Ok guys, so I recently upgraded my tent from good ole hand watering to a drip system. It has been great so far. I was having to come in from working all day long an spend 2 to 3 hours, depending on what all needed to be done, watering. Needless to say, the girlfriend wasn’t very happy about me not having much time to spend with her lol. Don’t get me wrong I love spending time in the garden but after 10hrs outside I’m ready to relax some nights. So I’m now using 2 small reservoirs and 2 172g/ph pump with 3/4 main tubing and 3/8 dripper tubing with hydro flow dripper stakes.
To the problem, I come down the other morning and just randomly decide to check the ph of the reservoirs. To my surprise the ph was all the way up 7.2. When I mix my reservoirs up I was phing at 6.0 - 6.2. At the time I didn’t know that the ph would ramp up over time. So I adjust the ph down to 5.5 to anticipate the upswing so that I’m watering in at 5.9 - 6.0ph. Later I got the web and found out that this is something that happens it just never crossed my mind. So I go into my garden a couple of days ago and a couple of plants have leaves that are fading to yellow and getting a few rusty looking spots on it (see picture). I’ve never had to deal with any kind of nutrient problems so I’m very uneducated in that department. Could somebody help me out in identifying exactly what is going on and did I fix the problem adjusting the ph or is there more going on? I really strive to keep happy healthy plants, so any tips on preventing this from happening again or anything I’m unaware of from happening. I’m in FFOF soil in 5gal smart pots. If you need anymore info I’ll be happy to provide. Thanks guys and much love. 
To be it looks like you just burned them a bit from the pH raising to that level… Give it some LIFTA while keeping your pH in check and things should be okay.
Nutrient burned plants normally burn at the tips or sides of the leaves. Ph swings like that can cause calcium deficiency and lock out. Re adjust the ph and add a little bit calmag. Calcium deficiency creates rust coloured sports on the bottom leaves like in your picture.
What is LIFTA? I hate the 20 character minimum rule.
Thank you sir. So I’ve created a calcium lock out when I let the ph get too high? Does this happen at 6.5 and up?
Leave It The Fuck Alone… A little proudct here we have at OG brought to you by our friend @ReikoX!
LMAO! That’s great. Is it like a repair type product for when you fuck something up?
I’m not saying you have created lockout no. But the picture looks to me like a calcium deficiency.
When lock out happens is that the worst point? Is it fixable?
Edit: I just read the article you linked and it said that calcium deficiency can appear in soil with a ph of 6.2… so I need to be aiming for 6.2 when I water in?
I have a whole other set of questions about a lil single DWC bucket I was gonna start if anyone could help me out?
Yes it’s fixable. It’s basically stunting your plant. A flush or water change will fix it. Stop stressing. I’ve had plants look far worse than yours and yielded fine. If in soil flush with PhD water then add calmag to nutrients. If dwc. Water change with PhD water and calmag. Less is always more when feeding ANY plant. People use RO water creating calmag problem for themselves as it strips everything out of the water. I use tap water and just ph it to 6.0 in Dwc and 6.5 for soil. Don’t complicate it. It’s a plant. It grew without our help fine before we came along.
If your plants have looked fine in the past with the food you are using add nothing.
What you are observing is a condition called Necrosis. You and anyone else trying to throw more nutrients at your issue will learn more by looking up what that is, so I won’t go in to a definition.
What are you using for food if anything, and where is your water from?
If it is tap water are you letting it sit for a while before using it? How long?
What are you using to buffer your PH? Chemicals? Brand?
FWIW the proper PH range in soil is 6.5 to 7.5, and I would try to water in around 6.6 to 6.8 max which is the sweet spot for cannabis in soil.
Watering in at the lowest PH allowable is what locks out the nutrients that are needed, so it does not matter how much Calmag you throw at it, your not fixing the issue.
I’m using Cutting Edge Solutions nutrient line, tap water that has been left out for 24hr minimum, and General Hydro PH Down.
The spotting looked like calcium deficiency to me with the spotting. I knew the ph swing can cause lockout so I guess I’m sort of correct if it’s not able to uptake calcium that is one of the main nutrients for plant growth.
This is a handy chart for figuring out deficiencies although I have found that getting rid of the old food, making sure the PH is right, and putting in new food solves any deficiency I have come across.
EDIT : From the look of the leaves in your image, they are young leaves, with necrosis, interveinal blotches and leaf edge scorching so the chart says calcium.
So now we pull out another chart
You are in soil and if we look at calcium we see that a PH less than about 6.5 leads to lockout of calcium. magnesium, and molybdenum.
This suggests the low PH locked out calcium leading to the deficiency. I would avoid a PH less than 6.5 for a while to allow your ladies to take up calcium and recover.
I had similar symptoms recently and discovered it was black mould, which was obvious once I got the microscope out when adding calcium did not solve the issue.
As you have an event (too low PH) which matches the symptoms (calcium def) it is unlikely that a secondary cause is to blame.
Too low, not too high. Your ladies would have been fine at 7.2, not optimal but not locking anything out. It was lowering your PH to 5.5 that did it.
Some dolomite Lime is a soil gardeners best friend.
Should turn things around quite quickly
That is the kind of charts I’ve been looking for.
So I still need to adjust the ph so when it does rise it’s not above 6.8 but not low enough that it gets watered at 5.5-5.8, right? Or should I make the reservoir @ like 5.8 when I refill and just let it rise to whatever it gets to until next refill and start @ 5.8 again? I should probably just do these things and learn from it instead of bothering everyone with these questions.
I generally pH my reservoir (Blumat drip system/5gal res with Mega Crop nutes) to 5.8 when filling up, then start over again at 5.8 at the next fill. I would still keep an eye on the pH for a cycle or two and make sure it isn’t rising too high. And I am of the mind that there is no reason not to learn from the mistakes and experience of others if you can avoid going through it yourself! Ask away!
I was spending so much on LITFA that i’ve started brewing my own… I’ll sell y’all the recipe! 
oh hell, it’s 90% kindness, 5% laziness, 15% weed (indicas are better-more couchlock the better).
Hard to believe i’ll say something serious after that, but, the reality is that being let in on the joke was actually helpful as a “memory tool” for how OCD I can be. 
thanks ReikoX, thanks OG. 
<— is a bit too into emoji/emoticons 
if you’re in soil you want 6.8 - 5.8 if you are doing hydroponic / coco
I’m in soil but over time the ph of my res is rising so if I make the res up 6.8 by the time it’s used up the ph will be like 7.3