB. The only difference I have is I am good with a pH of 6-6.5 in soil (although I don’t always watch it closely given my outdoor pots are quite large and have a soil/coco mix). In particular I agree on questioning the use of distilled water unless something is wrong with your regular tap water. Regular water has necessary trace elements not found in distilled water that may not be in your average bottle of nutes.

In short, if your plants are in pots they will eventually use up the nutes in the soil. Once this happens you will need to add nutes every few waterings. You have likely passed that point so give them a feed and see what happens.

[Tofasgt]

DeadlyFruit thanks for the info man, can you explain to me how different pH works in different environments? Like the pot size relative to pH like you were saying? Thanks again and I am going to start watering with the tap water now.

[DeadlyFruit]

Tofasgt There are others with a deeper science background who may be able to reply in detail but from my perspective the larger pot (and in particular one with soil rather than coco) acts as a buffer to sudden pH swings. If the pot is a particular pH it takes more effort to shift the pH within the pot. Think of it like a heat sink. Some pH up/down solutions will state they are buffered and when you use fresh coco you are supposed to buffer it (if it didn’t come buffered).

With regards to why pH is important it is easiest to think about it as each mineral becoming bioavailable to the plant in different pH ranges. I think one of the other replies here mentioned that there is a chart on GWE that shows the pH range for each type of mineral. It is for this reason that it is also recommended you don’t get the pH exactly the same each time you water - let it wander up and down a bit because not all minerals are bioavailable to the plant at the same pH.

And a last suggestion - make sure you calibrate your pH pen periodically because it will slip out of whack. I learned that one the hard way.

[Tofasgt]

DeadlyFruit that makes pretty good sense to me. Especially letting the pH wonder every watering. And I have 2 pH pens and I check with both to make sure they're in the same ballpark, if one shows a pH a couple away from the other I calibrate both pens.

[Gingerbeard]

What about your evolution from seed to now? Did you sprout your seed before going to Happy Frog? Solo cup? Block?
Photos and bagseed are great to start with because you really don't know what you'll get Tofasgt .
Something I understand about plants going male is an amount of stress it goes through. No clue which stress. Don't be surprised if you wind up with balls. Your plants are stressing.

[Tofasgt]

Hey Gingerbeard I did start them out in a solo cup although it was with regular dirt from the farm, lol. I didn't have the happy frog up until about 2 weeks ago. They started out in the solo cup for around 2 weeks, then I transplanted them into 1 gal pot also with regular soil for around a week or so then I got the happy frog soil in and went ahead and potted them in the 3gal with the happy frog. They've been in the happy frog soil for around 2 weeks now. And I definitely understand the plants are stressing and if they do go male (although a disappointment) I won't be to upset. This is really just a learning experience for me. Lol

[Gingerbeard]

Hold on a sec, Tofasgt . If you've had your plants in HF for two weeks, your soil is not depleted unless HF is void of goodness or the distilled water has flushed it out.

[Tofasgt]

Yeah it's been in there 2 weeks, I fed them last night (3ml cal-mag, 2.5ml grow big, and 5ml big bloom) I did a PPM when I did a pH, the PPM was 410, pH was 6.3. I watered them and then tested the run off and got a PPM of 3600 and a pH of 6.1. Does that sound right?

[Tofasgt]

Gingerbeard this is the soil that I have.

https://www.ruralking.com/catalog/product/view/id/119116

[Gingerbeard]

No idea about PPM. pH is as technical as I get.
Putting full nutes in might not be great since you are going from nothing to a whole bunch. But it might also be the right trick.
I would personally remove everything that is yellowed and watch what happens to the remaining green.
Have you taken a look at the GWE website? Looking up one thing can lead to a hundred other things you never thought of.

https://www.growweedeasy.com/

[Tofasgt]

Hell I can do that. Lol
I would like to know what has caused this and exactly what it is though, that way I can avoid it in the future or know what it is early and how to treat it early on.

[Gingerbeard]

I'm pretty confident your distilled water was the issue. Use dechlorinated (leave it out overnight) tap water or vending machine water.
I say tap water with a caveat. Some areas have lousy water. I spent a night at a buddy's place in MO. It was sulfur laden well water. Flint, Michigan. The only ways to tell if it's good is to use it and go for broke or send it to a local university or other local agency. Or, check online.

[Tofasgt]

Going for broke it is, I'll just use my city water and pH it with my regular nutrients. We'll see what happens, like I said, this is more of a learning experience than it is looking for a yield. Lol

[Gingerbeard]

I've not used HF. I'm set with Ocean Forest.

[billyboy]

Lower PH and more food

[Tofasgt]

billyboy can you explain to me about pH and how it relates to things going on in the grow? I understand incorrect pH creates lockout and some other crazy things but what is the advantage of a lower pH as opposed to a say a 6.8 pH?

[Gingerbeard]

I'll tell y'all what. Enough of you have said my 6.5 is a bit high that I'm going to lower it in the future.

[Catfish22]

Here is an article from GWE. It talks about the relationship between pH, substrate and nutrients.

There is a section for soil and one for coco. There are charts that show at what pH certain nutrients have the best uptake. Read it all there is stuff in both sections that will help you.

https://www.growweedeasy.com/ph

[Tofasgt]

Thanks Catfish22

[Gingerbeard]

Tofasgt
Comment 4.1. You said you started out with dirt from the farm. What kind of farm dirt are you talking about and why aren't you growing in it?

[Tofasgt]

Lol Gingerbeard definitely not cia soil. Or at least I don't think it is anyways. I'm talking dried out hillside mountain soil.

[Gingerbeard]

If your mountain is a bountiful mountain, why not use it's soil? I would have to travel a hundred miles from my home to find a place where I could find actual soil. It's called urban sprawl. Everything is manicured dirt or concrete.

[Tofasgt]

Lol, I live in the mountains and everywhere you turn is free soil around here. And to answer your question I just figured I'd use soil that everyone is commonly using that way when issue's (such as these) come about it would be much easier for someone to help identify the problem. Whereas using soil that I have no clue what nutrients it's providing the plants.

[billyboy]

@Tofasgt - these are the charts. Catfish posted the link to the article. I have well water that is very high pH. I find the same for tap water in other places so when I see nute lock out lowering the pH is a good first step

Soil:

https://www.growweedeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/soil-ph-chart-marijuana.jpg

Hydro:

https://www.growweedeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/hydroponics-ph-chart-marijuana.jpg

[Tofasgt]

I did read the article and answered several of my questions, and now that I've read it and looked at the chart real well it all makes really good sense to me. Really appreciate the help that everyone here has given me.

[Tofasgt]

Gingerbeard billyboy DeadlyFruit have done nothing except use tap water pH'd at 6.7 with a 1/2 tablespoon of molasses and they have taken off over the past 3 days and look healthier than they ever have.

[Gingerbeard]

hmmm...

[DeadlyFruit]

I used to use molasses during bloom but I found whenever I did the plants started oozing what looks like little sugary droplets. I think in live soils molasses is broken down in the soil and used by the plant but in coco it just gets sucked up by the plant as it absorbs water and then oozes back out. That is speculation on my part but it seems to make sense given what I observe. I’ve mostly stopped using it as a result. Sticky icky resin is great but sugary droplets not so much.

[Tofasgt]

I don't know the vreak down of what it does of if that is even what has driven this new growth, maybe it's my tap water. Whatever it is, these girls (hopefully) have exploded in growth over the past few days. I'm talking tripling new growth.