2 weeks old:should be bigger?got pics

[mojomon]

Thanks Mario:
I noticed today that there were what appeared to be a discoloration or slight brownish spotting in the veins of the larger leaves (see photo), and also that a couple of the plants seem to be drooping in appearance, just not standing up as tall and firm as they have been. Light too close? Too much heat? Nutrient problem? I'm flushing the sytem again before ny new nutrients arrive. Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[mariofromontario]

id recomend getting a very common food like generall haydroponics flora , the one with grow micro and bloom. so many people use this food, advice will be easier to get. if you dont have a ppm pen you should get one. this will give a very good idea of how much food exist in you res. The plants to me look hungry, especially for nigtrogen. the downard curl, or lack of water pressure may leed one to think the opposite, but because i cant see any burnt leaf tips or waxy dull leaves, id guess they need more food. the faint spots developing could be phosphorus deff, but again use good food, and you only have to think in terms of too much, or too little. (basically). Trial and error is best, if you were using gh id recomend 100 - 200 to start 200 to 300 ppm, after 2 weeks and maybe upto a max of 500-600 under a 400. different strains can eat way different though, fluhing at every res change is not bad thinking.

whenever i have plants that i feel are not sucking up enough water weither it be too much, too little food, too much heat are too low humidity, i spray them at night w/ water. they seem to dig it.

id recomemd liquid food at least while you establish, it is well dissolved, and you dont have to worry about big chunks of un dissolved crap laying about.

~~~~~~~~~hey im back today just remembered you ordered maxi gro, ignore my food comment, i used Peters when i started, it worked. dry food should work. I dont know if it helped but i used to load up my old coffee filter with the food and brew it up. my thinking was that it would dissolve it properly. I even used a hand blender in the res.I really dont know if this helped. i have a worry that my blabing could lead too, overspending. setting up can nickle and dime one to death.

 

[mojomon]

Hey Mario:
Thanks dude for the info. I just received my maxigro a little while ago. My plants have been flushing on pH balanced water for over 24 hours, and I thought I would let them go until tomorrow (will be roughly 48 hours @ that point), as I will be installing my IceProbe chiller in the res. They seem to be holding their own @ this point, so I hope all will be well. I just want to start fresh with new food, chilled water and a new attitude...
What do you think?

 

[bizzy323]

Sounds good, I would say don't rush on the nuts give it couple of more days before you put it in your system.

 

[mariofromontario]

FROM THE LOOK OF YOUR SET UP THINK YOURE ATTITUDE IS GOOD. well ive proved myself a blabber and so i continue.......... I think bizzy and guru might be closer to youre problem than i am, cocerning the nuts. i finally read all the posts about youre set up. here is a pic of what my revised opinion is of youre plants. or what i think may be hapening. hopfully guru and bizzy can yea or nea. the write up in the book for this picture says: over fertilized with nitrogen and other nutrients. Leaves curl uder because sodium level is rather low.~ thats it! (?)

so if this is the case.... and this is a guesse, they cant eat, its nutrient lock out, not quite burn( like it may have been in week 1) not salt build up,if this is the right diagnosis, what they really need is a lower strenth food. another reson i think this may be the case is because of the lights were high for a while. it is good to keeps lights way off tender sedlings, but light way up means little food. So they are hungry but are so becuse they cant eat. too much food. i dont agree with the long leaches or straying from food for too long. this works in soil only because soil its self holds on too food very well,. youre mediums do not. there should always be food in the res. except for very brief periods. Uh p.s. your plants are nowhere near this bad, obviously, if this is youre prob, then it is the very early stages of it. peace.
Mario.

 

[mojomon]

Thanks--
Woke upthis morning and the plants looked terrible. The spots are spreading and the plants look like they are taking a turn for the worse. Went right ahead and changed out my res and mixed in some maxigro (a little less than label directed), pH balanced and prayed...
I think I may have killed em', but I suppose time will tell. All plants now seem to have some kind of spots that look either like nutrient burn or deficiency. I think those crap nutes that came with my set up were the main cause (not to mention me dosing them to early). Well, I have more seeds, and if this crop doesn't make it all I can do is try again, learn from the experience.
In any case, thanks to all you folks who have been helping--more to come...

 

[bizzy323]

mojo do you have pictures? I have grown hydro before, i didn't put any nuts in my system for straight 3 weeks. Also did you start running your system since sprout? (the pump)

 

[mojomon]

Biz:
Here are some pics I took just a few moments ago. They don't look too good, but new leaf growth seems unaffected. They looked like they were starving after about 36 hours of fresh water flushing, so I went ahead and put some nutes in when I changed it out this morning. I don't know what I should do now, think I will just leave things as they are and hope for the best. My water temp is running around 80 degrees, so I will be installing a mini aquarium chiller in my 5 gal res today.
Oh well, good thing I bought a lot of seeds...
Thanks,
Jeff

 

[bizzy323]

just give it some time see what happens, they don't look that bad.

 

[mariofromontario]

~well confused yet? Trial and error my friend, the new pics help.I think the downward curl fooled me, or not, who knows for sure. but from these pics id bet my life they want food. they will do much better on the maxi grow i would bet. The spots developing from what can see is a diff of P. the paleness is N, and the redness of the stems is another sign of P diffecientcy. once they recover ditch the affected leaves, decaying dying leaves invite fungus, and molds. ( dont stress about this, but I think a couple leaves are developing minor fungal problems.) a heathy plant should have no problem fending of the type of fungus i think it is. On the bright side your node spacing looks very good, once you figure out the right food strengh you should do very well for youself. You will like the chiller, so will they. im gonna stop commenting on this issue of food probs., as i can only really guesse from over here., just think in terms of too much or too little. youre roots are fairly safe, untill they start running along the trays, when this happens, and if you want, ill tell you whatt i know about ajusting water flow.


ill look through my pics and ill find the best examples of generic over feeding and common underfeeding

take care
Mojoman

mario.

 

[mojomon]

I guess you could say I was a little confused...
The affected leaves look even worse now than they did yesterday---I'll be amazed if these things survive at all. So, when you say ditch the dying leaves, what'sthe best way to do that. One or two of them have already started to break off as they seem dried out and yellow. Should I cut them off using a blade such as in cloning?

 

[bizzy323]

no don't cut them off, leafs are there for a reason. Do you have new pictures of them?

 

[mojomon]

Dude, I think Mario was right---I think it's a fungus amongus. I was looking in one of the pots and I noticed the surface od the rockwool and the growrocks around it had a white powdery substance clinging to it, and when I lifted the pot out of the tray it seemed to be clogged with a light brown muck clinging to the bottom. Seems like the roots can't get through cause the bottom is clogged. On the other pots where the roots are through, the muck is clinging to them.
Check out these pics I took a little while ago. On one of the larger plants, I went ahead and cut the dead leaves at the stem/node, they were breaking off and basically rotten. Hope that doesn't do them in, although maybe it's a done deal anyhow. I had a small sample tube of bio-fungicide treatment and I went ahead and put that in my res, but soemthing tells me it willbe like throwinh a thimble of water on a house fire. Oh, the humanity...

 

[bizzy323]

I think it's Magnesium (Mg) deficiency and nut burn and for the fungus, I had the same problem before but i noticed it too late.

 

[mojomon]

So should I bag this crop and start over? I don't want to keep running up my electric bill if it's a losing battle--

 

[mariofromontario]

hmm I dont know,starting over..... your call.if you can fix this problem, you will learn a whole lot. im gonna stop guessing... im confusing myself, you being new at the game probably are getting frustrated. heres some things you can try if they make sense to you. youre trays are washable, your pots removeable, when you leach you could wipe the trays, and swish the whole pot, stone plant and all in a fesh bucket of water. Tepid water and wetting agent will disolve any extra salt away fairly quickly. change the res and plunk the babies back in. This may save time. i have never done this, but i top feed.

a very mild bleach solution ( sounds scary eh?) is a great way to sanitize your empty system.

AS a rule of thumb: under feeding can look similar to over feeding, but underfeeding usually does not have brown tips, or any curls in the leaves, unless the leaf is on its last leg. over feeding usually starts out with lush growth, then progresses to unusually dark dull leaves, then burnt tips and weird lockout problems. (this is my personal observation)

Please use hydrogen peroxide. (lol) not any bio products,( i probably woulda thown it in too miind you, i like free)

most bio aditives, need a week or two to establish, this is better done
in an empty system, as the food provided for them to colinize also feeds the nastie ones.this is advanced growing. some of the products like zyme, hygrozymee, and guardian angel, boast of miracle results, they are the enzymes of tbe good bateria. bascically a huge vat of bacteria shit and piss. This waste is a good obsticle for bad stuff. It is insanely over priced. and usually,unnessisary., some people use these products before they start to breeding good bactera, to sorta pave the way. In the future this side of growing may be a help to you. for now perhaps, just try to kill all organisims fungi and molds.
,
the hospital type aproach, keep youre res sterile. take care Mr. Mojo

 

[mojomon]

Thanks Mario. The plants are still alive, and new leaf growth is there, but I just don't know at this point. I mean, they look like they are still growing, so I guess I will just keep up the "wait and see" vigil. I was actually wondering if I could try to wash things out, and was going to ask you that next, so thanks for the suggestion.
So I will need to use the hydrogen peroxide, and I should use the 35% strength, right? Any recommendations on leaching products? I have to order all my supplies online as I am way more than a stone's throw away from my nearest friendly neighborhood hydro store.
Really appreciate all your help, and who knows, maybe these things might actually make it---
Mojo

 

[mariofromontario]

yup sir, 35% somtimes called food grade, this is diluted to about 1%, the instructions will help. I actually tasted my res to see if there was any left in the water. I think i settled on adding it twice a week. I dont know what leaching agents are, most peeps i talk with think they are chemicals with a high negative charge. (the major nurients NPK and some minor ones, have a positive charge, so introducing a negitive charge makes them stick together and become large enough to wash away easy.) A book i have says they are calcium peroxide. ClearX was the best seller at our store. but as they never list ingredients, it seems a toss of the dice.

Wetting agent is a pure detergent, a soap molecule, has a big meat hook at the end of its chain. this digs in to other molecules well, and breaks them up. Adding as little as one drop to youre res will lessen the surface tension of the water, making it harder for anything nastie to put its feet down. it also keeps the water flowing a bit better.
I have had the same bottle of Agri 2 weting agent for about 6 years. a little goes a long way. I only use 1 drop per 40 gal res. I recomend this crap. (cheap)

I feel like a bastard but here are my food recomendations:

generall hydro 3 part, not the best, but good enough, Resonable price,consistant quality.
DNF i had resonable results with this food, it is quite diluted you need to use alot of it, but you res is small and its weakness may be an advantage. dnf= dutch nurient formula
it is resonably priced to.

I achieved better results when i switched to liquid foods, from powdered ones.

i would not be surprised at all if they make it. and finally enter rapid growth,
TRy using a larger resivoir, and get a ppm pen, these type of mechanical/ technical improvements usually help more then miracle snake oils.

I have no hands on expeirience with an NFT system, but a simple ball valve just after the pump will alow you to adjust the flow, to a point were the roots get water but are not drowning in it. Stagnent water and high temp nurient solution/ root zone, are the usuall causes of rot. you may even want to consider a wet dry cycle, putting a timmer on the pump.

~ Hydroponic system are the perfect enviroment for many things to grow, soon im sure, you will have only want you want to grow growing. And finding the right food strength always takes time, dont get frustrated, just watch em and learn friend.

I have heard leaching products work, from many people, and from guys who really know their shit. but i have no expeirience w/ them. Take care.
Mario.

 

[mariofromontario]

this was the best book i ever read, on this suject anyway, Secrets of high yeild plant growth. written by Graham Reinders there is a link on the book, i dont know if it works.

www.growsupergardens.com

 

[mojomon]

Thanks Mario, you always offer such optimistic (and valuable) suggestions, and it is much appreciated my friend. YOU DA MAN.

The plants are actually looking okay at the moment, as I said the new growth seems to be moving along. I'm trying to put it into perspective, as it has been less than three weeks since these babies sprouted from the rockwool, and I suppose as a first grow I could have done a lot worse (and perhaps a little better...). I was actually thinking not all of the six seeds I planted would sprout, much less survive this long, I figured I'd be lucky to get 3 or 4. If even just 2 of these make it to flower and turn out to be female, then I will see it as a success and one hell of a valuable learning experience.

I contacted the hydro store where I bought my MaxiGro, and they have hydrogen peroxide 35%, so I will be placing that order asap. The guy at the store also said that the "muck" I was seeing on the bottom of the pots and clinging to the roots was probably normal, and constituted the "film" portion of the term "Nutrient Film Technique". Needeless to say I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the cana-Gods for that one. He also suggested going from 24/0 on my light to 18/6, if for no other reason than because my room gets so damn hot. He said by having the lights off during the hottest part of the day (noon to 6pm), it would not only allow the room to cool down, but give the plants an opportunity to take in more oxygen.

I have installed an IceProbe thermoelectric aquarium chiller designed to cool aquariums up to 20gal, but it seems to be taking a while to cool the water down. The manual did say with large volumes of water it could take up to several days, so I guess i will give it some time. The guy at the hydro store also suggested freezing small plastic bottles of water and placing them in the res to bring it down, rotating them out when the ice melts. Not sure about that one, but I may end up trying it if this chiller doesn't handle the load.

I have GH Maxigro and Maxibloom food as my only nutes right now. They are both powder form. I started feeding with them a couple of days ago, and no signs of anything wierd as of yet. Maxigro is for veg, a combo of the two is suggested for late veg/early bloom phase, and Maxibloom during flowering. I'm hoping they will do the job. I was thinking of going liquid food for my next crop and see what the difference is.
Well, I will keep you posted, and thanks as always for all your assistance brother!

Peace and soul,
Mojo