how often to add cal\mag

MaintMan

MaintMan

Well-Known Member
ok so im having what seems to be a cal mag deficiency developing in my girls and im getting a bit upset. ive got rust colored spots developing and getting bad on the oldest girls, i am growing in coco and have a recirculating system that feeds the girls 4x a day for 4 min each time. i am using botanicare coco bloom, botanicare cal mag, snow storm and bud candy and gravity at the end, i have 3 girls that are farther along than the others and there the ones showing the stress and the growth has slowed to almost nothing. i have flushed the three girls with calmag only water ph ed to 5.9 and am not going to water these 3 for a few days to check the results.

my first question is what else could the deficiency be and if it is the cal mag like i think then how often do i have to relenish the cal mag in my resivoir bc i have read that using recirculaing systems can remove the cal mag over time.


here is a pic of a leaf in question
 

Attachments

303

303

Well-Known Member
MaintMan said:
ok so im having what seems to be a cal mag deficiency developing in my girls and im getting a bit upset. ive got rust colored spots developing and getting bad on the oldest girls, i am growing in coco and have a recirculating system that feeds the girls 4x a day for 4 min each time. i am using botanicare coco bloom, botanicare cal mag, snow storm and bud candy and gravity at the end, i have 3 girls that are farther along than the others and there the ones showing the stress and the growth has slowed to almost nothing. i have flushed the three girls with calmag only water ph ed to 5.9 and am not going to water these 3 for a few days to check the results.

my first question is what else could the deficiency be and if it is the cal mag like i think then how often do i have to relenish the cal mag in my resivoir bc i have read that using recirculaing systems can remove the cal mag over time.


here is a pic of a leaf in question
Click to expand...
I had the same problem, I use recircilating hydro like you. Had the same problems, are you using RO or tap? If RO you need to add cal mag, if not.. My tap water is extremely hard with high amounts of cal mag already in it.. In fact my ppm out the tap is 430, which is almost undrinkable, ruins all my appliances and dishes. So what I concluded is my water is locking out cal mag because of such high amounts already in the water. How I fixed it is with a RO system, but they really fucking suck, they're slow, messy, and waste water, 1 good gallon for 3 wasted. But hey my plants like it, and I have no more issues. If you are running RO, cal mag is the first to be added, I go to 180-200 ppms, then go add my 3 part nutrients (900-1200ppm) (EC 1.4-1.6), I generally get a perfect 5.3ph every time depending on strength.
 
E

Ebb n Flo

Active Member
wow 430! thats nutso! normal city water is about 100-250 anything higher than 250 without nutrients or micro's added the plants wont grow as optimum as they should! my water is 180 before adding anything. well if magnesium, calcium and iron are your problem then you would add the supplement everytime you change over your reservoir. use a tds meter to determine how much is needed
 
E

Ebb n Flo

Active Member
i use General Organics lineup and these are my results with numbers from the veg state of growth... i am also using a 10 gallon res with 3.5 gallons of water/nutrient solution in it.

week 3-week 6
BioThrive Grow(4-3-3) - 4 teaspoons per gallon/BioRoot(1-1-1) - 1 teaspoon per gallon/Botanicare CalMg(2-0-0) - 5ml per gallon = 1000-1100ppm

week 7-week 12
BioThrive Grow(4-3-3) - 2 teaspoons per gallon/BioThrive Bloom(2-4-4) - 2 teaspoons per gallon/Botanicare(2-0-0) - 5ml per gallon = 700-900ppm
 
303

303

Well-Known Member
Ebb n Flo said:
wow 430! thats nutso! normal city water is about 100-250 anything higher than 250 without nutrients or micro's added the plants wont grow as optimum as they should! my water is 180 before adding anything. well if magnesium, calcium and iron are your problem then you would add the supplement everytime you change over your reservoir. use a tds meter to determine how much is needed
Click to expand...
Yeah I live at 10,000 feet in the mountains, I'm sure our water is just treated snow melt. It really, really sucks. My skin hates it, I need a water softener. I take better care of my plants than myself.
 
MaintMan

MaintMan

Well-Known Member
my water tests at about 70ppm with no additives and i have been growing for a while with the same basic nutes and never had a real issue until recently, and through some research and close monitoring i believe i have symphids and may have been over fertalizing as well. im looking for a good way to clean my coco of toxins and to rid them of these tiny little whit dudes that show up when i water they come to the surface then drop back down. im draining my res right now and am going to fill with straight water and water with this for a day or two. i also fear i didnt clean this coco as good as i should have because i have some other girls in new coco and there not seeming to have these symptoms and dont want them to take on the traits, also these 3 girls are my smoke for the next month as the new girls come up, i really need hel saving these girls and getting them back on track
 
E

Ebb n Flo

Active Member
if the infected girls are in the same grow space then youll want to remove them as they will infest your other crops in the same grow space
 
E

Ebb n Flo

Active Member
im thinking those little bugs may be root aphids since they come up to the top of the soil and then back down in
 
MaintMan

MaintMan

Well-Known Member
they are the oldest but all are getting same water, my lights are off right now but im aboutto tie my younger girls down, and ill take shots of them all. another thing is they seemed fine until about a week ago and then all te sudden they just started messing up. and this really sucks bc i just udated and cleaned everything in my room about a month ago and everything was good, hese girls went to bed 1 month ago the younger ones about a week and half 2 weeks
 
MaintMan

MaintMan

Well-Known Member
ok so i have located a few of those little dudes in my res and they look like aphids to me there transparent or a little whitish and they have little antenna and looks like 6 legs and they have black eyes, no visible wings but there only in the coco not on the leaves that i can see unless they only come out at night or the fans are keeping them down
 
Stinky Buds

Stinky Buds

Well-Known Member
Could they be Thrips?
The key to identifying them for me was the distinct markings on the leaves.
They also spent part of their lives in the substrate, crawling the plants later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top