First issue with my seedlings on living soil - are these fungus gnats?

[dogster]

Even that is too complicated for me sometimes.

 

[user 60570]

I ain’t gonna lie , I have gotten my Ph up and down mixed up before m that is a bummer!

 

[dogster]

Knowing myself I have avoided any of those problems by never checking ph.

 

[chamenon]

You could just buy a quality synthetic fert and have some healthy plants.
Ions are ions to a plant they don't know or care about where they are sourced.

This is probably correct but to my understanding once the craft of living soil is learned it sounds like the soil works for itself and takes care of some other potential problems as well. I'm not eating organic from grocery store but before legalization (I had to change states recently since my state didn't seem like legalizing any time soon) I've smoked horrible stuff at times and I never want to smell anything other than nice terpenes when I'm smoking again so I'm trying to go for the purest stuff I can produce.

Also my ADHD has been fixated on learning the craft for a while, so I can't help it a lot anyways. My ultimate goal is to learn the craft itself, I'm pretty sure if done right with the proper flushing etc., synthetically fertilized buds are will be perfectly fine just like the living soil ones. Also I'm aiming to not rely on organic bottled nutrients, I'm temporarily on an apartment setting but about to move out in a month or two so I'll have access to a backyard and try to source as much as possible from there.

 

[astrobud]

Thank you dogster, I suspected that but since I am using Dirtcraft G-Force Living Soil, I emailed the person who mixes these soils and asked if this is a nutrient problem (since these are almost a month old from germination plants and seem to be growing super slow compared to my previous synthetic nutrient grows) and he said the mix has plenty of 90 day release nitrogen for plant growth and suitable from seedling to flowering for hemp/cannabis. I guess that's not correct.

What can I feed these plants without messing up the soil biology? Any suggestions? Maybe some of those down to earth mixes? or Real Grower's Recharge? Any suggestions?

If it's a 90 day release then maybe it's releasing too much at one time or not enough. That's why miracle grow dosen't work well,you can't controll time release and the fert maybe not mixed well. Jmo

 

[Hippie420]

Knowing myself I have avoided any of those problems by never checking ph.

Don't try that growing hydro weed!

 

[dogster]

Don't try that growing hydro weed!

Worked ok using pvc pipe and pool noodles.

Did not work so hot in fiberglass Insulation but once I did it went better.

 

[astrobud]

Don't try that growing hydro weed!

Ha,I diddnt know it was hydro, MG will clog it up

 

[chamenon]

Hi again, I think this is thread is my grow diary now. I've got some healthy growth on 3 out of 4 plants. One is still stalled and growing very slowly and the other 3 are still slow but at least they're growing. This is almost the 6th week and they still look very small for the time passed. I am feeding them Down to Earth Bio-Live, as well as some worm castings. I also tried making a small batch of compost tea with the same ingredients, although I had to resort to keep stirring the tea everyday a couple of times since I don't have a pump right now.

The issue is, my strongest plant started showing the same brown marks on the leaves. New growth seems fine, it's green without any issues (they're a little too light green compared to my previous salt based grows but not sure if that's the difference in genetics, two tall ones are supposedly Sour Diesels [local] and third one is a Balkh-Chitral cross from Equilibrium Genetics which I emailed them to gets some tips but couldn't get any responses)

Overall I think I'm doing something wrong here. After I realized distilled water was locking the nutrients out, I switched to bottled water but it turns out the brand I was using had 8 pH. So I've switched to tap water, no chloramines and aerated to evaporate the chlorine for more than 4 days. I'm also "cooking" some soil; around 6 gallons of Dirtcraft G-Force soil+4lbs of EWC+20 tablespoons of Bio-Live. It's been sitting for about 4-5 days, it smells like a good healthy soil but no temperature raise yet.

Can someone please suggest me what to do? I really want to stick with organic/living soil grow but I feel like I'm watching paint dry at this point. I don't understand why these brown marks appear again and I'm thinking if I should find some water soluble organic nutrients and start feeding them that? But I also think that I've also incorporated so much Bio-Live, more nutrients than that could cause problems down the road.

Currently running 1 45 watt 5000K LED strip, and 1 30 watt 2700k LED bulb. Photon app with diffuser gives me around 1000 PPFD at the canopy level. RH is about %45-%65 and temperatures fluctuate around 68-77F. 20/4 light cycle.

 

[joeb631a]

All I can say is I love my earth Boxes
My next 24kt mephisto looks better than the first one .
Going to cut down in 2 days

 

[chamenon]

All I can say is I love my earth Boxes
My next 24kt mephisto looks better than the first one .
Going to cut down in 2 days

I was considering some DIY earthboxes but not sure if I should follow this path any further. That's the problem I'm having. Not sure if I should spend that money on pH and ppm meters and an air pump and start over again with hydroponics.

 

[joeb631a]

I was considering some DIY earthboxes but not sure if I should follow this path any further. That's the problem I'm having. Not sure if I should spend that money on pH and ppm meters and an air pump and start over again with hydroponics.

I use craft blend from Build a soil and I ph my water and add cal mag.
I use barley straw mulch and builda bloom toward the end.
I use a Electric sky VS200 in a 20"x 36" x 52" tent and it works well with defoliating and lolipoping.

 

[SubmarineGirl]

Looks like they could use a transplant into some fresh soil I’d add a little Mycorrhizae in And around the transplant hole but I’m not sure about living soil
oh yes and cal mag too and possibly even some epsome salt to the water.

 

[chamenon]

Looks like they could use a transplant into some fresh soil I’d add a little Mycorrhizae in And around the transplant hole but I’m not sure about living soil
oh yes and cal mag too and possibly even some epsome salt to the water.

Thank you, I've been applying some diluted Epsom some into soil also as foliar before lights out.

I think transplanting might be a good idea. I'll put them into 3 gal smart pots. I was planning to apply Bio-Live (since it's essentially a transplant mix and has mycorrhizae, do you think I should supplement it with some good myco maybe from dynomyco? Is there anything like too much myco or should I stick to Bio-Live only?

I'll look into how I can add some quick action calcium, I think I'm (I should be) good with all that Epsom supplement for the past ~4 weeks.

 

[chamenon]

I use craft blend from Build a soil and I ph my water and add cal mag.
I use barley straw mulch and builda bloom toward the end.
I use a Electric sky VS200 in a 20"x 36" x 52" tent and it works well with defoliating and lolipoping.

I'm suspecting if my pH is creating these problems. I've always been told not to worry about pH with living soil but also I used to be very particular about my pH in my previous grows. Maybe I should start pHing as well since the soil mix I use is coco coir only. Maybe I should implement some sphagnum to lower my pH. I'll look into this. Thanks a lot!

 

[SubmarineGirl]

Thank you, I've been applying some diluted Epsom some into soil also as foliar before lights out.

I think transplanting might be a good idea. I'll put them into 3 gal smart pots. I was planning to apply Bio-Live (since it's essentially a transplant mix and has mycorrhizae, do you think I should supplement it with some good myco maybe from dynomyco? Is there anything like too much myco or should I stick to Bio-Live only?

I'll look into how I can add some quick action calcium, I think I'm (I should be) good with all that Epsom supplement for the past ~4 weeks.

I don’t know bio-live but I will use dynomyco and I go pretty heavy. I don’t measure it. I’m sure there is such a thing as too much but I guess I haven’t reached that point yet. My plants usually take off in new soil and mycorrhizae

 

[Carty]

Knowing myself I have avoided any of those problems by never checking ph.

Been growing for 20yrs and have never checked my PH in soil or water... I allow my water to sit out uncapped for 3 days and seems to do the trick for balancing things out

 

[chamenon]

Thank you all. I'll order some mycorrhizae and transplant to 3 gallon smart pots for the rest of the vegetation and probably come up with more questions as I go. I really appreciate all the answers!

 

[Jan Borrego]

I was having the same problem with ph and nute lock out . I am using Jacks 20 20 20 but was using it as per directions. Both Dogster and Flower suggested I use 1/2 tsp per gallon every watering. They went from not growing to well let me show you. First pic was taken on Sunday the second was taken this morning. As you can see they have more than doubled in size in just a few days. It takes them 2 days to dry except the 3 plastic pots take 3 days.

 

[chamenon]

I was having the same problem with ph and nute lock out . I am using Jacks 20 20 20 but was using it as per directions. Both Dogster and Flower suggested I use 1/2 tsp per gallon every watering. They went from not growing to well let me show you. First pic was taken on Sunday the second was taken this morning. As you can see they have more than doubled in size in just a few days. It takes them 2 days to dry except the 3 plastic pots take 3 days.

Thank you for sharing these Jan, I'm happy you're getting some growth! I didn't have any issues getting that explosive growth when I was using bottled nutrients. I'm having trouble with the organic/living soil approach. But hey, no one said it was going to be easy! I just transplanted to 3 gal pots with a lot of Bio-Live and mycos and waiting for them to start growing back again. I'll post some photos here once they (hopefully) get going!