I'm so confused, I can't even think of a descriptive title. Can you please help me identify what's going on?

[chamenon]

As some of you know, I tried to grow in living soil with dry amendments. This was my first try and it seems like it's going to be the last, at least for a while.

I've had all kinds of problems, all at the same time, stunted growth, chlorosis, curled leaves, warped leaves, weird shaped leaves, symptoms that look like magnesium deficiency, potassium and phosphorus deficiency, over and underwatering, over and under fertilizing etc.

I'm in 3 gal pots, with plenty of earth worm castings and Bio-Live baked into the soil. I've been getting a good amount of mycelium on top of the soil so I think the soil biology is alive but the plants don't grow at all. It's almost the 10th week of vegetation and they're not even bushy with all the problems I've listed above. When I was growing with salts (although I had better genetics) I was struggling to control the size of the grow previously. This is I just keep looking at the plants, they look same every day. I just want to save the 9 weeks I've spent on these, don't care if it's organic, synthetic, chemical or nuclear, I just need these to turn into smokable flowers. Can anyone take a look at these photos and help me with the correct path to get these plants back to a healthy state?

Temps are around 75, RH is %50 since the start of the vegetation. I'm doing 20/4 light cycle. I don't pH my water but checked TDS which is around 60ppm on my tap water. I filter it with Brita than let it sit for at least 24 hours to let chlorine evaporate. City doesn't use chloramine. City water is supposed to be around 7.5 pH (could this be the problem even though it's living soil which is supposed to buffer the pH?). I also have to close the closet door everyday for 4 hours during the dark cycle which limits the air flow, because I couldn't buy a grow tent since I've been spending all the money on dry amendments and stuff like that. Other than these two limitations, I think I've tried everything so far.

I really need some help from experienced people, I've been trying to find answers to these problems and I'm still not a step further from where I started. Any input would be much appreciated.

 

[dogster]

Are the pots sitting on cold concrete?

 

[Hippie420]

I'd check out the PH of the runoff. Something ain't right.

 

[SubmarineGirl]

I know you said you don’t ph but like Hippie said, getting a ph runoff reading on who’s going on in your plants is a good start to figuring out what’s wrong.
‘do you let your plants dry out between watering?
also when you said been getting a good amount of mycelium on top of the soil I’m trying to imagine that and why.
and what kinda soil are you using with all your worm castings and other goodies?
i know I’m full of questions right?

 

[chamenon]

Are the pots sitting on cold concrete?

No, they're in my room, in the closet, closet has carpet on the floor and they're elevated from the carpet by around 2-3 inches on a metal rack.

I'm attaching a photo of the rack I'm using.

I know you said you don’t ph but like Hippie said, getting a ph runoff reading on who’s going on in your plants is a good start to figuring out what’s wrong.
‘do you let your plants dry out between watering?
also when you said been getting a good amount of mycelium on top of the soil I’m trying to imagine that and why.
and what kinda soil are you using with all your worm castings and other goodies?
i know I’m full of questions right?

I used to let the top 2 inches of the soil dry out but then I read that in living soil it's best to keep everything moist all the time, so I started spraying top of the soil everyday and kept watering them %5 of the total soil volume every other day. In addition I used cardboards as a mulch to prevent drying. That brought a lot of mycelium and I thought that was a good indicator about the soil biology but that also brought a lot fungus gnats. So I purchased mosquito bits (BTi) and started using that 4 teaspoons to a gallon of water. I did it only once so far, I have plenty of yellow stickies around and they catch a lot of gnats but I still have a good amount of them around. BTi needs to be applied every week so I'm about to apply it once again soon.

I want to invest in one of those Apera pens but currently can't do it at least until I can purchase a tent and a duct fan because I want to switch to flowering (closet might not be super light sealed), do you think I can get away with one of those $10 yellow pH pens at least for a while? I'm really tired and exhausted of spending money, not getting any results and realizing it was a waste of already limited funds so if they're not gonna give me a proper reading, I would rather wait a little to get one of those Apera pens because after this horrible experience with living soil, I'm planning to go all hydro next time. I don't have time or apartment space for this. What's an affordable and reasonably accurate way of measuring pH? In my salt based grow I just used general hydroponics' pH test liquid. Should I just buy a small bottle of DynoGro and and General Hydrophonics pH control kits and do what previously worked for me?

Thank you all for your suggestions, please ask as much as you want to, I really need some experienced people to guide me on this.

 

[oldfogey8]

I agree with Hippie and Subbie that you should check the pH(both going in and running off). 7.5 is high but if the microbes are healthy, I think they would fix that. My brother had a pH issue growing organically. His city water was ok for a while but when he had issues and checked the pH out of the tap, it was 8.5. Do you have hood drainage? As Subbie also said, a wet/dry cycle is important.

 

[chamenon]

I agree with Hippie and Subbie that you should check the pH(both going in and running off). 7.5 is high but if the microbes are healthy, I think they would fix that. My brother had a pH issue growing organically. His city water was ok for a while but when he had issues and checked the pH out of the tap, it was 8.5. Do you have hood drainage? As Subbie also said, a wet/dry cycle is important.

Is this what's a hood drainage? If that's it, I don't set the pots up like that, I filled the entire fabric pot with soil but added plenty of pumice in the mix.

I guess it's time to buy that Apera pen instead of the grow tent and the duct fan. I'm going to be using the pH pen even if I switch to hydro or synth nutes regardless.

 

[Hippie420]

Those little cheapy PH pens you mentioned are all I use in hydro. I've bought them in yellow and red both. It pays to buy at least two at a time 'cause ya never know just when they're gonna die on ya.

 

[chamenon]

Those little cheapy PH pens you mentioned are all I use in hydro. I've bought them in yellow and red both. It pays to buy at least two at a time 'cause ya never know just when they're gonna die on ya.

Okay, thank you! I think I'll have get a pH pen and see if anything is out of whack at this point. May I ask you if you're doing hydro why do you not purchase the Apera? Doesn't constantly buying these yellow pens become more expensive in the long run? I'm thinking about switching to hydroponic and I always thought it would be a good investment?

Edit: Ordered a cheapo vivoson pH pen and I'll check my input water as well as runoff in two days and update here. Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

 

[MiniGrowz]

How much light are you giving them? All leaves that have direct light looks burnt but undergrowth looks green. Also leaves are curling up it seams I read somewhere it could be a sign of to much light.

 

[boo]

Get a blulab pH pen…they last if cared for

 

[chamenon]

How much light are you giving them? All leaves that have direct light looks burnt but undergrowth looks green. Also leaves are curling up it seams I read somewhere it could be a sign of to much light.

I use 5000K LED shop lights, supported by a 20W blurple. In total I am running two of those LED lights (40 real watt each, ~9000 lumen in total) and Photon app with a diffuser is showing me that I have around 500PPFD at the canopy level which at 20/4 light cycle should be around 35-40 DLI. Recently I tried doubling the lights for a couple of days (so 4 40w 5000k strips plus 20w blurple as a spectrum support) and those brown spots appeared so those might be light burns as you said but the rest of the problems, I've been dealing since the start of the growth. I currently reverted back to my previous setting of 2 strips + the blurple. I know not the most conventional grow light setup but if I'm not mistaken both intensity light intensity and light spectrum should be covered with these (5000K should cover the entire range and blurple should help at the margins of the spectrum). But now that I'm thinking, those good green leaves may correspond to weeks where I bought bottled water from walmart which should be around 6.5 pH. Maybe my tap water is causing all this.

Get a blulab pH pen…they last if cared for

This was one of the reasons I kept putting purchasing a pH pen on hold because I kept reading even Apera's fail after a while. I'm all for saving up for gadgets that last, I will look into this and see if I can justify the more than double the cost of Apera. Thank you for the suggestion!

 

[SubmarineGirl]

So I don’t know about “living soil” but it seems like only spraying the top and not letting the roots below get soaked then allowed time to dry out before watering again would be a problem for my plants in “regular soil”. I say regular soil for me that is the pre loaded FF strawberry stuff. (Everyone has their own definition of their regular soil) I try to keep the top soil dry to prevent those gnats which I hate in my grow although they are not the end of the world. I also don’t like having anything white growing on the soil but maybe for living soil, this is a good thing.

as far as a PH pen goes, mine quit working and I had some ph test drops kinda like this. I actually use this all the time now to test for PH. They are very inexpensive and will last you for a really long time. It’s what they used before the cool pens came out which are I’m sure are more accurate but for me, when I have had to use it, my readings were so obviously high or low it worked for me.

I don’t usually PH test anything unless I’m having a problem like you but this test kit is very low cost and efficient to get pretty close and will definitely show you if you’re way high or low in ph. It comes with a color card. In order to get a ph runoff reading you will have to water until you get runoff in the drip pan, then collect that to test. You may find that the lower roots enjoy getting wet if you have only been watering 5% of the pot.

good Luck with your issues

 

[Lesso]

Even in organic growing, your input ph water shouldn't be that high. The pH of city water is usually 8 to 8.5. way too high.

 

[oldfogey8]

Is this what's a hood drainage? If that's it, I don't set the pots up like that, I filled the entire fabric pot with soil but added plenty of pumice in the mix.

I guess it's time to buy that Apera pen instead of the grow tent and the duct fan. I'm going to be using the pH pen even if I switch to hydro or synth nutes regardless.

I fill my felt pots up with soil that has good drainage. I don’t put gravel in the bottom. I do put my pots on grates to get the bottom up out of the run off. Good drainage is needed but if the bottom of the pot sits in runoff, the lower soil and roots will not get the oxygen the roots need. Do you let the pots get to where they feel light? If the soil is always damp, it promotes anaerobic bacteria which turn the soil acidic and the roots will rot. That being said, getting a pH pen is a good plan.

 

[dogster]

If they aren't cold then they are hungry.

 

[RosterMan]

May want to start some back ups in a good brand store bought soil and see if they grow any different?
Who mixed your soil for you and did they know what they were doing?
Root gnats my be eating the crap out of the plants roots too. Never know...............
Have you tried playing music to them?

 

[dogster]

I never understood someone who has zero experience deciding to do it all themselves without any understanding of what it is they are doing.

 

[WeedHopper]

We all made mistakes when we 1st start most any endeavor. School of hard knocks.

 

[Hippie420]

If they aren't cold then they are hungry.

That's why I was thinking it might be a PH problem. All the nutes in the world won't help if the PH is causing lock out.

I always had good luck with the cheapy pens, but I always kept two or three handy. One might last a year or two while the next one lasted six months. Rinsing the tips off in distilled water and drying them on a piece of paper towel seemed to help in how long they lasted.
Ebay is your friend when it comes to the cheap ones.