Trouble with Part of my Aeroponic Crop

Your posts leave much unclear.

Number one are you ESTIMATING ppm or are you taking readings with a meter.

Two,your post says your using flora grow,is that it ? Your ONLY using flora grow & no other nutrient.

Another question is about your water,what is its ppm & are you taking those ppm into account before mixing up nutes.

One last question,if you are using a multi part nutrient are you mixing each nute seperately or are you dumping all the seperate nutes into a glass,then letting the nutes co-mingle together before adding to the rez.

vespa8910 said:

I felt weird about the amount of epsom they suggested in the "how to", so I cut it in half.

about 12 tbsp in 27 gallons.

I then added the 800ppm of nutrients.

all together 1500 +_ ppm.

The thing that wasn't clear on the "how to" was wether or not to still add nutrients.

I am going down this morning to dump the reservoir and just use the lower nutrients.

Click to expand...

You're gonna poison your plants with 1500ppm. For example, when my plants were full-sized and going full bore in late flower, I had them max on like 1400ppm. Now mind my last grow was an unusual one where I experimented with an 'over-clocking' technique of feeding in order to really push them. (over-clocking = riding your plants on maximum nute levels while just keeping them from burning severely). So I was giving unusually high ppms at 1400 to my large, mature bushes. So if you're giving 1500ppm to plants at that stage of growth, you really have to consider the amount of dissolved solids, whether it's derived from nute or a combination of nute and additive.

You gotta get your plants used to a lower ppm asap. Flush them out and re-introduce at 700-800ppm. Screw whatever shock this risks, you have to save your plants from the shock of too much shit in their water asap.

That's a good question about your nute details by panhead.

If you're using the three part Flora series from GH, you are giving them a bit of the micro and the bloom as well?

This is GH's simple recirculating chart. The second is for drain to waste.

http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/feeding_charts/GH_KeepItSimple_Recirculating.pdf

http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/feeding_charts/GH_KeepItSimple_DrainToWaste.pdf

Edit:

And note how it also recommends a dosage schedule for Floralicious Plus and Liquid Koolbloom. Two excellent additives. It's a pretty complete nutritional regimen. You can also play around with the ratios depending on a given grow... something I've always liked about this program. After using it a few grows, you'll get a solid sense of things to the point where you can start tweaking the ratios a bit to customize your grow.

Advanced Nutrients has created something to compete directly with this three part Flora GH line called Jungle Juice. It boasts the exact same NPK numbers as GH all around, a perfect mirror at 40% less average retail. Incredible but true. I will transition over to this for my next grow and use that piranha stuff and other AN flowering enhancers to compare to Koolbloom. I'm very curious about this.

I've been checking back all day for an update ... vespa we're here to help! Mistakes happen.
cheers 'neer

OK. Sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner. I have to travel to get to where those little buggers are.

Yesterday morning, I went down and checked everything. Strangely, They looked a little better. I dumped the reservoir with the epsom / nutrient solution. Next I flushed the roots and then reintroduced a solution the nutrients at 800 ppm.

I also did a little folio feeding with the epsom salt solution.

By the end of day, my buddy said that all the new growth was coming in green again, vs. yellow. By the end of the day, the PPM was back down to 640.

To answer a couple of questions:

For nutrients I am using:

http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/floraseries.html

We are mixing the nutrients separately.

I am measuring PPM with a gauge. We are a little concerned with the gauge, because it appears that the PPM isn't calibrating correctly. In RO water, it is showing 190ppm. We will replace this gauge on the next grow. We haven't been considering the starting ppm.

I have some questions that i am sure you guys can answer.

1. Do you "deduct" the starting ppm of your water from the measurement of the nutrients? ie: Does 800ppm - 100ppm (water)= 700ppm nutrients? OR.... are you more concerned with total ppm in the water?

2. When you do the treatment with epsom salts, to cure magnesium lock out, do you also add nutrients to the water?

3. How long should a person do epsom salt treatment?

4. The recommended epsom salt treatment would put a ppm level, well in access of 1500, without nutrients. Doesn't that seem high?

5. Now that we have done our treatment (don't know if it did anything) and subsequently flushed / refilled with new 800ppm nutrients. We are now getting new proper green growth (with folier feeding). Overall growth appears to still be stunted. How long will it take for regular growth to kick back in? Our heartier side is now double the height and this might turn into a timing issue.

6. We are going to step up our water change to every 7 days, vs. our current 10 day cycle. As our ppm falls, should we be reintroducing nutrients? If we do keep nutrients at 800ppm, will the more frequent water changes prevent another lockout?

I want to thank everyone for the help. It has been crucial to saving this crop.

vespa8910 said:

OK. Sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner. I have to travel to get to where those little buggers are.

Yesterday morning, I went down and checked everything. Strangely, They looked a little better. I dumped the reservoir with the epsom / nutrient solution. Next I flushed the roots and then reintroduced a solution the nutrients at 800 ppm.

I also did a little folio feeding with the epsom salt solution.

By the end of day, my buddy said that all the new growth was coming in green again, vs. yellow. By the end of the day, the PPM was back down to 640.

To answer a couple of questions:

For nutrients I am using:

http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/floraseries.html

We are mixing the nutrients separately.

I am measuring PPM with a gauge. We are a little concerned with the gauge, because it appears that the PPM isn't calibrating correctly. In RO water, it is showing 190ppm. We will replace this gauge on the next grow. We haven't been considering the starting ppm.

I have some questions that i am sure you guys can answer.

1. Do you "deduct" the starting ppm of your water from the measurement of the nutrients? ie: Does 800ppm - 100ppm (water)= 700ppm nutrients? OR.... are you more concerned with total ppm in the water?

2. When you do the treatment with epsom salts, to cure magnesium lock out, do you also add nutrients to the water?

3. How long should a person do epsom salt treatment?

4. The recommended epsom salt treatment would put a ppm level, well in access of 1500, without nutrients. Doesn't that seem high?

5. Now that we have done our treatment (don't know if it did anything) and subsequently flushed / refilled with new 800ppm nutrients. We are now getting new proper green growth (with folier feeding). Overall growth appears to still be stunted. How long will it take for regular growth to kick back in? Our heartier side is now double the height and this might turn into a timing issue.

6. We are going to step up our water change to every 7 days, vs. our current 10 day cycle. As our ppm falls, should we be reintroducing nutrients? If we do keep nutrients at 800ppm, will the more frequent water changes prevent another lockout?

I want to thank everyone for the help. It has been crucial to saving this crop.

Click to expand...

You've cruised the ppm down and the plants are starting to green again. Just observe for a couple more days before you add any epsom salt (which may not be necessary). Give the plants a little time to adjust before you do anything else.

I don't add epsom salt to my res (anymore). Yes, some of those recommended dosages are absurd too. Once I did put epsom salt in my water, like a fraction of the recommend, and my ppm went through the roof... and my plants DID NOT like it. I feel hydroponic imbalances should be corrected with things designed specifically for that purpose. I'll save the epsom salt for my bath, thanks.

Your deducting of your native ppm from your overall ppm question I'll answer as follows:

That would be a sound method, deducting the native ppm of your water from your overall, but you have to ask yourself, what is in that native 100 to 200ppm of unfiltered water? Nothing good... well maybe a little good, but much more bad. That's why it should be removed entirely to under 10ppm. that way you start with a clean slate and re-introduce the good minerals that have been filtered out (Calmag is great for this). And you don't have to worry about deducting the city filth from your ppm.

I would say just keep them at the more modest ppm range you've acheived and observe. If they continue to improve, let them do so without continually adding things. Try a little calmag after they've recovered more...And note, calmag, like any other additive will raise your ppm beyond what your nute is by itself. Account for this using your common sense with regard to the overall ppm reading. Absolutely do not put loads and loads of stuff in your water that's gonna shoot your overall ppm to 1500+ for example.

I will offer a slightly different, but not really contradictory, take.
In re point 1, it depends on what is in the water. A municipal water analysis (usually to be had for the asking; here in R'stan they send one to my house every year) is indispensable imo. If it's mostly calcium andor sulfate, I would not worry ... these are benign ions, nutrients even, that are not prone to toxicity. Sodium and chloride otoh ... not so good. Cannabis doesn't like those ions.

For "benign" ions like Ca and SO4 it's ok to "forgive" that preload when mixing nutes. It will show in a total ppm reading however. You do want your plants to get 800ppm actual nutrient right after a fresh reservoir charge.

I did notice that your RO water read 190ppm, and then you had your (unspecified) source water at 100ppm. If that wasn't a typo, I'd be inclined to suspect one or both of:
1) Your TDS meter is indeed operating badly.
2) Something's not right in your RO setup ... almost as if you're drawing the TDS-enriched waste instead of the purified fraction. Unlikely as heck, I'll admit, but ... maybe your RO system is glitching. maybe get a bottle of distilled water as a control?

Epsom salts. If I recall, your reservoir is about 100 liters. If 100ppm real = 100ppm measured (and I grant that is the sort othing that highlights the "ass" in "assumption) then ten grams of epsom will provide a 100ppm boost to your reservoir. That is one somewhat heaping teaspoon of salts. I would use no more.

In theory you should not need to supplement magnesium once your plants have stabilized their nutrient uptake. GH is a reasonably complete feed. The thought of replenishing ppm is sound, but we already know (kind of) that the plants were not absorbing the provided nutes at an even ratio. You're so much safer completely changing them on demand, either on a schedule or when the rate of change of ppm starts to flatten.

As for how long it'll take for your plants to regain full vigor ... I don't know. I hope you'll keep us informed. I for one have developed a mild attachment to my little green remote online patients, and Uncle 'Neer wants to see them through to a glorious graduation ceremony.
cheers 'neer

That's a pretty indepth breakdown by cannabineer in scientific terms. He's clearly a chemical / mineral ion wonk. Lol. Everything he said is good. I'll leave it to you to extrapolate between his scientific analysis and my lay-freidnly pronouncements.

What will largely help to put the bead on where you are in terms of water quality is your location. If your city reservoir is a good water source then there is less to be concerned with, but if you're in a bad water area like me, it's best to get your RO in order and wipe it all clean. 190ppm filtered water is totally not correct. My 100gpd triple element ro filter produces under 10ppm results consistently for months and months. It's designed to filter 100 gallons a day for several months. If you don't filter anywhere near its designated daily capacity, it will last much longer.

Get bottled water to test your ppm guage like he suggests. If the reading of the purified bottled water looks reasonably correct, then double check your filter system as he suggests.

How about a picture of that ppm meter so we know what we're dealing with?

I am going down today to do a test the ro water, with another gauge. We will find out of the ro water is actually getting filtered. Hopefully we can also check the gauge.

As of this morning, our ppm was down from 800 to 400. We added 1 tbsp, to get it back up over 500.

The lightly impacted plants seem to have completely overgrown the slight damage and are doing great.

The other plants, which were more damaged, have started sprouting new heathy leaves, but are barely growing.

I don't know how long it will take for them to start growing again, but the healthy plants are twice as big now. It might be a problem when we have to trigger flowering.

I was wondering if it might be beneficial to make a nutrient solution, at the correct ppm, and folio feed those plants?

How many are big and healthy and how many are small and growing slow?

I would say if you have runts being overshadowed badly, remove them and keep their sites empty for the rest of the grow. Keeping them there might not be a good idea because there is a strong chance that they won't catch up in time to compete during flowering. This will mean that available nutrients and space and light will be wasted on small over-shadowed plants that don't produce in the end. Take 'em out and whatever available potentional energy will be enjoyed by your healthy plants alone.

You may think at this point that saving those smaller plants will improve your yield. I'm just pointing out that keeping them there could do just the opposite and impact your yield negatively.

I, unfortunately, never foliar feed so that question is for someone else.

Peace.

lordjin said:

How many are big and healthy and how many are small and growing slow?

I would say if you have runts being overshadowed badly, remove them and keep their sites empty for the rest of the grow. Keeping them there might not be a good idea because there is a strong chance that they won't catch up in time to compete during flowering. This will mean that available nutrients and space and light will be wasted on small over-shadowed plants that don't produce in the end. Take 'em out and whatever available potentional energy will be enjoyed by your healthy plants alone.

You may think at this point that saving those smaller plants will improve your yield. I'm just pointing out that keeping them there could do just the opposite and impact your yield negatively.

I, unfortunately, never foliar feed so that question is for someone else.

Peace.

Click to expand...

All the plants, on the left side of the system are growing well (one variety):



The plans, on the other side are stunted (other variety with lockout):



The reservoir is common to both varieties

Would be hard to split them up.

Going down this morning and doing the water tests. Will report back.

Thanks for the tips on the other nutrients.

Still not sure about replenishing the nutrients, as the ppm seems to go down really fast.

OK, went down today and the following things are wrong:

1. My ppm meter is indeed a piece of junk and is about 100ppm off. I tested it against another unit. So I twisted the calibration screw until they matched. So, what this meant is that my water, which I thought was at 350ppm was actually only at 260ppm. Deduct the water from the RO filter what do you have?? (see item 2)

2. My second RO filter is not working. The PPM of the filtered water is 220. It also smells like bleach. This is the second unit from the same store and neither have worked. Strange thing is that they were different brands.

So I am getting a new RO unit tomorrow and I will change the reservoir on saturday.

The locked out plant side looks like it has some good new growth, although it is still stunted, compared to the other variety. With that in mind, I took some of nutrient water and did a folier feed.

My big problem right now is that the plants are very different in their growth levels:


Here is a close up of the good side:



Here is a close up of the bad side:



Not sure how to handle this. Guess I just have to wait it out and see. We are only at three weeks, so maybe this will even out.

PS. Sorry about the picts, with the pink stripes. It appears that the phone cameras can't handle the light. I will make sure I take a real camera next time.

Well the good news (obviously) is that your good side looks great. Plus, you have the strong and the stunted separated pretty well, so there won't be overshadowing issues.

Now that I have a better view of your setup, I must say that it looks pretty cool. Your construction looks well thought-out and it really looks like it has the potential to produce substantial yields.

So are you saying that both sides feed on the exact same nute? Wow. I didn't know the differnces in requirments between strains could be so dramatic. No matter how much I think I know about weed, I just go on to realize that really, I know very little. But I've learned enough over the years to know that it's best to grow only one strain on one res as these different strain requirements could cause problems. There's also different finishing times between strains to consider. It's way more fun to have variety, but no fun to have a 'good' strain and a 'not so good' strain in your same grow area. Better to have only one kind you have full control over.

Yeah, then that's clearly a lockout limited to that strain. Interesting. Not good (for you) but interesting.

So you have your PPM meter issue sorted? What's baffling is the difficulty you're having with your water filter. Do either of your units look anything like this? This unit has given me nothing but under 10ppm water time and again with every grow. Just clean with a bleach solution and change the filter elements when spent (which takes a long, long, long time) and you have a brand new filtration system again. I credit this thing with any success I've had as a hydro grower.



I won't insult you by getting on the 'importance of pure water' soapbox, but I have warned beginners in the past (other people -- I'm not calling you a beginner) not to plug in a light or mix a single drop of nute before getting one of these. I'm not sure how many noobs take me seriosly, but it's the most serious aspect of hydro growing.

the algae problem is specifically from the clear tubes letting light on the res. water which makes it grow, change to black tubes.....problem solved! and good advice on the low ppm aero im going to try that with my babys!

^ Good point. Black tubes better. Or cover them or wrap in duct tape or what have you.

lordjin said:

Well the good news (obviously) is that your good side looks great. Plus, you have the strong and the stunted separated pretty well, so there won't be overshadowing issues.

Now that I have a better view of your setup, I must say that it looks pretty cool. Your construction looks well thought-out and it really looks like it has the potential to produce substantial yields.

So are you saying that both sides feed on the exact same nute? Wow. I didn't know the differnces in requirments between strains could be so dramatic. No matter how much I think I know about weed, I just go on to realize that really, I know very little. But I've learned enough over the years to know that it's best to grow only one strain on one res as these different strain requirements could cause problems. There's also different finishing times between strains to consider. It's way more fun to have variety, but no fun to have a 'good' strain and a 'not so good' strain in your same grow area. Better to have only one kind you have full control over.

Yeah, then that's clearly a lockout limited to that strain. Interesting. Not good (for you) but interesting.

So you have your PPM meter issue sorted? What's baffling is the difficulty you're having with your water filter. Do either of your units look anything like this? This unit has given me nothing but under 10ppm water time and again with every grow. Just clean with a bleach solution and change the filter elements when spent (which takes a long, long, long time) and you have a brand new filtration system again. I credit this thing with any success I've had as a hydro grower.

I won't insult you by getting on the 'importance of pure water' soapbox, but I have warned beginners in the past (other people -- I'm not calling you a beginner) not to plug in a light or mix a single drop of nute before getting one of these. I'm not sure how many noobs take me seriosly, but it's the most serious aspect of hydro growing.

Click to expand...

Well, it turned out the the RO filter was defective. We swapped RO elements and that took care of it. My filter looks almost identical to yours.

My ppm meter is a piece of junk. The ph and temp work great, but I can't get the ec / ppm to calibrate:



Any pointers for a similar combo unit, with better quality?

I went down this morning and dumped the reservoir and refilled with the now properly filtered water. I brought the nutrients up to 750ppm, from 10ppm filtered water.

Approximately 7 of the 9 stunted plants have new growth, which is green. Two plants are still producing magnesium deficient leaves (yellow / brown spots, but to a lesser extent).

I went ahead and continued the epsom salt folio feeding.

With the new clean water, with nutrients, The ph is a full percentage point lower than it was. Now I am not continuously adding ph down.

Regarding the tubes, we started with opaque, but there was a problem sourcing them. This system is a test build. We have already redesigned the construction. The new set up will be with 6" square tubes. The water supplies to the jets will be solid pvc. The tubes are too complicated. I literally was machining parts to mount the jets:



Also too expensive. All in all, the water system has been very reliable. Since the jets are mounted in from the top, there are no clogging issues with the roots.

I will keep you posted on the sick kids.

Anyone have a good guide on pruning the lower sections of the plants? The healthy plants have completely blocked out the lower areas.

Thanks

Hey, what can I tell ya? The calibration screws on those tri-meters can be tricky sometimes. If it makes you feel any better, I've had more than one frustrating moment with calibration fluid and tiny screwdriver in hand.


Was that unit acquired new? It looks pretty decent to me. Dip the sucker in the 1320ppm test solution. Turn the screw to 1320ppm, and watch... if it stays anywhere decently stable, just call it accurate. You could drive yourself crazy trying to get it absolutely perfect sometimes. If not, then you might have a faulty meter. I had to angrily return a 250.00 meter once... so it does happen. You've just had the best luck with this so far, haven't you?

On a brighter note, I bet you anything your plants will start bouncing back with your properly filtered water.

As far as pruning, are your healthy plants growing pretty rapidly and vigorously? If so, then you can be liberal with the lower junk pruning and the plants will quickly refocus the energy on the remaining growth. Just use your common sense and take out a little at time... don't just haphazardly strip the plants bare of all their leaves. And be aware that pruning is generally not associated with the initial vegetative stage, unless we're talking about a specific cutting technique for taking clones from a mother or forced multiplying of tops.

But where more routine 'brush clearing' is concerned, I think it's a general consensus among growers that heavy pruning of leaves and weak bud sites is done during early flowering as a strategy to maximize energy on the strong branches. Which makes total sense because vegetative growth and flowering growth are worlds apart. In flowering you see mad stretching initially where the branches and bud sites will sort of space themselves out. This stage will give you a much better idea of what your future final budscape might look like. Knowing this, it will be much clearer for you which branches and leaves to strategically cut.

Your site arrangement has the plants pretty close together, so you're gonna have crowding issues. They get pretty huge if you let 'em grow out -- I think you're already discovering that (in flowering they can triple in size). People who squeeze sites close together like that are usually doing a sea of green that flowers the plants at a much smaller size, or utilizing some other method of keeping the plant height down -- like training. You will, of course, improve upon your build with what you learn from this grow.

Edit:
I think your system's site arrangement would do really well for a short plant sea of green perpetual. I've seen aero tube arrangements like yours where the dude has the sites pretty close together. There is a very short or no veg period and the plants just immediately flower into these little lollipoppers. The short overall grow period means you can just restock and do it again for very frequent harvests. Aeroponics are ideally suited for this type of rapid, perpetual harvest growing because they make the plants grow faster than other forms of hydro.

If you want to go the route of letting the clones grow out to a larger size, I would recommend fewer sites spaced farther apart and screening them to manage the canopy height.

Here are picts of the latest state of affairs. I really need to get some guidance on the proper way of doing nutrients. This is my first grow and I am just putting equal parts of each of the flora grow GH product.

We started at 800ppm, but it is going down 200ppm per day and it has been difficult to get the nutes back up to 800.

Not sure if these problems stem from my 10 day reservior dump at the beginning, or the fact that the RO filter wasn't working for the first 3 weeks.

Here are pictures of the healthier side at four weeks:



Here is the sick side:





Here is the sick side, which is better, but still showing signs of problems:

there's something wrong with the file formats of your healthy pics.

Your sick plants are getting too much of something (the burn) and not enough of something else (the yellowing, curling, slow growth). When I see nute burn like that, it's usually because the plants are just taking in too much too fast... which will result in burn spots, but is accompanied by astonishing growth. Your plants look like they're nute burning without the rapid green growth, so there is a pretty severe imbalance going on.

Why are your other plants fine? It's a more forgiving, hardy strain on that other side... and they're clearly starting to dominate... imbalances like that are never good for the overall grow. I'm not sure why your ppms are dropping so dramatically. For me, a heavy feed session won't decrease my overall reading by more than 50ppm. A decrease by a full 50ppm or more I consider an ultra-heavy feed day. How are you monitoring your ppm?

Don't just give them equal parts. Follow the proportional ratios of each recommended element exactly as the GH chart outlines depending on your phase of growth. I would imagine you're at the 'grow' or 'aggressive grow' stage. But don't just throw in however many ml to gallon it says. Instead do this:

copy pasted from another thread where I made this recommendation:

This is what I do. Get a large jar of RO water. Mix the the nutes as the chart suggests for the amount of water you're using. Example: mix five gallons worth, 8 gallons worth, ten gallons worth according to the chart. So now you have this jar of nute concentrate with all the suggested elements mixed in the proper proportions, yes? Good. You will absolutely not pour all this concentrate into your res at once. Take the jar and slowly pour into your res while stirring. Get your ppms up to where you want it and set the rest in the jar aside for later use.

Edit:

Those burn spots look like they're a few nodes old and I don't see any more on your new growth. This suggests to me that those burn spots are just the 'history spots' of when you had your res running at too high a ppm concentration. The new growth looks better, but they're still not really green and continue to curl. So they're still missing something -- rather than the imbalance theory I presented above.

The plants can continually hit a reset button depending on how they're being fed. With your next water change, follow my recommend above of pre-mixing the nutes in their suggested ratios into a jar of filtered water and they'll probably have a better chance of balancing out their nute intake.

Thanks lordjin,

Yea, we are having a real hard time figuring out what's up.

We do know that the water was basically unfiltered for the first 3.5 weeks.

We also know that we probably had our nutrients overclocked, too early in vegetative growth.

The sickly plants seem to have persistant yellowing. I have read that the root lockout is very hard to reverse and that the stunting might be just the way it is.

On the healthier plants, there are some slight brown spots, but not many. Growth is great.

We have started transition to flower.

We flushed the system and based on the General Hydroponics' nutrient calculator, we added our nutrients, which ended up being 1000 ppm. (with Proper RO water)

Since doing this, day before yesterday, our PPM has dropped to about 940, but we have stopped our reservoir auto refill and we haven't done any nutrient replenishment. It has gone down 3 inches in our reservoir. I would suppose that our ppm was dropping so much faster before, because the water was being replaced. Not sure if that is good or bad.

I feel like we might have done damage to the plants, in the first 3 weeks and they just aren't bouncing back. Most of the stunted plants look much more green, but they are growing growing slowly.

Let me ask this: We keep smelling what we think is chlorine. I know the filter is working now, but is there any way that it still might not be filtering chlorine?