Coco plant has been dying for weeks, no solutions yet. What do you guys think?

[Shneex45]

Hey guys,

So I’ve tried my hands on growing weed in may this month. It was with organic peat substrate (Biobizz), and the same nutrient line. It failed severely, as both my plants had some kind of a severe iron lockout or something similar, even with a good PH pen (Apera PH20), good temps, good humidity, everything.

Now I switched to coco, and everything went fine at first. The plants grew nicely, I followed the cocoforcannabis guide, but only did one watering a day, rather than multiple. I water once a day with 15-20% runoff, dechlorinated, oxygenated water out of the tap, with an EC of ~0.35 by nature. I use Canna Coco Professional Plus coco substrate, with the Canna Coco nutrient line. I have epsom salts as additive, and a directly available silica additive (Aptus Regulator), which I use sparcely with around 0.05ml per L of nutrient solution. I know how to mix them, Silica first, then the other stuff in the correct order. No cloudyness, nothing.

After around 2 weeks, the problems appeared. My leaves all turned crispy brown everywhere, top, bottom, just everywhere, not in a special order from bottom to top or anything, just EVERYWHERE. The tips never started “burning” by some kind of nutrient overdose, but the sides of the leaves rather started mushing all up & becoming brown, then the rest of the leaves. Growth got stunted, nothing happened at all anymore. I remember the first symptom on two big fan leaves, they showed up as a very noticeable magnesium deficiency.

I then informed myself again, tons of information here and there, and I might’ve found my enemy - Organic PH Down. Some people absolutely warned against using citric acid in a coco grow, especially if your tapwaters PH is above 8, which mine is. It will just fluctuate too severely over the day.

So I got GH PH Down, the chemical stuff. I flushed the whole 5 gallon fabric pot of my biggest plant with PH corrected water, then re-fed the plant with 1.6EC @ 5.8PH, same for the smaller plant which you can’t see in the posted image, but it got 1.4EC, same PH.

2 days later, I thought I finally see new growth, healthy growth. But today, I can say that nothing happened at all, really. The damage is still spreading, the once new growth is slowly turning light brown again, just crisping up. I’m losing tons of leaves here and there, the plant in the image was once very leafy and beautiful, it had HUGE dark green fan leaves, bigger than my hand. It’s ALL gone, and all I’m left with are light green leaves that are dying by the hour.

I’m helpless. My poor plants are dying and I have found no fix so far. Here are some general infos for anyone who needs them:

• Canna Coco Professional Plus 70/30 Perlite
• Canna Coco nutrient line with the organic additive line (rhizo, cannazym), GH PH Down
• Tapwater 0.35EC, oxygenated, dechlorinated
• Watering once a day with 15-20% runoff @ 1.6EC / 5.8PH (sometimes 5.9, 6)
• Biggest plant is in a 5gal fabric pot, smaller plant in 1gal (same symptoms)
• Temp / Humidity day: 71-75°F / 50-55% humidity. Temps are too low, but they can’t cause this severe damage.
• Temp / Humidity night: 65°F / 50-55% humidity.
• Light: MarsHydro FC3000 at 100% to get more heat in the tent, around 550PPFD at canopy level
• Smart ventilation kit with humidity and temperature control
• EC Meter noname, but works fine, PH pen Apera PH20, 100% calibrated

Everything points to a severe PH problem / lockout, but the PH has already been stabilized almost a week ago with chemical PH down already, but it didn’t help.

[Habitt]

@Shneex45

I water once a day with 15-20% runoff

Do you keep the entire medium saturated everyday?

[grotebag]

Sounds like lots of ‘moving parts’…especially while stoned…I could fuck that up, easy.
Sorry that’s not more helpful, good luck with it.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[ColeLennon]

Looks fried. I would toss it and start over. Go easy on the nutrients.

[pharmerfil]

It looks like you have all the building blocks for success so I think you could salvage this run if you act quickly. Plants can recover fast in coco in my experience.

How far away is your light from the top of the plant? I’d personally turn it down or move it further away until your light level is about 300ppfd.

As far as nutrients I think you may want to simplify. One of the best things I did for my growing was starting was just a basic nutrient program and finishing a run without adding anything else. That gave me a baseline for when I used additives moving forward. You may want to cut out all the additives and just use the base canna nutrients and see if things improves. It’s hard to nail down a problem with so many ingredients and you really can grow great plants with just the basics.

Good luck

[shag]

@Shneex45

Watering once a day with 15-20% runoff @ 1.6EC

I would let her dry out until she wilts, keep track of the #of days it takes to wilt.
Then you will know how often to water.
Also cut the feed strength in half until she rebounds.

Did ya charge the coco with calcium before you started?

Also what did the runoff/runout water test at, make sure to check both PH and EC of the runout.

A spray with calcium nitrate or mag nitrate should help to green her up a bit.

Good luck
Shag

This too…

@pharmerfil

It’s hard to nail down a problem with so many ingredients and you really can grow great plants with just the basics.

[hempy]

They look toast even if you could bring them back do you really want to put plants that went threw so much stress into flower ?

Coco core is a great medium even the pre washed amended coco core i flush before i use it.

All i do is run a good quality nutrient and follow the recommended mix and EC and PH after i mix so i know its in the ball park.

[Andrexl]

Hi Brother,I use the same stuff as you.What I see Is some K issues.Those burning look like that.
K Is being released by canna Coco,their formulation Indeed takes that in account.
What I see as a possible culprit Is pH for sure.Canna Coco has a neutral pH of around 7 if I Remember right and you don’t want to mess with that kind of buffer,also,when you flished with plain water you depleted a lot of the calcium ions probably,releasing Sodium instead possibly.
What you want to do Is flush with a mild dose of nutrients,never flush Coco without nutrients.
Also,you Need some calcium-magnesium with Coco coir and High wattage leds,It brings all kind of problems to not supplement a Little more calmag for CoCo CeC.
I see leaves burning and from what I can think of,transpiration rates regulates calcium uptake,now transpiration rates are also influenced by K,It helps in the process of opening the stomatas in the leaves.That plant could be burning by not being capable of right transpiration by Nutrient unbalance driven by bad pH management and further plain water flush.
That s what I think

[Shneex45]

Hey guys, first of all - You’re all amazing for such quick and detailed responses. Haven’t seen something like this in a while.

Here are some news, infos, bad and good:

I haven’t used the full nutrient line for a while, I just wanted to mention what I own. I only use Canna A+B and some Epsom salts, as my tapwater has 49mg/ml of calcium, and 5mg/ml of magnesium. The silica additive I have long stopped using, as it just complicated things.

All the nutrients / additives have been used from seedling stage onwards though, with no issues at all at first. Later I changed it.

---

I just pulled the plug on both these plants though. I didn’t kill them, but I replanted them into smaller pots. Here’s why.

The biggest plant in the image above just started drooping its top stems out of nowhere. They just felt dead. So I had to act quick and do… something. This has never happened before.

I pulled it out the coco, and for whatever reason, the roots have NEVER grown into the 5gal pot. I literally pulled the 1gal rootball out of the pot, with not one root being stuck in the newer substrate. I literally checked everywhere. It has been a while since I transplanted, so let me tell you - I am confused as heck.

The other strange thing - The root ball is absolutely healthy. Like 100% healthy. It’s an absurd amount of healthy roots, almost 80% of the 1 gallon of substrate were just roots. I washed it all out several times, carefully, and replanted into 100% fresh coco, but back into a 1 gallon instead of 5 gal. Yes this may be backwards, but I do have 3 new seeds currently germinating and I’ll just bite the bullet on these two plants and let them do their thing in smaller pots.

I may have hurt them again with this, but what’s there to save anyways? I just wanted them out of this hellhole of whatever has happened in that substrate because of me, so I did this.

Now here I am, with two very sick plants, with their feet in completely new substrate. What is my next move if I want to try to save them? I imagine I should water them at around 5.8PH and a low dose of basic a+b nutrients, around 1.1EC maybe?

Here’s a little comparison if anyone’s interested with my two plants, but quality sucks as I can only upload one image:

[Cannacryptic]

I think you have compounding issues. None alone could do the damage, but when compounded…

First and foremost, chemistry is king. Something has your chemistry sideways to the degree it’s jacking up the plant’s ability to transfer water. So in that respect it would seem the osmotic pressure that drives the pump, is being replaced by ionic diffusion. Essentially, instead of water crossing into and up the plant taking nutes with it, nutes are leaving the plant, water is at a stand still. This is going to cause bleaching up top and tissue damage. See how your best green is in shaded spots from the torched leaf above it? That’s one possibility. These symptoms could also suggest nute toxicity that accrues over time, little by little, until the salts are stacked that any precipitation will cause a nuclear waste land when rehydrated. This can occur in small areas that are easily overlooked, but are torching roots systematically. This happens easily in large containers watered top down. So I think there is an approach to tackle them all. You may loose the plants, but an attempt to correct could yield valuable insight even in the event of a loss. So try, don’t just pull them. Maybe start some new seeds on the side, but learn from these. Here’s a possible remediation plan you could try:

1. 5 gl is a bit much for coco and could be causing dry spots internally killing roots. Prepare some fresh media for a 1-2gl container. Prepare a nute soln in a 5 gl bucket; ~250ppm pH 5.8-6.0 and aerated. Gently remove the plant from its container and dunk it in the bucket. Let the media fall away, you’re taking her clothes off, slow and gentle is the way. Test the water to see how it’s changing in pH and conductivity. This step could tell you everything. When you have most of the media free from the roots, gently replant her in a the smaller container with fresh media. Now give that a good watering with a 250 ppm soln pH 5.8-6.0 with alot of run off. Place that on absorbent matting (paper towel works) and start drawing out moisture until the media is saturated but not drowning. That should give you a subsurface hard reset. Sub irrigate for a while after this to avoid over and under watering. Stay around the 250 ppm mark until you see positive change. Cut off all dead and dying leaves. You’re looking for new growth to be clean and green. Keep the container size no larger than 3gl, 2gl often being optimal. Better to irrigate often and avoid dry spots of death. This also supports the explosive growth coco is famous for. Once a week apply a good watering with a weak soln of only calmag to flush any overburden of salts and recharge the coco.

2. While she is recovering from repotting, max lighting will be torturous. Dial that way back and get heat on the leaf surface from infrared (should be integrated in your light already but if not reptile heat lamps work). This calls for the plant to move nutes up to do work. Getting that heat from increasing photosynthetic light intensity can be harmful. If you can get her in front of a sunny window here and there the sun will give her healing rays on a level nothing else can really fuck with.

Lastly, actually this should be inserted back with preparing fresh media, use Real Growers Recharge to get beneficial microbes in the mix. These little critters are regulatory agents for almost all biological processes occurring in nature. They can mitigate all kinds of situations without you ever even knowing it happened. Keep you media bolstered with them always.
That’s my two pennies, hopefully I’m not completely full of shit.

[ColeLennon]

@Cannacryptic

my two pennies

That’s $8.80

[TopShelfTrees1]

Some great advice here. I’ll just add I water my coco every other day usually, every three after uppotting past 1gals to 2/3/4gs until they are fully situated and thriving @Cannacryptic love everything you said, very detailed and concise. Much respect

[webeblzr]

Welcome to Over Grow 2.0,
you sure have all the tools!!
So, I’ll say this, myself, I like to up pot, when I start seeds off.
I go from folded paper towel, and as they crack open, I place my taps, into a plain medium, no nothing, medium and a sprout.
After it is in the pot, I give it some water, once it weeps out the bottom of the 4" nursery pot. In my early days, I was taught to lift the wetted pot and get a feel of it’s weight.
Then add water as it weighs less.
I do this for until the plant showed me 4-6 points, (or set of leaves poking out) the first emerging leaf the round ones, do not count.
Then I would fill a 1 gallon pot with fertilized medium, and up pot.
I still only water/tea/feed when the pot dried back, and enough to weep out.
I run a perpetual set up myself, but this is always my starting method.
NOT better, NOT the only way, just a way.
I think your over watering right now, something we all have done on our learning path.
Gardening is meditation, slow down, breath in, focus, breath out, focus. Forget perfection, forget the end, just stay in the now, light, water, air, time, nutrients, repeat.
You really have all the stuff, you know a lot, just pause to reflect, then do the chore.
Sometimes just a looksee in, works better than going into action.
Have fun in your grow!! All the best to ya!!
webe

[HolyAngel]

@Andrexl

Hi Brother,I use the same stuff as you.What I see Is some K issues.Those burning look like that.
K Is being released by canna Coco,their formulation Indeed takes that in account.
What I see as a possible culprit Is pH for sure.Canna Coco has a neutral pH of around 7 if I Remember right and you don’t want to mess with that kind of buffer,also,when you flished with plain water you depleted a lot of the calcium ions probably,releasing Sodium instead possibly.
What you want to do Is flush with a mild dose of nutrients,never flush Coco without nutrients.
Also,you Need some calcium-magnesium with Coco coir and High wattage leds,It brings all kind of problems to not supplement a Little more calmag for CoCo CeC.
I see leaves burning and from what I can think of,transpiration rates regulates calcium uptake,now transpiration rates are also influenced by K,It helps in the process of opening the stomatas in the leaves.That plant could be burning by not being capable of right transpiration by Nutrient unbalance driven by bad pH management and further plain water flush.
That s what I think

All of this is spot on.

Probably don’t need any epsom salts with canna coco. It’s got a bunch of magnesium as it is. Quite a bit of Calcium too, that could lockout K.

[TopShelfTrees1]

Yes, I never added Cal-mag when running canna but I did add calcium every 3rd watering. Canna is an epic line ! I wish it was still available locally as I loved it very much, the day it dissapeared from local shelves I switched.

[neogitus]

Watering (feeding) once per day is probably too much in that size of container with plants that small, possibly even the 1 gal until the roots can fill up the entire pot and the media actually dries back in that time. Depending on how big you’re gonna flower the plant you might actually want to keep them in the 1 gal pots for the entire life of the plant (if you’re willing to feed them multiple times per day at that point)

When I see a plant that fried the first thing I think of is media pH. Do you measure your runoff EC and pH? It can be helpful in some situations. If the pH in the runoff is way off from what you’re feeding it could mean that something is causing that. Possibly the uptake of certain cations and anions can make the pH decrease or increase depending on what is taken up. If the EC is way off it could mean buildup, or plant isn’t taking up (or taking up too much) of whatever you’re giving it.

I’d also possibly think of raising the humidity. In the 50s for veg seems pretty low and could possibly affect stomata being open or closed on the leaf pores affecting the efficiency for photosynthesis. Probably want it to be 70+

As someone else said above a infrared thermometer is a good investment to be able to see what your leaf surface temp is. If I notice my plants don’t seem to be growing, I’ll notice a drop in humidity in the room because they’re not transpiring anymore. Possibly due to closed stomata. When that happens the leaf surface temp can actually be hotter than the room temp and that can cause major issues with the leaves.

I’ve heard other people here talking about using citric acid as a pH down and it also giving them issues (I think I heard it not holding the pH for as long as other things)

I’ve actually had issues feeding at too low of an EC also. I feed plants that are smaller than that 3.0EC with what I use.

To try and “correct” the media never use just straight up water, but a light nutrient solution as it is more effective at washing out possible buildup.

[Shneex45]

So lots of stuff I don’t fully understand here. Maybe it’s because of the english barrier, but I try my best. How do I prevent K issues if it’s being released by canna coco? How do I prevent to mess with the PH of 7 by the canna coco substrate, if I have to go down to 5.8?

Right now I’m in completely new substrate, so I hope I can somehow still jumpstart those plants (with lots of luck). I gotta say that my plants are actually standing upright again, rather than having droopy topstems like yesterday. They literally just pointed down on the top, as if they’ve lost all energy, way before lights out. And even with lights out, the stems never drooped, only the leaves did. So at least something positive I guess.

I sadly couldn’t have done what Cannacryptic has recommended, as I already repotted 3 hours before that comment, I feel like I can’t do this all over again, that’d probably be a death sentence for these girls.

I did dial the light back though, I’m hovering at around 350PPFD now. The “Real Growers Recharge” is not available where I live, but I do have around 70 cubic feet of ~50 year old compost, adding up every year. Does that help in any way?

Here’s my findings so far: 15 hours ago, which was the last post I made, I decided to downsize the pots. After removing the substrate carefully by washing off the roots, I watered with 1.1 EC @ 5.8PH, just to get the substrate all ready. I have to consider that my tapwater itself already has an EC of 0.35, so it isn’t really a lot with the nutrients added.

Today, I did the second watering after exactly 15 hours, not because I exactly have to, I will probably just annoy the plants right now, but because I wanted to check PH and EC just for the heck after all of this. The EC came out as 1035EC in full numbers, input was at 11XX something (or just 1.1). PH went in at 5.8, and came out at 6.5 after 15 hours. I know some literally despise checking the PH, but they’re… dying. I feel like it can at least somewhat help, any info helps, especially these numbers right now.

As expected there’s otherwise no change, but they do seem okay right now. I probably can’t expect any changes in the next few days, I can just hope for the best right now, and try to read through each and every comment to give me some more input, so thanks already for all this amazing help.

My newest 3 seeds are already on their way, they popped, but the taproots are still tiny. I’ll give them another day until they’re ready to plant into jiffys, and then it’s 1/3 gallon, and 3 gallon as final pots for them.

[BigF]

I question the tap water. Without knowing the mineral content, who knows what is locking out what. Too much smoke to find the fire. Very highly recommend starting with RO when growing in coco.

[Shneex45]

Could this be of any help for anyone? This is my water report, maybe this will give some more insight as to what may be wrong.

And sorry for the funky quality, I had to auto-translate, otherwise it’d take ages. The element under “Ammonium” is “Boron”, don’t know why it says “there is”

[Shneex45]

I hope a double post is fine, as I wanted to add this, maybe this will help. It has almost zero connection to my other plants, but this plant is in the same tent, and gets the same water.

It’s a random autoflower seed, and I already had this happen in my first attempt. This is NOT coco substrate in this case, but an “organic” peat substrate by BioBizz (BioBizz Light Mix: Sphagnum peat, peat moss, perlite, worm castings & low pre-fertilizer). My first two autoflowers literally died because of exactly this problem. Growth was amazing, literally the most beautiful plant I’ve ever had. Dark green leaves, huge ones too, insane node-spacing, it was just beautiful. And suddenly all the new growth just came out extremely yellow. This plant did not yellow from the outside in, but from the inside outwards.

This caused extremely stunted growth, and now it’s pretty tiny, and already in pre-flower. The same exact thing happened to my other two autos a few months ago, and they then died in early flower by not doing anything for almost 2 months after flowering started. No new growth, yellow NEW growth, and suddenly some strange deficiencies or whatever on the biggest leaves, with brown edges everywhere, but not crispy, just “mushy”.

My two photo plants in coco have similar problems, they also had this new yellow growth on some parts, but they somehow died way quicker, had symptoms way more severe.

Is there any connection here? Could this info help in some way? I just wanna add as much as possible, so every little detail gets some insight.

The strange thing is that I pretty much ignored this plant. I never overwatered, but rather underwatered it most of the time, I really let it dry out until the leaves almost started drooping, until the fabric pot was really light. I thought I overwatered my first two autoflowers, but apparently that wasn’t the case at all. Also this plant always had praying leaves, slightly pointing upwards, as if it’s as happy as it can be.

I water this plant with 6.3-6.5 PH water (BioBizz recommends 6.3 as perfect input), citric acid as PH down, and as of lately I add fish mix and some of the organic additives. It didn’t change anything at all, it’s been like this for almost 2 weeks now.

I have a friend who lives nearby, he uses the same substrate, same nutrient line (biobizz), and same water source, just a different tap. He was as confused as I am, as all his plants grew more than fine. He literally had no clue & has never seen something like this.