First time grower-need help diagnosing issue

Hi everyone,

First time cannabis grower here! Always have had an extensive garden every year but this time I decided to add something special to my crop this year

It’s a hydro set up-pH adjusted water to around 5.5-6 using botanicare cal/mag and general hydroponics flora series. Autoflower white widow.

Plants are just over 3 weeks old and just got their first set of nutrients at their 3 week mark.

Can anyone PLEASE help me diagnose the issue?! They were looking so healthy and even before I added nutes/calmg these spots were developing, now it’s just worse.

Is this a rust fungus? Cal mag def? I just started adding that with the first feeding . Also one of the 3 plants, the leaves are crinkling, yet one plant looks perfectly healthy. So 2 is 3 are definitely sick and I just would like to at least keep my one healthy at this point!!! I’ve explored every deficiency/toxicity and I feel like it could be anything. Hoping with experience IDing any problems will become second nature, but in the meantime any advice from you experts would be so appreciated!

Thank you!

Magnesium. If you didn't feed them for 3 weeks they're going to be hungry

LEDandCoffee said:

Magnesium. If you didn't feed them for 3 weeks they're going to be hungry

Click to expand...

THANK YOU! I suspected so. I purchased botanicare cal/Mag. Flush first right? Is it true that it’s better to add that calmag and let run for 24hr before I add other nutes?

Calcium and magnesium are two separate deficiencies. Rust spotting indicate calcium. Magnesium will leach the chlorophyll from the inside of the leaves but the veins will remain green.
You very well may use Cal mag to fix it but it is a calcium issue.

NaturalFarmer said:

Calcium and magnesium are two separate deficiencies. Rust spotting indicate calcium. Magnesium will leach the chlorophyll from the inside of the leaves but the veins will remain green.
You very well may use Cal mag to fix it but it is a calcium issue.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I appreciate the tip I’ll try the cal/mag and hope that the new leaves show signs of improvement. Thanks again guys

Yeah I had this on my coco test. I added someore Cal mag and it seems to have mitigated the problem. I'm running two different autos and only one is showing identical issues as yours.

Dr Harry Mills did cannabis dry plant tissue analysis on many cultivars and found on every occasion that calcium was the most abundant in all of his analysis done.
Here is a purple dog shit reading of new growth dried and tested.

Carbon +++
Calcium 10%

Nitrogen 3.5%

Potassium 3.8%

Silca 3.7%

Mag .87%

Phos .41%

Sulfur .17

...................

gs_0147 said:

THANK YOU! I suspected so. I purchased botanicare cal/Mag. Flush first right? Is it true that it’s better to add that calmag and let run for 24hr before I add other nutes?

Click to expand...

NO flushing. Just add your nutrients. If you were in soil you wouldn’t have such hungry plants, but your in hydro you should be feeding once they’re stuck in their medium. Hopefully you have your ph and ppm pens right?

Lordhooha said:

NO flushing. Just add your nutrients. If you were in soil you wouldn’t have such hungry plants, but your in hydro you should be feeding once they’re stuck in their medium. Hopefully you have your ph and ppm pens right?

Click to expand...

Hi yes I started off with very small amount of nutrients toward the middle of week two. I think the required was 1/4 tsp for each of the flora series so I just did slightly less. Yes have a pH meter, also bought the pH up/down solution and am stabilizing to ~5.5-6 if necessary. I also have purchased the TDS meter—while on the topic can anyone provide a table or some list with the average/expected ppm range throughout the grow cycle? I found a link awhile back but can’t seem to trace it and would love to know if anyone has some expert tips that may be more updated than what I have read anyways.

Thanks a bunch !!!

NaturalFarmer said:

Dr Harry Mills did cannabis dry plant tissue analysis on many cultivars and found on every occasion that calcium was the most abundant in all of his analysis done.
Here is a purple dog shit reading of new growth dried and tested.

Carbon +++
Calcium 10%

Nitrogen 3.5%

Potassium 3.8%

Silca 3.7%

Mag .87%

Phos .41%

Sulfur .17

...................

Click to expand...

Wow that’s very interesting, not familiar with his work though! Appreciate the insight, I’m also a biochemist so I appreciate you sharing the breakdown with me(I’m a numbers person).I will definitely look into this and maybe this will lead me into another endless road of research

Looks like others have helped you with your current issue.

If this is your first grow, let it be a good learning experience! It will help in all your future grows.

IMHO, I would go with a water only soil mix on your next grow, until you get the hang of listening to your plants. #my2cents

see4 said:

Looks like others have helped you with your current issue.

If this is your first grow, let it be a good learning experience! It will help in all your future grows.

IMHO, I would go with a water only soil mix on your next grow, until you get the hang of listening to your plants. #my2cents

Click to expand...

Yeah the hydro set up was a gift so it was honestly a total tester for me. I’m big into gardening as is and I’m used to soil mediums. So I figured it was worth a shot.


Side bar again(sorry I’m super new to this if anyone can give me a solid forum to post this question elsewhere) I have GREAT south facing windows/deck-lots of room and sun. What are my chances of succeeding with a successful grow outdoors once the weather permits? Or am I better off sticking to straight indoors/ artificial light?

Not a hydro person, but if I was I would check this site out.

https://manicbotanix.com/hydroponic-nutrient-science/

gs_0147 said:

Hi yes I started off with very small amount of nutrients toward the middle of week two. I think the required was 1/4 tsp for each of the flora series so I just did slightly less. Yes have a pH meter, also bought the pH up/down solution and am stabilizing to ~5.5-6 if necessary. I also have purchased the TDS meter—while on the topic can anyone provide a table or some list with the average/expected ppm range throughout the grow cycle? I found a link awhile back but can’t seem to trace it and would love to know if anyone has some expert tips that may be more updated than what I have read anyways.

Thanks a bunch !!!

Click to expand...

I used gh trip for years. Three part plus Cal mag floralicious plus and liquid Kool bloom in these ratios. But you can stuck to just the base if you want. I did however usually spend an hour figuring out the math for my particular number of gallons needed at about 75% the total ppm the chart advises. The chart says to start at like 400 ppm I did 300. By bloom switch I was usually about 800 to 1k by late flower 1200. I never did Kool bloom to rec strength but did always use floralicious plus to full strength.i dunno why it just felt right since it's all thick and stinky it just felt like I was adding something important. Play with it a bit but def use its ratios.

Edit for more info than needed. For the record I mathed so much because I'd fill my 20 gallon rdwc with 10 gallons and then mix 2 different 5 gallon buckets in order to dump those in the system. This was done because I needed twenty gallons and only had 2 buckets. Also because waiting for ro sucks so it gave me something to do. So I'd be mixing at double strength for 5 gallons because after dumped in the rest it equaled out.

gs_0147 said:

Yeah the hydro set up was a gift so it was honestly a total tester for me. I’m big into gardening as is and I’m used to soil mediums. So I figured it was worth a shot.


Side bar again(sorry I’m super new to this if anyone can give me a solid forum to post this question elsewhere) I have GREAT south facing windows/deck-lots of room and sun. What are my chances of succeeding with a successful grow outdoors once the weather permits? Or am I better off sticking to straight indoors/ artificial light?

Click to expand...

Sounds like a pretty nice gift lol. What are you running for lighting?

gs_0147 said:

—while on the topic can anyone provide a table or some list with the average/expected ppm range throughout the grow cycle? I found a link awhile back but can’t seem to trace it and would love to know if anyone has some expert tips that may be more updated than what I have read anyways.

Thanks a bunch !!!

Click to expand...

Here’s a study someone did about the ppms of the GH Flora series (which I use too, and Im a newbie and in a hydro setup with 2 femautos):
http://www.lycaeum.org//~sunny/ALT-EC-TDS.html

I took the amounts on the GH bottles and drew up a spreadsheet using that and the study I linked for you to help me see where my nutes and ppms should fall each week.

It

cjsbabygirl313 said:

Here’s a study someone did about the ppms of the GH Flora series (which I use too, and Im a newbie and in a hydro setup with 2 femautos):
http://www.lycaeum.org//~sunny/ALT-EC-TDS.html

I took the amounts on the GH bottles and drew up a spreadsheet using that and the study I linked for you to help me see where my nutes and ppms should fall each week.

Click to expand...

Damn way more effort than I'd be willing to put in haha

SmokeyMcChokey said:

It

Damn way more effort than I'd be willing to put in haha

Click to expand...

Sorry - I’m anal and a terribly detail oriented individual!

How are the ladies holding up? What strain btw if you dont mind me asking?

They’re doing much better thank god! At least until the next growing obstacle surfaces lol! Worried about crowding but again wasn’t expecting all three to be a success. It’s white widow autoflower here are some pics from yesterday/this am