sumwhiteguy,
In the future, you might co0nsider posting your questions that involve hydro in the hydroponics section. You can of course post anywhere you want to, but the reason there is a hydro section is so the hydro specialists can deal with hydro questions without a bunch of "I don't know about hydro cause I just grow in dirt but..." posts.
I'm not an expert on anything and haven't grown hydro yet, but am heading that way quickly as soon as I can afford to finish setting it up,so I follow the hydro section a lot. Everything I have seen anywhere says for hydro, which is what you have, you want to be as low as 5.6 and as high as 6.0 with the best starting point being 5.8.
Something else you want to remember is if the plants are only in your system for a day or two,it is very hard to tell what is going on because we have no idea what has been being done to them. Dispensaries or clubs are NOT ALWAYS reliable sources of information, seeds or clones. Depending upon the skill and integrity of the operators they can be worthless or very valuable.
There is usually a reason why "everyone" is telling you some thing and then there is some new member contradicting it. Did you notice that ZEM the great has only been a member for less than a month and without establishing any credibility has been posting crap and ruffling feathers? Be very cautious and suspicious of anyone how starts talking in absolutes, especially if it contradicts accepted knowledge and experience.
If I'm making an unwarranted assumption, then forgive me, but you sound like a total newcomer to growing in any medium, correct? IF you are starting out on hydro then you need to devour EVERY ONE OF THE RESOURCES, ESPECIALLY THE ONES WITH HYDRO because it is a lot more sensitive than soil. And you ned to do it NOW before you kill your clones. Also, try to tke your pictures under normal light because the HPS really throws the color off to a lot of us. The older more experienced may be able to adjust their vision to account for it but a lot of us aren't that good.
In addition to the hydro section, another section to follow is Sick Plants if you think there is something wrong. There are some very sharp members on that section when it comes to diagnosing plant problems.
Now having ran my mouth so to speak, I have only been growing since May 2009, but research for months before I even started, found a couple of experienced local growers to use as mentors and then started following the threads that dealt with what I wanted to know and most importantly THOUGHT about what I was told and asked myself if it made sense. If it didn't I kept asking for clarification without arguing until I finally understood it. Based on that way of doing things I have gotten a good reputation, often times more than what I think I deserve, but the reputation comes from the response of the other members towards your postings so I guess I must accept the reputation they have bestowed on me. The point here is that you can grow for years and kind of just stumble along ignorant as heck and even get pretty good results or you can study and learn and become very knowledgeable in a fairly short time like I did -- but remember there is NO substituted for experience! I've made some real stupid decisions that have cost me dearly because I missed one little thing that everyone knew and just assumed that I knew so didn't mention it.
An example is I was running a 100% success ratio on my clones all late spring and early summer and then went to a 0% ratio. It was my totally inexperienced and uneducated as regard to growing MJ other half that figured out that the temp in my cloning room had dropped from the high 70s /80s to below 65F at the same time I started loosing every clone. Since then I have started heating the area and my success ratio is back up -- it is too early to give numbers, all because she was able to distance her thinking from all of the possible causes and look for what had changed. This oversight of something very basic cost me 3 varieties that I really wanted to keep that are "outlaw" local varieties only readily available in clones and with no current source of reliable replacement clones. And her insight enabled me to save the other one that was nearly gone, because when I started warming up the area, 4 of them pulled through and are growing real well in Perlite rapidly approaching time to transplant them.
WELCOME TO THE FORUMS AND PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS BUT BE READY TO LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS. If they don't make sense then either ask for clarification or just ignore it because you will not gain anything trying to change someone's mind unless they want to change it!
Get into those resources and the hydro section ASAP and you'll be okay. Remember, until we started messing with the genetics, cross breeding and hybridizing them, pot plants were basically weeds that grew naturally all by themselves nearly all over the world, so while you can kill them, you will probably be most likely to love them to death and over water and feed them.
Good smoking man. I look forward to seeing you around and successful fo ra long time.
