Small Scale, Second Grow! From Seed, Multiple Strains

there it is, distilled water. dont use that. they've looked goofy since a young age, prior to fiming, but they will recover immediately once you get this sorted out. you'll see. how good is your tap water? you should know its ph/ec. RO is more important in hydro, but if you go with RO, ph it if needed and add calmag. unfortunately i dont know anything about organics, so i cant help you there. but, yes, all growers should have a ph and ec meter. if you dont have them, go to amazon when you have a chance

ph affects the the uptake of nutrients, which causes plants to do weird things

visajoe1 said:

there it is, distilled water. dont use that. they've looked goofy since a young age, prior to fiming, but they will recover immediately once you get this sorted out. you'll see. how good is your tap water? you should know its ph/ec. RO is more important in hydro, but if you go with RO, ph it if needed and add calmag. unfortunately i dont know anything about organics, so i cant help you there. but, yes, all growers should have a ph and ec meter. if you dont have them, go to amazon when you have a chance

ph affects the the uptake of nutrients, which causes plants to do weird things

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Aha! They definitely have always had all sorts of deformities and goofy things going on.
I've been feeding with distilled/RO water from the store from the beginning. I just finally added cal/mag as a foliar yesterday (on day 30 of veg.... way too long), and that definitely seemed to help. They were/are definitely lacking on the cal/mag and other things in tap water. Should have been adding cal/mag to feedings from the beginning. Live and learn!

The tap water here is on the not-so-good side. I have a CHEAP ppm meter that came with my zero drinking water thing, it says it's 220. I need to snag a good one. The water here literally takes a minute to "settle," or else you can see a bunch of stuff floating around in the water. Would the water out of my Zero drinking water thing be better you think? Hmm

f8youthmidman said:

Aha! They definitely have always had all sorts of deformities and goofy things going on.
I've been feeding with distilled/RO water from the store from the beginning. I just finally added cal/mag as a foliar yesterday (on day 30 of veg.... way too long), and that definitely seemed to help. They were/are definitely lacking on the cal/mag and other things in tap water. Should have been adding cal/mag to feedings from the beginning. Live and learn!

The tap water here is on the not-so-good side. I have a CHEAP ppm meter that came with my zero drinking water thing, it says it's 220. I need to snag a good one. The water here literally takes a minute to "settle," or else you can see a bunch of stuff floating around in the water. Would the water out of my Zero drinking water thing be better you think? Hmm

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that ppm meter you have is fine, ive seen them. learn about EC, its the measurement you want to use. right now, i would just give it tap water for about a week, they are still small, and soil has nutes in it. when you get your water situation figured out, feed her .3-.5ec, ph'd, with calmag. good to go

Went out and snagged a BlueDot pH meter. It's been calibrated. The distilled water had a pH of 5.1?! How is that?! The tap water had a pH of 7.1

They'll be getting that plain water in a day or so when the soil is nice and dry.

f8youthmidman said:

Went out and snagged a BlueDot pH meter. It's been calibrated. The distilled water had a pH of 5.1?! How is that?! The tap water had a pH of 7.1

They'll be getting that plain water in a day or so when the soil is nice and dry.

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I was curious too and read what I found below. Sounds like some good tap water you have.

Just because you buy a product with a label that says "Distilled Water" on the outside does not really mean you are getting what the label says. Testing indicates distilled water can be acidic or basic. Best to get a test strip that indicates Ph by color and test any water you are curious about. This includes water that says it is "distilled". Houston area distilled water tested at 5.59 6.83 and 9.0 as three data points but 7.0 is neither acidic or basic. Distilled water is heavily processed and this small sample size indicates it can be all over the map for Ph. If it matters, test it yourself and do not always believe labels of companies selling you water for extremely high prices per gallon. They are great at marketing but not so great at making clean water. The conductivity of tested "distilled water" was also all over the map yet if it was actually distilled it should be cleaner yet one of three was pretty dirty. (conductive) Anyone can put water in a plastic bottle and sell it to the public. One of the three tested samples made a decent product but the other two were out of bounds for what you would want to put into something requiring actual distilled water. ref http://courses.washington.edu/h2...

That's what's up! My tests confirm it too. That's why my plants were so messed up. Along with my abuse lol. Fuck distilled water then! Especially from big retail stores. Tap water is the go to for now

Here are some updated pics. The water and some cal/mag made a huge difference!

The big ones are about 4.5 weeks old. The OG Kush has like 10 tops already!

Benelli said:

I was curious too and read what I found below. Sounds like some good tap water you have.

Just because you buy a product with a label that says "Distilled Water" on the outside does not really mean you are getting what the label says. Testing indicates distilled water can be acidic or basic. Best to get a test strip that indicates Ph by color and test any water you are curious about. This includes water that says it is "distilled". Houston area distilled water tested at 5.59 6.83 and 9.0 as three data points but 7.0 is neither acidic or basic. Distilled water is heavily processed and this small sample size indicates it can be all over the map for Ph. If it matters, test it yourself and do not always believe labels of companies selling you water for extremely high prices per gallon. They are great at marketing but not so great at making clean water. The conductivity of tested "distilled water" was also all over the map yet if it was actually distilled it should be cleaner yet one of three was pretty dirty. (conductive) Anyone can put water in a plastic bottle and sell it to the public. One of the three tested samples made a decent product but the other two were out of bounds for what you would want to put into something requiring actual distilled water.

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Thanks for confirming!

visajoe1 said:

that ppm meter you have is fine, ive seen them. learn about EC, its the measurement you want to use. right now, i would just give it tap water for about a week, they are still small, and soil has nutes in it. when you get your water situation figured out, feed her .3-.5ec, ph'd, with calmag. good to go

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That 100% helped!! They were not dropping anymore and possibly even praying for the lights lol

So it looks like I still have something going on! Hopefully someone can help identify the problem(s) and figure out what is going on here!

Maybe a Nitrogen deficiency along with too much/too little nutrients? I've been making sure the pH of the water is in between 6 and 7.

The OG Kush got light (1/3) strength nutrient watering with Botanicaire PBP, LK, Silica, and Cal/Mag, then the next watering was plain water. It seems to be doing better of the two bigger plants.

The King's Kush got a plain water 2 waterings ago, and then last watering she got an AACT including per gal - 2 T EWC, 1 T high N guano, and 1 T Molasses. She looks like she could maybe use more nutes?

Yep you are having issues with the PH and it's not allowing the plants to uptake the right nutrients. Bring that PH down to 6.5

BMWEATER said:

Yep you are having issues with the PH and it's not allowing the plants to uptake the right nutrients. Bring that PH down to 6.5

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Just gave them some plain water, and a little bet of kelp. Also transplanted them. Hopefully that all helps!

f8youthmidman said:

Just gave them some plain water, and a little bet of kelp. Also transplanted them. Hopefully that all helps!

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Did you PH the plain water? If you didn't your probably making it worse

It is not ph. Nor should ph' adjustment be necessary with proper practice.

Looks like too much watering and too much nutes and additives.

Plants are stunted and roots are likely rotting.

I suggest plain water only after the soil dries at least 3/4 the way down. Then plain water to runoff and some pure Blend Pro Grow only in a lesser amount.

Too much love and products are bad for plants. And young ones don't need much of anything.

MichiganMedGrower said:

It is not ph. Nor should ph' adjustment be necessary with proper practice.

Looks like too much watering and too much nutes and additives.

Plants are stunted and roots are likely rotting.

I suggest plain water only after the soil dries at least 3/4 the way down. Then plain water to runoff and some pure Blend Pro Grow only in a lesser amount.

Too much love and products are bad for plants. And young ones don't need much of anything.

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What do you mean by "with proper practice"? As in make sure the water is from a good source AKA low PPM and not too acidic/basic?

I went ahead and gave them some water-only waterings, and a little bit of cal/mag. That had them looking good for a little while! I bet a dose of Pure Blend Pro would do them good. Or do you think an AACT would be better?

They were doing good a week ago, but now it's looking like they have some sort of deficiency. Any ideas? Thanks for any input!

The last 2 pictures are what she looked like about a week ago. Not sure what is going on with her now.

They've been fed nothing but water and cal/mag the last couple weeks. They're in pots filled with 50% supersoil. Always pH the water now to 6.3.

BMWEATER said:

Did you PH the plain water? If you didn't your probably making it worse

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I wasn't at the beginning, but I bought a Blue Lab pH pen and I think that is helping greatly!

f8youthmidman said:

What do you mean by "with proper practice"? As in make sure the water is from a good source AKA low PPM and not too acidic/basic?

I went ahead and gave them some water-only waterings, and a little bit of cal/mag. That had them looking good for a little while! I bet a dose of Pure Blend Pro would do them good. Or do you think an AACT would be better?

They were doing good a week ago, but now it's looking like they have some sort of deficiency. Any ideas? Thanks for any input!

The last 2 pictures are what she looked like about a week ago. Not sure what is going on with her now.

They've been fed nothing but water and cal/mag the last couple weeks. They're in pots filled with 50% supersoil. Always pH the water now to 6.3.

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You are still adding ph down and cal mag. Why?You say they are in Super soil so I assume there are plenty of NPK and micro nutrients.

You need to let them dry out and give them fresh un adjusted tap water to good runoff.

By proper practice I mean proper watering and keeping a proper stable environment and medium for the plants.

If you don't understand what to do I suggest you read about general container gardening. Water quality and alkalinity and how plants use nutrients and how they affect other elements and the medium.

Every Grow is different. You have to learn and figure out what to do. No one can tell every factor from the forum and a few pics.

I don't use Super soil. Just ocean forest. I water only until I have transplanted up to the final pot and they show hunger in 12/12.

I have no way of knowing what nutes are in the soil or how much adding cal mag is too much.

And the ph down is acidifying your soil. No need to ph in buffered soil (lime) or add cal mag.

And they still look overwatered to me so I suspect bad drainage.

They could need nutes but I honestly don't know how to direct you here. You did for more weeks what I was saying not too.

How many times and how much water and cal mag?

The thick ribbing on the upper leaves says over watered maybe over nuted.

The yellowing and now necrosis on the lower fans means nitrogen and magnesium deficiency. Or lockout from acidic soil or blocked roots.

Simply overwatering will cause all of this. Adding acid to the water just makes it worse.

Ph'ing water for soil is not recommended in gardening unless the water is very high in alkalinity.

Should never add or do anything without understanding why.

MichiganMedGrower said:

You are still adding ph down and cal mag. Why?You say they are in Super soil so I assume there are plenty of NPK and micro nutrients.

You need to let them dry out and give them fresh un adjusted tap water to good runoff.

By proper practice I mean proper watering and keeping a proper stable environment and medium for the plants.

If you don't understand what to do I suggest you read about general container gardening. Water quality and alkalinity and how plants use nutrients and how they affect other elements and the medium.

Every Grow is different. You have to learn and figure out what to do. No one can tell every factor from the forum and a few pics.

I don't use Super soil. Just ocean forest. I water only until I have transplanted up to the final pot and they show hunger in 12/12.

I have no way of knowing what nutes are in the soil or how much adding cal mag is too much.

And the ph down is acidifying your soil. No need to ph in buffered soil (lime) or add cal mag.

And they still look overwatered to me so I suspect bad drainage.

They could need nutes but I honestly don't know how to direct you here. You did for more weeks what I was saying not too.

How many times and how much water and cal mag?

The thick ribbing on the upper leaves says over watered maybe over nuted.

The yellowing and now necrosis on the lower fans means nitrogen and magnesium deficiency. Or lockout from acidic soil or blocked roots.

Simply overwatering will cause all of this. Adding acid to the water just makes it worse.

Ph'ing water for soil is not recommended in gardening unless the water is very high in alkalinity.

Should never add or do anything without understanding why.

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I stopped giving them pH up/down, and just used tap water after letting it sit out for at least a day to dechlorinate.

Been watering every 3-4 days. And used a tsp of calmag. Watered until I saw runoff. Runoff pH is 6.3-6.5 so I don't think pH is the problem but I'm a newb.

Could definitely be overwatering. Need to work on that.

Feel the weight of the pot. If it is heavy you have too much water. If it is light it needs water.

ProMix was tricky for me because when it dried out it was hard to get it wet. The water would just run down the edges and out the bottom. I had to soak the whole container in a bigger container of water.

You might want to ditch the CFLs and get a Quantum Board LED.

Update time!

The OG Kush is a couple days into flower. Grew .5-1 inch in 2 days




Here's the branching on the OG Kush from all the FIM'ing and LST'ing



The King's Kush ended up being a male. Chopped him!


The balls


More balls


The root system! Notice how the bottom half is much whiter and healthier. The bottom half of the pot was supersoil.


One of the youngins, the "Sperm Goblin" aka random bagseed from a few years ago. Any ideas what's going on? In happy frog soil. Been fed only water except today which I gave a 1/2 strength feeding of botanicaire's PBP, LK, CalMag, and Silica.



Another young in from a bagseed from a shop, Pipe Dream. It's older and stunted. Overwatering again? Any help is much appreciated!

Mohican said:

Feel the weight of the pot. If it is heavy you have too much water. If it is light it needs water.

ProMix was tricky for me because when it dried out it was hard to get it wet. The water would just run down the edges and out the bottom. I had to soak the whole container in a bigger container of water.

You might want to ditch the CFLs and get a Quantum Board LED.

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Slowly getting the hang of the weight of the pot. What do you mean by Quantum Board LED?

Here's an update of my setup. They're 16w 1650 lumens Cree LED bulbs now. Mostly 2700k and a few 5000k.

And here are the young ones and seedlings. Each round gets better! Any tips are greatly appreciated!