First grow - Critical Ogre - multiple problems

[Alaw3]

Hello everybody! Thanks for looking

Problem: Twisting leaves, yellow veins, and small brown spots on leaves

Medium/grow method: OF + 30% perlite in 2 gal smart pot

Feed: 1 gallon distilled water with 5ml molasses, 1.25ml camg+, 1ml Fox Farms Grow Big, 1.25ml Dyna-Gro Protekt

water source: distilled water

Strain/age: Critical Ogre day 28

light used: Viparspectra PAR 450 and Apollo 180w UFO

Climate: 70-80F, 50-60% RH

This grow had been going pretty good for my first time. I watered on 9/29, and then noticed some new leaves starting to flip over on 10/3. That night I noticed some veins starting to turn yellow, and by the morning on 10/4, the leaves were turning yellow and starting to get brown spots. I have been using distilled water the entire grow with the General Hydroponics pH kit to bring the water to 6.5-7. But I must be fairly colorblind. I bought a digital pH meter yesterday, and it shows that my water was at 8.4. So last night I flushed with the water at 6.5 with calmag. Now I'm wondering what my next steps should be. What is the best way to correct the soil pH? Thanks for any advice!

day 27
day 28

 

[namvet25]

You have a few lower leaves that are the first leaves that are just wareing out and this is quite normal and nothing to worry about.Your cal/mag dosage is to low so up that to 5ml per gal and and i see flowering starting so you could start flower nutes soon and go half dosage at first than raise to full dose after a week or sther than that your looking ok.

 

[Waira]

--- I suspect the soil is off-pH, which OF is notorious for,... Also, it's very weird to have distilled water at that hig of pH, making question the quality of the water, or the meter is out of calibration, new or not,.. RO/Di water has all the pH buffering minerals removed, as such, it'll show slightly acidic if anything,.. and any inputs will cause large swings in pH too,... something is not right here-
Symptoms do look like early Ca defc., but there's some overlap in appearance with P defc too,...
.. since you flushed already, which i don't recommend until you have a solid reading of actual in-pot soil pH, don't do any more of that,... get a quality soil pH probe, like the Accurate 8, and you'll be far better set! Meantime, I'd get calibration solutions 7.0. and 4.0 for the pH meter, and storage solution too,.. always rinse with RO/Di water before and after every use,... full dose of ca-mg meantime,... I'd have you take a crude reading of run-off, but until that wter or meter is figured out about that absurd 8.4 pH reading, there's no point in trusting the results,....

 

[Alaw3]

--- I suspect the soil is off-pH, which OF is notorious for,... Also, it's very weird to have distilled water at that hig of pH, making question the quality of the water, or the meter is out of calibration, new or not,.. RO/Di water has all the pH buffering minerals removed, as such, it'll show slightly acidic if anything,.. and any inputs will cause large swings in pH too,... something is not right here-
Symptoms do look like early Ca defc., but there's some overlap in appearance with P defc too,...
.. since you flushed already, which i don't recommend until you have a solid reading of actual in-pot soil pH, don't do any more of that,... get a quality soil pH probe, like the Accurate 8, and you'll be far better set! Meantime, I'd get calibration solutions 7.0. and 4.0 for the pH meter, and storage solution too,.. always rinse with RO/Di water before and after every use,... full dose of ca-mg meantime,... I'd have you take a crude reading of run-off, but until that wter or meter is figured out about that absurd 8.4 pH reading, there's no point in trusting the results,....

Thanks for the reply! The pH meter is good...unless the calibration solution is bad. I have switched to a different brand of water, and it is 6.3. No more cheap dollar store water! I have a soil pH meter. It is a Luster Leaf Rapitest. It was cheap so I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I'm getting readings of 7.3-7.8. The water run off is 7.3

 

[The Iconoclast]

IW I think the indicator drops are more reliable than a pH metre.

 

[GoAuto6]

IW I think the indicator drops are more reliable than a pH metre.

This would be false, a meter is your best option both liquid and soil.. please don't spread misinformation.

 

[Waira]

...ditto to what GA6 said,...

... those skinny probes are pretty unreliable, I've tested a few before,.. and I've tested the Accurate 8 against good slurry testing using a pH meter to test the results and they were all within 0.2 pH,....

 

[The Iconoclast]

OK my bad. What I meant was that once your dropper solution colour is known to be correct as checked with a calibrated meter then once you've done that, the indicator solution will be reliable in that it's not going to suddenly change. I was just speaking from experience with some doubt which is why I said 'I think'. Hey we never stop learning, I just discovered that the indicator solution and pH meter actually measure different things!