a couple of problems / advice needed

havoc902 · Dec 2, 2012

Ill start by giving a quick rundown.
I have a medical license to grow 15 plants.
I started with seeds 11 seedlings of Critical Kush and 4 clones of white russian/ kush.
medium is Sunshine mix #4
in tupperware totes (72L maybe?)
4 plants under each 1000w hps bulbs. will be 2 per bulb during flower. with 1 left for a scrog test I am doing.
I have the entire room set up on a controller. its usually between 24.5-28 deg celcius. 55-65%rh and 1200-1600ppm co2.

The 4 clones are exhibiting problems, which started on the top leaves. they are canoeing and have lighert green areas between veins.

the first 4 seedlings I transplanted into totes are doing fine, aside from one my partner flushed, but has since sprung back to health and is catching up to the other 3.

The other 7 were exhibiting fert burn and my partner on advise flushed the soil. They have not sprung back as of yet. but I have now transplanted them into totes.

Now to the Issues:

Problem #1
Clones: What does these signs indicate? should I trim the affected leaves, or are they good indicators if the problem is resolved? (100_662[1].jpg 100_663[1].jpg clone1.jpg)

Problem #2
First 4 seedlings. as you can see, the first 4 seedlings are massive!. I have never seen plants grow with this girth. my issue is, the top fan leaves are sooo big that they block all light to the sprouts coming off the bottom. Should I cut the fan leaf to give it more light? I would usually just cut the srout because it is on the bottom and would only become wispy bud anyways, but the stalk on the SPROUT the first leaf up is almost the size of a PENCIL already!! so I am thinking maybe it will be big enough to reach the top of the canopy? if not, should I prune the new sprout?

Problem #3
The last 7 were flushed. and my knowledge of sunshine mix is that is does not contain natural nutrient. so if you flush it, you can pretty much starve the plant. is this correct? these plants are all pale in color, and bottom leave are yellowish as you can see. am I correct in assuming the flushing had a negative effect? I since gave them 1/4 dose of my advanced nut regimine.

any suggestions?

update: plants have started to curl under. looks like fert burn?

Locked · Dec 2, 2012

You don't want to cut leaves or growth off...the seedlings don't look bad at all and seem at this point to be good pheno's. I am not going to even try and diagnose any problems because I don't run CO2 and don't have any experience with that soil.

ShOrTbUs · Dec 2, 2012

from what i remember sunshine #4 is a soilless mix, containing Sphagnum peat moss, coarse perlite, starter nutrient charge (with Gypsum) and dolomitic limestone. so if you properly flushed the plants then yes, after a few days they will start to show signs of nute def. if the bottom leaves are starting to yellow, then i would say thats indicative of N def. but need better pics to be sure.

NEVER cut large fan leaves, they are your solar panels. they are the reason the plants are growing so well.

its best to take pics of the plants under natural light when trying to determine nute def. so if you can take some pics without all that yellow light, it will make it much easier to diagnose the problem.

when you say the temp is between 24-28C is it safe to assume you mean 28 when lights on and 24 when lights off? when running CO2 you dont want the temp to drop below 80F/27C when the lights are on. CO2 needs higher temps in order to be effective.

havoc902 · Dec 3, 2012

my lights come on at 1, (3 hrs) I will switch on the cfls a min before the startup cycle to take some pics. Thank you already for the useful info. I knew that co2 allows for higher temps, but did not know the 27 degree threshold.

Rosebud · Dec 3, 2012

Do you have drainage holes in that tupperware? Not a great idea for pots, the plastic keeps the soil too wet without great drainage.
Do you have good air circulation in there?

havoc902 · Dec 3, 2012

I do have drain holes drilled. thinking maybe drilling some more. they have no problem making a mess out the bottom when I water them...
For circulation, I have 4 oscillating fans, and a big samsung heat pump for cooling.

Rosebud · Dec 3, 2012

Put those big plastic plant saucers under them. I wouldn't grow in those myself. sorry to tell you that.

They need some fresh air too.

Green mojo to you.

havoc902 · Dec 3, 2012

I was always more incline to use 5gal buckets. But I talked with some people that were getting high yeilds, and thats what they use. you think i need more circulation as well?

Hushpuppy · Dec 3, 2012

Okay; You have multiple issues causing problems. I'll start with the 4 clones. I can't swear to this but They look like 2 issues are affecting them. The main issue being that they most likely are not used to the intensity of the 1Khps light over them as they are clones that were rooted under lower light conditions. I would immediately move them tothe edge of the light footprint and give them a week to 10 days to get used to the intensity of the hps.

They also look like they may be praying for magnesium. I looked up the Sunshine Mix #4 and it has very little magnesium and NO lime. According to the info on the Sunshine website, you should start them on a nute regamin within a week of setting the plants, and given the damage to the leaves, they will need more nutrients for repairs and new growth. What you need to add to all of them at this point will depend on the nutrients that you are using, how much and how often. All of those bigger plants need about 600ppm of nutrients right now as they are growing hard. You said that you are using Advanced Nutrients, which one? is it an organic or chemical nutrient.

Because you are growing in a medium that is basically soilless and has coco coir in it, you will need to have a cal/mag suppliment as coco tends to lock up magnesium a good bit. You will also have to have a PH tester like a pen for determining what level the PH of your water is at. If you aren't going to grow utilizing an organic setup then you will want to maintain your PH around 6.0. I am sure others will disagree with me on that because there is a lot of minor variation to that depending on medium and plant strains.

I have found that any soil growing setups should maintain a PH of 6.5-6.9 (especially if they are organic as the microbes need PH in that range to survive). If you are in a soilless medium that doesn't incorporate organics then you should maintain a PH around 5.8-6.5 (those in hydro like myself typically run a bit lower 5.4-6.2 with the ideal being 5.8) It is critical to have your watering mix set to proper PH before adding to medium so that medium is maintained at proper level (remember that PH is an ever changing measure of the chemical ballance in the solution and/or soil, and will change as the plants use water and nutes at different rates)

Some brands of nutes have PH buffers in them to maintain the ballance of the PH as it changes. If your brand has these buffers then you will have to mix up your solutions about 48hrs in advance of needing them because they will have to sit and "buffer" after mixing the solutions. Many people here like to mix their solutions and then allow it to sit with an aerator for 24hrs before checking the PH and adjusting to proper level, then allow it to sit again for at least another 6-12hrs before checking again and making any final adjustments.

As far as the bigger leaf plants? Those are indica dominant plants and they will have that squatty, stocky structure with the fat leaves. DON'T remove any leaves unless they are dying to the point that they are about to fall off themselves. The big fan leaves are the solar panels that soak up the energy for the plant. As the plants age, they will stretch out more (especially during flowering) and that will space out the leaf nodes. don't cut off any lower leaves or branches until you are ready to go into flowering as many of the branches will shoot up and become bud producers. Only when you have allowed them to veg to the size that you want and are ready for flowering, will you then go to the bottom and remove any "gimpy" branches and shaded leaves. Those indica dominant plants will grow straight up just like tobacco plants unless you "top" them when they get about 4-5 leaf nodes. then they will form whats called a "double-cola" which is 2 tops rather than 1, and this will encourage the secondary branches to develop more and shoot up and out from under the fan leaves.

As for the plants that were flushed? Being in the sunshine mix, unless they had a boatload of nutes dumped into them, they shouldn't have been flushed. The sunshine mix has a LOW level of nutes that is organic that would have been feeding the seedlings. You do have to be careful with giving seedlings nutes, typically most of us here don't feed seedlings until the second to third week (or until you see the little round, first-leaves (cotyledons or seed leaves) start to yellow.

Then the plants need to be fed a small amount(150-300ppm) for the first week or two until vigorous growth is seen, then increase to about 400-500, and continue to increase nute level as plants grow and need more, topping out around 800-1000ppm depending on the plant strain (you also really need a TDS meter for measuring the nute levels as you feed). At this point since they were flushed, you will need to feed them a small amount as the flush stripped all of the previous nutes out of the medium.

One other thing; maintaining your environment is very important. One question for that is how do the totes that the plants are in drain any excess water, and how often do you water them? The other question is ventilation; do you have good heat removal so that they don't get too hot and do you have air circulation within the grow space to keep the co2 available to the plants. I haven't used co2 injection other than passively and unless you are in a completely sealed environment, I wouldn't recommend using co2 injection except on a lower level after the plants are well established.

I know I have given you a lot to take in, I hope it helps. Feel free to ask any other questions

Rosebud · Dec 3, 2012

I think the roots need air too, I would move the pots slightly more apart, I would put some holes on the sides of the pots. I would let them dry well, stick your finger in the soil and see if it is dry to the second knuckle before watering.

I know nothing about co2. You need the air to exchange often with fresh air coming in and old air leaving. There are lots of information on air exchange here at mp.

I look forward to your pic's under natural light. Don't panic.

havoc902 · Dec 3, 2012

I have all digital ballasts, can I just reduce to maybe 600w? I have the top o line stuff so I have all settings really, 400.420.600,620,1000,1040.

I do have a ph pen, I ph (after adding the nutes) to 6.3. as the ph of the runoff seemed to come out to 5.8-5.9 (could have changed now as you say)
should I lower that?

I use sensi gro part a and b, b52, pirhana, voodoo juice and super thrive. last feeding I gave the seedling 1/4 dose of all, the clones I gave 1/2. I do have a tds and a ph pen. the 1/4 ratio was about 300-400 ppm and 1/2 was about 700-800. this was after they were flushed. we didnt put fert to them till after. My partner freaked when the runoff came out to 1600ppm and flushed them.

It is a sealed environment. Air is cooled by a samsung heat pump. The pots have about 30 holes drilled in the bottom, should there be more drainage? it flows pretty freely when watering.