Newbie in need of help diagnosing a deficiency

[SkinnieP]

Hey all, I'm a brand new grower and while I've done tons of research, I would like to lean on the experience and expertise of you all to help with this issue. I'll give specs on the setup and then show pictures of the plant in question.

16-Day old plant, this strain is OG Kush.
5-Gallon DWC system, with a top feed hose (Vivosun from Amazon)
RO water PH'd between 5.8 and 6.5. It usually goes up after a few hours, so I add PH Down to keep it in range.
I'm using what I THINK is a relatively small dose of each nutrient, the ending PPM is around 550.
Nutrients used are:
Silica
CalMag
GH Micro, Gro, and Bloom
Diamond Nectar,
Yucca Wet (Wetting Agent)
Rapid Start
Hydrogaurd

You can see she's upright and perky, looks pretty happy aside from the first true leaves, and a little bit of discoloration is happening on the second set of leaves as well.
Based on the leaf coloring in the pics, can anyone help me figure out what this lady is trying to tell me?

I also have a white widow plant, same age that looks REALLY sad, and I think she may have root rot? Not sure how that's happening but we'll tackle one problem at a time here. Will post pics of that one a little later on.

I appreciate all who may take the time to provide some insight and guidance for this new guy. Thank you.

 

[Bluey]

Hi and welcome

You appear to have used too strong nutes off the bat but then corrected. Pretty bad early nute burn.

This will probably slow it down for a while.

The color is just a fraction light on so I'd be looking at varying the pH a little and maybe upping the EC a fraction at risk of more burn though.

It should pick up as it matures.

Edit. I just checked what PPM converts to EC on the 500 scale and yours still feeding it a lot of nutes. I'd lower that down 10 to 20%.

Your pH is out of range. You should be pH'ing within a narrower window of say +/- 0.15 at most. I don't know what is ideal for your nutes and those clay balls. Mine in coco is 6 early on to about 6.3 later on.

 

[bboyfromwayback]

You’ll get 100 different responses to a question like this. In my experience most issues are either ph, under/over watering or too much light

 

[SkinnieP]

Thanks Bluey. (my kids favorite show) Sorry lame dad joke.
Yeah I kind of had a feeling I went a little overboard on the nutes. I just want to make them big and strong and grow fast! Might do a res change with half strength nutes and see how that works out.

 

[SkinnieP]

Appreciate the input, wayback

 

[bboyfromwayback]

Sure thing. Most issues tend to be ph. Reservoirs can fluctuate and drift up the longer they go between refills. Best investment I made was on a Bluelab ph controller. They make ph control simple

 

[SkinnieP]

You know I was eyeballing that exact controller on Amazon today and ALMOST pulled the trigger. Maybe in a few years I'll get one. Does seem awesome to take worrying about PH out of the equation though. Cheers.

 

[Rootsruler]

Agree. In water media you want to run at a lower pH than you do in soil based media. 5.8 is the number you want to approximate. Most of the water growers I know keep their solutions around 350 - 400 ppm. Water media doesn't need as high a PPM as soil does as it's directly feeding rather having to go through the entire soil process.

Also, running with water media for your first grow is not advisable. Too many factors that you have to keep in check IMO but you're already here. Aside from the nute burn they look good.