# Multiple issues within a single system



## trmn8r (Jul 31, 2014)

I have recently jumped into the world of growing and I have started coming into some issues. (I do have pictures I will post links to down toward the bottom in an edit)  I have poured through pictures, descriptions, forums, manuals, etc.  I have been able to piece some general information together and come to a general idea of what the plants are doing, but it would be great to get a second opinion.

18 plants.  1 Plant has ALWAYS been curling, slow, stunted, dark, but still growing so I figured I would let her grow instead of having an empty bucket.

Only 3 of the other plants are showing any signs (within the last 3 days) of the same type of leaf deforming, color change, etc.  The others appear to be doing great, but some are pale green, others are nice healthy green.

I came to the conclusion that I have have been creating a pH lockout of nutrients in the system because I was running around the 6.0 mark instead of keeping it right between 5.8 - 5.9.  It also appears that I may have a deficiency of certain nutrients, so I jumped to a different ratio of nutes as well.

Info for the questions is below:
1. How tall are your plants now?
-   The tallest are approximately 42 inches, the shortest are around 30 inches.
2. How far from the lights are the tops of your plants? Is this a constant distance or have you changed it recently?
-   Outdoor greenhouse
3. How old are they?
-   12 are 8 weeks old and 6 are 5.5 weeks old
4. What strain are they?
-   Purple Power Feminized Outdoor
5. Did you start them from seed or clone?
-   Seed in rockwool cubes
6. What type of containers are you using and what size are they in gallons?
-   5 Gallon black food grade plastic buckets.

WHAT TYPE OF GROW DO YOU HAVE?
11. Hydroponic?
-   Dutch Bucket system.  18 buckets.  32 gallon reservoir.  Perlite size 4 coarse.

WHAT TYPE OF HYDROPONIC SYSTEM DO YOU USE?
13. NFT
WHAT TYPE OF LIGHTS DO YOU USE?
-   Outdoor clear roof greenhouse

24. What nutrients are you feeding your plants?
GH Flora 3 part series

HYDROPONIC FERTS?

25. What brand? What mix? What strength?

Last week (7 days) Based off of GH Simple recirculating feeding chart I Was running Week 2 Nutrients, 10, 7.5, 2.5 Grow, Micro, Bloom (per gallon) This is the ratio that I was using and I brought the EC up to approx 2.0 + or - 0.2
After reviewing the symptoms of the plants and making my best guess I decided to jump to week 4 Nutes.
Based off of GH Simple recirculating feeding chart Week 4 Transition Nutrients 7.5ml, 7.5ml, 7.5ml Grow, Micro, Bloom (per gallon) This is the ratio that I am using (as of today) and I bring the EC up to approx 2.0

26. How often, and when was the last time?
-   I dump and replace solution with fresh every 7 days (Wednesdays)


ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS OF THE GROW AREA

29. Do you use ventilation for your indoor grow?
-   1600 CFM Exhaust Fan at apex of greenhouse roof and 500 CFM intake blower fan at bottom bringing in cool outside air.
31. Do you use a fan?
-   Two oscillating 14 or 16 inch(can't remember) cheapo fans.
33. Temperature of the grow area?
Low temps at night around 60 degrees F, and high temps during the day around average 85 - 90 F, but at times the greenhouse will breech the 100 F for no more than a couple of hours.
34. Humidity of the grow area?
-   Outdoor Oregon Coast Humidity depending on temperature between 60 - 70% when it's coolest to 30% when it's hottest.
35. Is CO2 being introduced? What method?
-   No additional CO2 is being introduced into the grow tent.
36. Do you use Odor Control, (carbon, ionizer, ozone gen)?
-   No
37. Do you use LST? HST?
-   I do not know what this is, so I am going to assume not.
HYDROPONICS/Aero Ponics/Coco/Soiless/
How long has this problem been going on?
-   I noticed the issues starting to get worse about 3 days ago, however I have noticed some leaf curl for about a week.
Are you growing in a PVC grow tent? (example: Hydrohut or any other non brand tents)
-   The tent is a UV treated tarp setup typically used for carports, etc.  I replaced the top with a King Canopy Clear top 10 x 20.
What PHASE are the plants in? (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
-   Veg as best I can guess based on the sunlight
What substrate/medium are you using?(Hydroton, RockWool etc.)
-   Size 4 Coarse Perlite
What is the Water temperature?
-   71 - 78 Deg F
What color are your roots? White? Brown? Are your roots slimy?
-   Unknown what color they are or if they are slimy
How often are you feeding? (If using soiless)
-   I have been topping off with Fresh water each day and then adding proper ratio of nutes to bring EC up to the 2.0 mark, then pH down to 6.0 ish (Between 5.5 - 6.5).
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
-   Micro, Grow, Bloom
What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using?
-   2.0 + or - 0.2
What is the pH of the "Tank"?
-   WAS 6.0 + or - 0.5, NOW 5.8 to 5.9
Are you sure your calibration is correct on your equipment?
-   Yes I am positive the calibration is correct, I have verified with different base calibration solutions and I also have more than one pice of test equipment I can use to cross reference.
When was your last watering?
-   4 times a day.  6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm.  WAS 15 min watering cycle NOW 30 min watering cycle
What is your water temps?
-   71 - 78 Deg F
When was your last feeding change? (ie. grow-bloom-micro-additional)
-   6am this morning was first feeding with new nutrient mix (as stated above)
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?
-   Oscillating fans run from 8:30 am - 7:30 pm.  Exhaust is on Temperature control 85 degrees, intake blower is also on temperature control 75 degrees.
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
-   No oscillating fans are blowing over the top of the plants.
Is your water HARD or SOFT?
-   Soft
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?
-   Reservoir tank water system. (42 ppm) Zero Chlorine.  We are on a city water system, but the water sits in a giant tank reservoir long enough to evaporate all of the chlorine before it gets to my house. 
Are you using water from a water softener?
-   No
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched
-   I recently topped the tallest plants, and pruned some of the large shade leaves, but not excessively to my knowledge.
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so, What and When?
-   I treated the inside of the greenhouse before any plants were inside with some turbo bug killer Raid barrier stuff, but gave it plenty of time to dry and air out before moving the plants into the tent.
Are plant's infected with pest's
-   No, not at all.

I will edit the post and add some pictures below after they are posted shortly. 

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## Rosebud (Jul 31, 2014)

The third and fourth picture look like heat stress to me. I have it too. Others will be by to discuss Ph and so forth. Need to get your temps down.. Welcome to MP, and green mojo, you grow space is nice.


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## trmn8r (Aug 2, 2014)

Certainly trying my hardest to keep the temps down.  I open the screened windows during the daytime, and hope for the best.   I know now that next year I will be pushing for 4 to 5 times the airflow to keep the temps down, but i am hoping that this will work for me this year.  The plants are looking a little better today after the nutrient change and the pH being in the 5.8 - 5.9 range.  I still have the leaf twisting sideways on a few of the plants though.


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## The Hemp Goddess (Aug 2, 2014)

Actually with hydro, I like to start my pH about 5.4 or so and let it drift up to assure nutrient uptake of all nutrients.  Here is a link to a chart that shows nutrient uptake at different pH levels.  http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1908

I do agree that it looks like you have some heat stress.  I have a bit going on in my vegging closet as it has been so hot.  If you do not have some kind of ventilation system for your greenhouse--some kind of exhaust fan, you might want to check into one.  Air movement/exchange is important.


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## trmn8r (Aug 2, 2014)

The Hemp Goddess said:


> Actually with hydro, I like to start my pH about 5.4 or so and let it drift up to assure nutrient uptake of all nutrients.  Here is a link to a chart that shows nutrient uptake at different pH levels.  http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1908
> 
> I do agree that it looks like you have some heat stress.  I have a bit going on in my vegging closet as it has been so hot.  If you do not have some kind of ventilation system for your greenhouse--some kind of exhaust fan, you might want to check into one.  Air movement/exchange is important.



I saw this thread
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58339
and I was also looking at the pH charts for optimum and came up with the following.

I am assuming that for the flowering cycle (which should be almost now) it appears that the nutrients that are used will drop the pH.  I have noticed without fail my pH dropping significantly throughout the day, however I continuously add freshwater (pH 7.0) and it brings the EC down a little and the pH back up to 5.8.  I have been watching things like a hawk for the last couple of days and it had been very consistent.  

I "THOUGHT" I was going to have enough airflow at 2000 CFM (You can see int he pictures the exhaust fan, etc.  The tent is about 1600 cuft.) 500 in and 1600 out.  Plus with the 4 huge screened windows and a summer breeze I was hoping it would be enough to keep it cool.  It gets warm quick, and keeps the temps around 60 at night which from what I've read is good. 

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## Hushpuppy (Aug 5, 2014)

It appears to be a couple things happening there. It looks like there is some heat stress, but there also appears to be somewhat of a deficiency occurring. You said your source water is in the 70s. You want to make certain that it stays lower than 72f. If the water temp gets above 72f, the plants don't like it. I try to keep my hydro water at 68f so that if it rises a little out in the containers or going into the soil, it won't be reaching the upper 70s in the soil medium. Also, the higher it goes above 70f the lower the oxygen content that can stay dissolved in the water, which is critical ffor hydro systems.

You said that the plants are on a hydroponic system. I assume that you have a single reservoir from which all the plants are fed? It appears that you are doing a recirculating system. You called it NFT but it looks more like an Ebb n Flo (the water is pumped out to the pots and fills them from the bottom for a period of time then drains the water back out again) or is it more of a "top flood and drain" (water is fed in on top of the medium and drains through and back to the source in a continuous circuit while pump is running, but when pump turns off, water drains back to source tank). 

Now, are the lines that feed the plants in a series flow or parallel. The plants that are having the issues, are they closest to the source water or farthest away? are you able to confirm that all of the plants are getting equal amounts of water? Is the water that is reaching the plants in question at the same temps as the reservoir?


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## trmn8r (Aug 6, 2014)

I had read that the Dutch Bucket system was considered a NFT system, that very well could be my misunderstanding.  the system is a top flood and drain as you called it, but there is about 1 - 1.5 inches of residual water/nutrient solution that doesn't drain out of the bucket and wicks up through the perlite as the plants need it.  I run water in the schedule mentioned in my first post 4 times a day 4 hours apart for 30 mins at a time.

The buckets are all in Parallel,  I have since dropped my water temperature to around 67 as well because of another post I read out here somewhere. (Dropped it last night).  Today the solution never topped 71 degrees, even in the hottest part of the day.

I have verified when i built the system that all of the drippers are providing the same amount of water to each bucket.  I checked this a couple days ago just to make sure I hadn't missed something.

The insulation on the buckets helps maintain the temperature to the lower temps, but it does rise a small amount on the hotter days as I mentioned today the temp went up to 71. 

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## Hushpuppy (Aug 6, 2014)

Cool reservoir  Is there any pattern to the plants that are affected, such as they are on the far end off the space from the water, they are all in front of a strong fan that is pulling dry air across them, or are farthest from any air movement. 

Are they all the same strain? Some are older than the others. Are the ones affected all the same age? that leaf wrinkle can be a sign of magnesium deficiency, Are you using any magnesium supplement?


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## trmn8r (Aug 6, 2014)

After beating myself up on this for most of the evening, I decided to try a few things out, and this could be what is causing all of my problems (Aside from the heat stress).  I had calibrated my pH meters a while back and knew spot on everything was good to go.  The strange thing is...  Both of my pH meters were out of whack and needed to be re-calibrated.  The pH on the mixture was .2 to .3 lower than what my tool was reading.  SOOOO, if My meter was saying 5.8, I was really running down at the bottom most of the extreme of 5.5 and below.  I know, I know...  check check and recheck...  :-(  So now both of the meters are reading the same and correctly (used my calibration solution).  Brought the pH up from 4.8 all the way to 5.9 and over night It only drifted down to 5.79 (The system doesn't run at night, but I figured the pH would stabilize and give me a true reading after running in the tank)  I also made sure that ALL of the water in the system was circulated and the water returning was 5.8 when the pH in the reservoir was 5.9.

The are all Feminized Outdoor Purple Power Strain.
There isn't any specific pattern that I could identify, one possibly two of the newer plants, two or three older plants, in no specific places in relation to the air flow either.
I am only using the 3 part Flora Series GH Nutes and right now because of trying to figure out what nutrient is low/high I decided to give them the week 4 transition nutes.  I am going to run the transition nutes again this next week (Time to change the reservoir today) and then progress forward with the weekly steps.  I have planned for doing week 6 twice and week 7 twice, which should push things out to where they need to be.

After all of this I am pretty sure it's my fault and 100% plant abuse on my part... 

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## trmn8r (Aug 8, 2014)

Just a closeup of one of the leaves, I thought maybe you could use if you need to somewhere. 

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## 3rdiJedi (Aug 9, 2014)

Nice thread much love


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## vostok (Aug 9, 2014)

Again your pics are great, look closely at the pic above, note the pale almost yellow veins in the leaf, I'd flush your rez, and ease back the nutes 1/4 for the next 2 weeks,monitor daily, but right now foilar feed (Calmag/Epson salts) 1 teaspoon to a pint spray bottle ..fill with warm water shake well and spray 2 times per day for a week or until the correct leaf colors return


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## trmn8r (Aug 10, 2014)

I did a pseudo flush by running the system until my return water was a solid 5.8 pH and the water in the tank was at 5.8 - 5.9.  I ran all the solution out of the buckets by diluting the tank with freshwater for a couple of hours to make sure what I was putting in was going to be "Fresh" to the plants.  Since I have done that, the leaves have regained much of their color, flattened out, and started growing like crazy again.  I took the above pictures with my SLR, but I have a few I took quick with my phone that I thought I would share.  the difference of one week is just amazing to me.  This is my first grow ever, and so far I'm pretty happy with myself.

This is turning out to be a lot more work than I had anticipated though.  I am out in the greenhouse 10 - 15 times a day checking on things, looking at the nutes, pH, etc.  Full time job almost. 

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## vostok (Aug 10, 2014)

*"This is turning out to be a lot more work than I had anticipated though. I am out in the greenhouse 10 - 15 times a day checking on things..."*

You won't be the first grower to move in with his/her plants, and there are more benefits to both in short and long term ..


Sleep with your plants = they get full value of your exhale (C02)

Nute burn = you may see! .. it happening and act accordingly...FLUSH

(Mg) def. ..? = One of my favorites, a plant  with magnesium defiencey can be fixed right b4 your eyes, my favorite, go foilar.

TV or radio is important to plants, I've done many tests and am sold on this, they like classics Mozart etc, but I like traditional rock 70-80's

Absence makes the heart grow fonder = if like me having nagging wives makes you crazy hiding in the greenhouse is self preservation .
be sure to lock the gun locker and hide the big knives first..lol


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