funny lookin leaves

[surreptitious]

hey guys first off, i wanted to express how much i've enjoyed this site. sometimes it takes a few refreshes to get pages to load, but it's a small price to pay for the great information found here.

anyways, i was hoping that you guys could help me figure out what was
wrong with my plants. i have attached a few pictures to this post.

ok here's the skinny.

1. plants are in the vegatative stage started from seeds. they will be 3 weeks old on saturday, August 1st, 2009.

2. using a drip hydroponic system. i'm watering them 5 times during the day and 2 times at night for 15 minutes each time.

3. i have a light proof (well almost, damn close) tent made with panda
liner and PVC pipes that is 5' x 5' x 6 1/2' high. On the inside of the tent on the lower half i have a reflective material I got at the hydro store that has a bunch of little pyramids on it. seems to work well.

4. I also have a carbon filter that connects to to the light and then a
fan via duct (see pic) that helps keep the tent cooler and provides circulation. it is on when the lights are on.

5. I also have an occilating fan that sits level with the girls set on low
speed (see pic)

6. average temp is around 80 degrees farenheit...highs being around 85
during the "day" and lows being around 75 during the "night." i've read that they like to be around high 70s, but not sure how that is accomplished without an AC unit. i'm open to suggestions. also, the humidity is around 50%

7. i have a 400 watt MH bulb with a digital ballast that sits about 16 inches over the tops of the plants that sit in a 3' x 3' drip tray. light is on for 18 hours and off for 6 hours. on at 4AM off at 10PM.

8. I have a resevior that sits under the tray that is i think 30
gallons...maybe less, not sure. i usually only put 5 gallons of distilled water/nutes in at a time. I also have an airating (spelling?) stone in the resevior with the water pump.

9. i'm using GH Flora Nova nutes, right now only using the grow, not
bloom.

10. currently, my PPM is 347 and PH is 6.0. i'm using a sunleaves PPM meter and a Hanna PH checker

11. I switched to just water that was PH 6.0 without any nutes for 2
days to help flush the girls but am back at number 10 right now and have
for been 3 days.

12. grow media is hydroton if you couldnt tell from the pics

13. all the plants are white widow (at least thats what the seed bank
was supposed to send me)

my goal here is to take the best females of this crop and make them
mother plants.

can you guys please check out the pics and let me know what i should do to fix?

also, once i fix the problems at what point should i up the nutes?

also, should i trim some of the dead leaves that are at the bottoms of the
plants?

any help would be greatly appreciated. please let me know if you need any other information.

also, let me know if you need more/better pictures and what i
should be focusing on.

thanks!

 

[HippyInEngland]

Hello surreptitious

You say your PH is 6.0, do you let it swing so you allow all the nutrients to be uptaken?

eace:

 

[stevetosh]

Hi, pic 5 near fan is wind burn, you dont need your fan on just yet IMHO, this also maybe effecting the others, as they are still young if you can increase your humidity to 65% 70% that will help I think.
As for nutes what are feeding them now and as previously how is your ph, sorry its 6.0 perhaps it should be about 5.5 5.8 but thats splitting hairs, check environment my gues, hope that helps.

 

[stevetosh]

347PPM i use EC and would you need to be 1.0 1.2 IMHO

 

[surreptitious]

Hello surreptitious

You say your PH is 6.0, do you let it swing so you allow all the nutrients to be uptaken?

eace:

not sure i understand what you mean. do i let the meter swing?

 

[surreptitious]

Hi, pic 5 near fan is wind burn, you dont need your fan on just yet IMHO, this also maybe effecting the others, as they are still young if you can increase your humidity to 65% 70% that will help I think.
As for nutes what are feeding them now and as previously how is your ph, sorry its 6.0 perhaps it should be about 5.5 5.8 but thats splitting hairs, check environment my gues, hope that helps.

I'm currently feeding them GH Flora Nova Bloom. I mixed in 1 teaspoons of nutes for 5 gallons of distilled water.

Before I had put 2 1/2 teaspoons of nutes per 5 gallons of water per the instructions on the bottle.

I can reduce the PH to 5.5-5.8.

I will also move the fan so that it still circulates air in the tent, but does not blow on the plants directly and see if that helps.

thanks!

 

[HippyInEngland]

Hello again Surreptitious

Ph 6.0 is high for hydro, if you let the PH swing between the ideal (5.8 as Steve said) allowing it to sometimes be lower than ideal and sometimes let it go higher than ideal it allows all the nutrients in your feed to be absorbed by the plant.

A high PH in hydro blocks out Manganese and Calcium.

eace:

 

[surreptitious]

oh ok, i think i understand. so I want the PH to be swing between 5.5 and 5.8? sounds easy enough. so, you think the issue with the leaves is because the PH is too high?

i do have another question. should I check the PH of the water daily? and use the PH up and down to fix it daily?

 

[surreptitious]

bump.

can i adjust the PH of the water/nutes daily? should the PH of the water/nutes change from day to day?

 

[surreptitious]

i have more questions! after correcting the PH issue, it's now at 5.5, how long will it take for the plants to lose the discoloration and spots?

 

[stevetosh]

I think depending on your set up, 5to 10 days.IMHO.

 

[surreptitious]

they seem to be getting worse! some leaves are curling up and some are drooping bad!

is this the result of over watering?

what should my watering schedule be?

 

[irie41]

You should stop watering at night and start off with a fresh batch of pH-balanced nutrients with quarter strength to start.

 

[surreptitious]

ok, i will do that. but the last few times that i've changed the nute/water out the pH is 5.5 in the morning and in the evening the pH is almost 7. how do I stabilize it?

THESE PLANTS ARE STRESSING ME OUT!

 

[surreptitious]

ok, so i've been doing some research about my pH issue and discovered that I might have algae growing in my system. My reservoir was not light tight (rookie mistake i guess, never thought about it). Also, i just recently noticed a green color in the drip tray.

what i've done to resolve was to clean the reservoir, replaced with fresh water/nutes, and sealed it so no light is coming in.

i also removed all the plants from the drip tray and cleaned the drip tray. the last thing I've done is increase the incline the drip tray has...that way there will be no standing water after waterings are done.

i will still check the pH of the water daily. hopefully this will resolve my constant pH fluctuations!

 

[surreptitious]

ok, so last night i tried to fix everything. when i got up this morning...the pH was still pretty good.

this evening i went in to check the pH and it's holding at about 5.8. little high, but all in all pretty good.

BUT! one of my plants has fallen over. the main stem is not hard enough to hold up the plant!

if i continue to maintain the proper pH do you guys think this plant will bounce back?

 

[greenthumberish]

I'm not really a hydro guy, but I'd reckon if yer plant rubbernecked on you, it is highly unlikely that it'll come back...And if it does, 50cents says it turns out to be a guy

 

[surreptitious]

ok, so not 10 minutes after i posted that, i went back in the room and the damn thing was standing on it's own again...wth

 

[420benny]

I am surprised no one has said anything about nute burn. I am a soil guy, but you said you went by the bottle. They are only 3 weeks old and I don't think they were ready for that much. I suggest a plain water flush at the proper ph and then give food in baby steps. I hope this helps.

 

[surreptitious]

yes, since then i have reduced the nutes to them. it's about 150 PPM worth of nutes now. my major problem i dont think was nutrients (although it was an indirect problem). i was not able to control the pH of the reservoir. the algae, i suspect, was what was raising the pH in the tank. now that i've eliminated the "algae" the pH has remained stable so far. i've also blocked light from getting in the tank as to not get more algae.

now the pH is staying at around 5.5-5.7...which is what i want! now that the pH is stable the plants should be able to absorb the nutes i'm giving them. in a week, we'll see where we are at and potentially increase the nutes to 200-250