I am a first time grower and probably doing all sorts of things wrong. Germination is great but once they get a tad bigger I always run into issues and seem to be the same issues for every plant. I’ve spent so much time reading and watching videos but I get so many mixed answers. Could anyone give me some pointers or a diagnosis? Just trying to grow some medicine w/o breaking the bank. I eventually want to go hydro, when I have more money to invest in it.
Here is what I have:
Area: 3x3x6 grow tent, basement
Lighting: 2x 300w Mars Hydro LEDs. Lights at 18/6
Air: Carbon filter inside on top, fan outside pulling air through duct. Duct opening on bottom to bring in fresh air. Clip on fan for airflow.
Temp/Humidity: Humidifier maintaining 50-60% humidity. Ceramic heat bulb on controls maintaining 71-79F temps, the lower end at night time.
Pots: Misc plastic pots with drainage on bottom. I transplant when I can see roots on the bottom.
Soil: I have tried a few store bought organic ones but all plants are currently in Fox Farms Ocean Forest w/ added perlite
Strains: Blue Dream, Northern Lights, AK47, and White Widow
Water: Was using filtered fridge water PH’d down to 6.0 and around 300ppm. I have well water which is around 7.8 PH and 400-500ppm, so I haven’t been using it. The last 2-3 weeks I have used distilled water PH’d down to 6.0, which is showing around 100ppm. I water depending on how the soil feels on the top 2 inches, every few days.
No additional nutes, yet.
The plants all seem to stay pretty small and stunt in growth too. I don’t know how old anything is because I have failed to keep a journal.
Ocean Forest is generally considered “too hot” for seedlings and young plants, but the overall paleness of the larger plant doesn’t really look like nutrient burn to me…
PPM is… not something I’ve ever measured or cared about for soil grow. What’s the pH of your run-off (i.e. the pH of the first bit of water that comes out after watering)? If your run-off is 6.0, then nutrient lock-out could be a problem – I try to keep things in the 6.3 - 6.7 range.
How far away are your lights from the plants? LEDs are quite intense, especially for seedlings and young plants. I keep my LED light 2 feet or more from my plants at all times. Also I don’t know what “ceramic heat bulb” is, but I’d probably keep that far away from my plants 79 is on the high side, I try to keep mine at 75 day/65 night.
I will measure my run off next time I water. The ceramic heat bulb only turns on when needed. Since it is in a basement it can get pretty cold at night and the bulb does a great job heating the tent. It is kept at the top nowhere near the plants. I’ll adjust it to 65-75 degrees and see what it ends up averaging.
I used the guidelines that came with these LEDs to set the height. After having so many problems I raised the lights at least 2ft above the plants a couple days ago. Maybe having both lamps on right now isn’t the best idea.
Maybe the light might have been too close. Keep it two feet or more from the canopy and see how they do. Visually it looks like salt build up or nute burn but your ppm is too low for that.
Okay so I am trying several different things here.
Raised LEDs to 24-28" above plants.
Turned off humidifier because I had it on very low anyway and am maintaining close to 50% without it. I had less plants originally and humidity was a problem.
Sped up exhaust fan to intake more fresh air. I had this on the lowest speed.
Watered, without nutes, because I am still unsure what to use for nutes.
Measured the run off on 2 of the larger plants:
With straight distilled water, 6.3 PH 239 PPM
With 6.0 PH distilled water, 6.3 PH, 249 PPM
We’ll see what happens. When I ordered all of the equipment for this project I made the mistake of ordering stuff for hydroponics… This is what I have available to me:
oh no. you gave montsanto more moneyXD definaly a mistake. go to your local feed store. ask for kelp meal. they sell 50lb bags for like 50 bucks. horse owners buy this shit all the time so no questions are ever asked. and 50lbs will get you enough “nutes” for a few years… unless youre using it by the liter XD
It appears to me that you are overwatering your plants. I cannot tell how big your containers are, but plants as small as yours, exhibiting some obvious problems, should not need as much water as you are giving them.
I have never used any Fox Farm soil, so I do not know how much fertilizer it contains???..however…I would consider foliar feeding with a well balanced fertilizer in order to “green them up” and restore robust vitality asap!
I don’t think you need to worry right now about politics. You have nutes so use them till they are gone and then you can buy something else. I have never used Flora series but it should be fine just follow the directions while you read and learn why you are doing what you are doing.
Don’t worry about @lotus710 – his way of saying “hello” is pointing out that anything that comes in a bottle is done better by nature (… which is probably true, based on his current grow).
Use what you’ve got, get some experience under your belt, and start writing down what you do to your babies and when. Honestly, I think raising your lights is probably going to help a lot: when I started growing again in January, I had… a Mars Hydro 300w LED for my seedlings, probably 15-18 inches above them. They sprouted, and grew, and then… sorta stopped. Admittedly, I changed two things at this point out of panic, so I can’t identify which solved my problem: I moved the seedlings under T5 florescents until they grew up a bit, and also gave them some seedling/cutting nutrients at half strength (think it was Clonex?). In a week, things had vastly improved.
sounds like me. I started with general hydro too. They work great. Never tried the flora but their go box works great forsure. Wish they didnt sell out… well… not like id care either wayXD
Observation: Chlorotic with edge burn in a relatively young plant.
Thoughts: Usually soil is the problem in this case, and since we do no know how much pearlite you added it may be the cause for the chlorotic condition chlorosis is usually traceable back to excess watering or iron leaching from the soil. because of excessive drainage… However that is not where I would start.
Always start with the basics
Verify proper soil PH. Out of spec water is usually caused by carbonates. It will take time to get the soil back to spec. I use a soil PH probe to check. You want 6.5 for soil. 6.0 watering takes a long time to counteract high soil PH.
Consider starting with a different mix, sometimes soils are literally to hot for young seedlings, one commercial mix I was using for young plants was zen potting mix. You can always repot with OFF. or a blend of OFF. OFF and light warrior 1/2 and 1/2 seems to be common for newer plants. Or just go light warrior.
There are seedling specific mixes.
If you are going hydro go to coco, I prefer canna. you can always transplant out of coco into other mediums as coco shakes off roots when dry. Coco is pretty much hydro, cannabis LOVES coco. For beginners I suggest using the canna system with additional calmag from botanicare. You can transfer soil to coco, but it doesn’t transfer as clean. There is that soil ball that sticks when transferring.
Well, lots of help here, thank you. I am going to trial just about everything. If half my plants die in the process, so be it. I just need a better system while I am on soil, so there might be some sacrifice.
Started a journal. Upping PH to 6.5. Remixed one of my pots with 1/3 perlite to dilute the soil. Mixed up some Botanicare Cal-Mag and foliar fed w/ spray bottle on a few of the plants.
I’ll look into other nutes if I have to but right now I will use what I have. I also have Clonex but I thought that was only for seedling/cuttings…
79 is on the high side, I try to keep mine at 75 day/65 night.
sounds like me. I started with general hydro too. They work great. Never tried the flora but their go box works great forsure. Wish they didnt sell out… well… not like id care either wayXD