Green Lantern
new to hydro
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2007
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 2
Hello everyone.
First of all, I'm not a novice grower, and have never really had any problems growing in the past, despite growing indoors in less than ideal conditions (too hot, plants getting to close to the lights, miracle grow, etc...).
I've started growing again at a different location and am totally BAFFLED with as to why my plants look so unhealthy. After perfectly healthy initial growth, whether from seed or clone, soil-less mix in pots or hydroton in hydro flood&drain, organic (botanicare) or chem (Dutch Master) nutients... new growth will be a very light green/yellow, very small, wrinkled, and curls downward. Vertical growth slows way down. Not quite full sized leaves will wrinkle somewhat as they finish growing, but mature leaves remain perfectly healthy.
Here is my original thread when I first started having the problems that won't go away:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20958
I've all but ruled out a nutrient disorder. The problem has shown up on both my mother plants in pots (soilless mix w/ organic nutes), as well as closes raised in a flood & drain tray w/ completely different nutes and a different watering schedule. I use city tap water, but I doubt that's the problem as my meters read 60ppm and 6.5-6.8 pH from the tap... is there something I'm not thinking about here? I keep the pH in the 5.5-5.8 range for the hydro and 6.1-6.6 or so for the soilless mix and monitor constantly. Adding fresh nutes doesn't bring any improvement. I've done the usual flush and add fresh nutes to no avail. I usually use nutrients at 3/4 strength. In hydro, I always add nutes to a full res one nute at a time and mix thoroughly before adding another. I'd be very surprised if nutrient lock-out was the culprit. RH is 35%- 70% with an average of 50%-55%.
I feel as though it has to be a disease or something in the air. It doesn't matter what strain I'm growing. I don't see evidence of any kind that bugs are the cause. I was using an ozone generator but turned it off thinking that maybe that had something to do with it, but the problem didn't go away. The problem almost seems to move from plant to plant, starting with the plants that are closest to the door. It really doesn't look like any disease I've ever seen or read about, but I can't rule that out.
It's not because of lighting... 400w HM over a 3x3 tray in veg, moms under a 400w MH in 3 gallon buckets. Flowering moms under 600w HPS and clones in a 4x4 tray under another 600w HPS. I never let the plant get too close or too far away. The lights are in vented reflectors.
The rooms are pretty tight. Both the 8'x8' veg room and the 8'x10' flowering room have IR reflective film on the walls with rubber pond liner covering the floors. Temperature has never been over 85F (28C), or under 57F(14C), with an average of 76F (24,5C) day, and 68F (20C) at night.
The Veg room is 500 cubic feet (14.2 metres cubed) in total volume with a 250cfm exhaust fan drawing spent air though a large carbon filter. Fresh air is supplied via a 6" duct (20 feet long) coming from the outside. Flowering room is 618 cubic feet (17.5 metres cubed) with a 500cfm exhaust fan drawing spent air though another carbon filter with fresh air supplied via another 6" duct (25 feet long). There is some air leakage around the doors that I'm going to take care of shortly so the fans don't pull air from the rest of the attic. Again, plants closest to the door (in either room) get the problem first. Maybe something in the attic? I don't smell anything and work up there all the time. I thought about the ozone and turned it off, but what else? Are the plant getting enough fresh air? I'm not using CO2 (yet). I've got an oscillating fan in each room to move some air around.
I'm totally frustrated. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, the problem still appears. It's been going on for 6 weeks or so.
I've never had problems in the past, and this time I was really going to do it up right and spend the money on all the cool meters, light hoods, etc... don't even ask how much I've spent on this set-up.
I've all but lost my enthusiasm for growing.
I'm still working on the LONG story of how I got to this point with more detail, but this is all the basics.
Has ANYONE seen this before? Am I missing something???????
First of all, I'm not a novice grower, and have never really had any problems growing in the past, despite growing indoors in less than ideal conditions (too hot, plants getting to close to the lights, miracle grow, etc...).
I've started growing again at a different location and am totally BAFFLED with as to why my plants look so unhealthy. After perfectly healthy initial growth, whether from seed or clone, soil-less mix in pots or hydroton in hydro flood&drain, organic (botanicare) or chem (Dutch Master) nutients... new growth will be a very light green/yellow, very small, wrinkled, and curls downward. Vertical growth slows way down. Not quite full sized leaves will wrinkle somewhat as they finish growing, but mature leaves remain perfectly healthy.
Here is my original thread when I first started having the problems that won't go away:
http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20958
I've all but ruled out a nutrient disorder. The problem has shown up on both my mother plants in pots (soilless mix w/ organic nutes), as well as closes raised in a flood & drain tray w/ completely different nutes and a different watering schedule. I use city tap water, but I doubt that's the problem as my meters read 60ppm and 6.5-6.8 pH from the tap... is there something I'm not thinking about here? I keep the pH in the 5.5-5.8 range for the hydro and 6.1-6.6 or so for the soilless mix and monitor constantly. Adding fresh nutes doesn't bring any improvement. I've done the usual flush and add fresh nutes to no avail. I usually use nutrients at 3/4 strength. In hydro, I always add nutes to a full res one nute at a time and mix thoroughly before adding another. I'd be very surprised if nutrient lock-out was the culprit. RH is 35%- 70% with an average of 50%-55%.
I feel as though it has to be a disease or something in the air. It doesn't matter what strain I'm growing. I don't see evidence of any kind that bugs are the cause. I was using an ozone generator but turned it off thinking that maybe that had something to do with it, but the problem didn't go away. The problem almost seems to move from plant to plant, starting with the plants that are closest to the door. It really doesn't look like any disease I've ever seen or read about, but I can't rule that out.
It's not because of lighting... 400w HM over a 3x3 tray in veg, moms under a 400w MH in 3 gallon buckets. Flowering moms under 600w HPS and clones in a 4x4 tray under another 600w HPS. I never let the plant get too close or too far away. The lights are in vented reflectors.
The rooms are pretty tight. Both the 8'x8' veg room and the 8'x10' flowering room have IR reflective film on the walls with rubber pond liner covering the floors. Temperature has never been over 85F (28C), or under 57F(14C), with an average of 76F (24,5C) day, and 68F (20C) at night.
The Veg room is 500 cubic feet (14.2 metres cubed) in total volume with a 250cfm exhaust fan drawing spent air though a large carbon filter. Fresh air is supplied via a 6" duct (20 feet long) coming from the outside. Flowering room is 618 cubic feet (17.5 metres cubed) with a 500cfm exhaust fan drawing spent air though another carbon filter with fresh air supplied via another 6" duct (25 feet long). There is some air leakage around the doors that I'm going to take care of shortly so the fans don't pull air from the rest of the attic. Again, plants closest to the door (in either room) get the problem first. Maybe something in the attic? I don't smell anything and work up there all the time. I thought about the ozone and turned it off, but what else? Are the plant getting enough fresh air? I'm not using CO2 (yet). I've got an oscillating fan in each room to move some air around.
I'm totally frustrated. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, the problem still appears. It's been going on for 6 weeks or so.
I've never had problems in the past, and this time I was really going to do it up right and spend the money on all the cool meters, light hoods, etc... don't even ask how much I've spent on this set-up.
I've all but lost my enthusiasm for growing.
I'm still working on the LONG story of how I got to this point with more detail, but this is all the basics.
Has ANYONE seen this before? Am I missing something???????
