Indoor Leaf discoloration and brown spot issues in flower. Can't seem to hammer it down

[BalzarDanglin]

This is my Cosmic Queen, day 52 from sprout. I can't tell if these spots and discolouration on the leaves are Ca deficiency or possibly P deficiency, or something else entirely. The purple stems are also problematic here, but again I can't figure out how to help the poor girl recover.

I don't like doing flushes, but would it be the best course of action here? Perhaps full flush then water with normal strength nutes to get back to an even playing field (likely excluding the calmag)? I think my reliance on calmag is the reason things have gotten so out of hand, and I am very tempted to bin it and start using epsom salts for Mg (and S) and dolomite lime for Ca.

Strain: Mephisto Cosmic Queen
Soil: Biobizz light mix + 30% perlite
Light: 240W Kingbrite QB @ 60% power (roughly 500 ppfd and 36 DLI)
Light schedule: 20/4
Temps: Lights on - 76-79; Lights off -70-72
Humidity: ~50%
Nutes: Biobizz Grow, Bloom, Top Max, Algamic, Calmag. One watering with epsom salts about 2 weeks ago.
PH in: ~6.5-6.6
PH out: ~6.3-6.4 (I'm wondering if I should increase PH in to increase soil PH?)
Water: Very soft (~30 ppm from tap); water always left to vent any nastiness, and aerated before using

First signs I saw appeared to be an Mg deficiency, so I upped my calmag. The issue continued to get worse (middle leaves getting their nutrients sucked out of them and dying off), so I thought that perhaps there was too much Ca being added which might be locking out Mg. This is when I tried to use epsom salts (1 tbl/gallon) and skipped calmag. The issue continued to get worse and after doing more reading on here I realized that it could even be excess Mg locking out Ca or K (or excess Ca locking out P).

Next watering I skipped any calmag/epsom salt and only fed grow/bloom/top max/algamic. I thought the issue appeared to have slowed down, but unfortunately that's not the case

Any idea what I can do here? I keep overthinking things and know it's not helping the poor girl.

I'm currently feeding (per litre): 1ml Grow; 3ml Bloom; 1ml Top Max; 0.75 Algamic. When adding calmag (Biobizz) I had started at 0.3ml/L and gone as high as 0.7ml/L when I thought it was getting more Ca/Mg deficient, which I think is what's caused the issue to get out of hand.

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[DogterB]

I'm staying tuned as I run into this problem a lot and haven't gotten it figured out yet either

 

[BalzarDanglin]

I'm staying tuned as I run into this problem a lot and haven't gotten it figured out yet either

Last grow I had totally different, but equally frustrating, issues.

Given the use of LED (and my very soft water) I thought it was an obvious Ca/Mg issue, but my focus on that seems to have started a shit avalanche!

I'm tempted to try different soil/nutes next time around and see if my luck improves, but did want to try and stay organic if possible...apparently I've lost my touch after 20+ years of not growing!

I just started two new beans (one broke soil this morning, the other should be a day or two behind). This time around I upped my perlite % to improve drainage, kept a central core of light mix, and an outer core of all mix. My hope is that as the roots grow outwards and find the more nutrient dense soil that the early issues I was running into using only light mix might be at least slightly improved. I've been out of growing so long I'm starting my knowledge base from scratch and feel absolutely useless so far.

 

[DogterB]

Last grow I had totally different, but equally frustrating, issues.

Given the use of LED (and my very soft water) I thought it was an obvious Ca/Mg issue, but my focus on that seems to have started a shit avalanche!

I'm tempted to try different soil/nutes next time around and see if my luck improves, but did want to try and stay organic if possible...apparently I've lost my touch after 20+ years of not growing!

I just started two new beans (one broke soil this morning, the other should be a day or two behind). This time around I upped my perlite % to improve drainage, kept a central core of light mix, and an outer core of all mix. My hope is that as the roots grow outwards and find the more nutrient dense soil that the early issues I was running into using only light mix might be at least slightly improved. I've been out of growing so long I'm starting my knowledge base from scratch and feel absolutely useless so far.

I hear ya, it's frustrating. I seem to run into the same problem most times. I only have a handful of grows under my belt, but this is my first "big" grow with 6 autos in my 4x4 and a photo going in my 2x2. I use a 5 gallon bucket auto-watered SIP setup in my 2x2, and made a DIY octopot like auto-watering system in the 4x4. 3 of the 6 in the 4x4 are doing quite well, while the other 3 are hurting. I start my seeds in solo cups with the sides cut out for root growth, using fox farm ocean forest mixed about 50/50 with perlite (to thin it out and try to make it less hot). For the pots, I make a "super soil" with OF, tomato-tone, Flower Girl, EWC, and lime. Half the pots going now were full of the mix, the other half only the bottom 1/3 or so of the pot. Problem is, 2 of the 1/3 pot and one of the full pots are having issues. Everything goes great until shortly after they are full on in flower. Then the brown/rusty spots start showing up, then the yellowing starts. Most times they struggle a bit but make it to finish, but 2 of the ones now are REALLY rough. I've looked all over for pics similar, but yours are to a friggin' T like what mine have looked like, though my 2 worst are much worse.

I'm with you though, hoping someone here has an idea of what's going on!

 

[BalzarDanglin]

I hear ya, it's frustrating. I seem to run into the same problem most times. I only have a handful of grows under my belt, but this is my first "big" grow with 6 autos in my 4x4 and a photo going in my 2x2. I use a 5 gallon bucket auto-watered SIP setup in my 2x2, and made a DIY octopot like auto-watering system in the 4x4. 3 of the 6 in the 4x4 are doing quite well, while the other 3 are hurting. I start my seeds in solo cups with the sides cut out for root growth, using fox farm ocean forest mixed about 50/50 with perlite (to thin it out and try to make it less hot). For the pots, I make a "super soil" with OF, tomato-tone, Flower Girl, EWC, and lime. Half the pots going now were full of the mix, the other half only the bottom 1/3 or so of the pot. Problem is, 2 of the 1/3 pot and one of the full pots are having issues. Everything goes great until shortly after they are full on in flower. Then the brown/rusty spots start showing up, then the yellowing starts. Most times they struggle a bit but make it to finish, but 2 of the ones now are REALLY rough. I've looked all over for pics similar, but yours are to a friggin' T like what mine have looked like, though my 2 worst are much worse.

I'm with you though, hoping someone here has an idea of what's going on!

Yeah I was struggling to find pics with similar issues, so finally sucked it up and asked for help on here. It's driving me crazy as back when I used to grow (late 90s/early 2000s) I never had these issues, so it makes me feel like a complete rookie being unable to figure it out. I know I'm making tonnes of mistakes, but hopefully I learn from them.

I'm really tempted to flush it to get back to a base point then water with normal strength nutes and see what happens, but I also haven't had much success last time I flushed. I think the last flush I did (Samquanch OG) did more harm than good.

 

[DogterB]

Yeah I was struggling to find pics with similar issues, so finally sucked it up and asked for help on here. It's driving me crazy as back when I used to grow (late 90s/early 2000s) I never had these issues, so it makes me feel like a complete rookie being unable to figure it out. I know I'm making tonnes of mistakes, but hopefully I learn from them.

I'm really tempted to flush it to get back to a base point then water with normal strength nutes and see what happens, but I also haven't had much success last time I flushed. I think the last flush I did (Samquanch OG) did more harm than good.

Oh for sure, I'm here all the time gleaning info from posts or asking questions. You'll get good info here, lots of good people willing to share info. I've been at this about a year and a half and every grow teaches lessons, I don't think that ever ends. This is my first real attempt at this SIP system, previously have just been regular soil setups. Most of those runs, I flushed to get back on track from something but it never really seemed to help correct it, just slow it down enough to let me limp to the finish line. With this setup, I can't really flush or it will all run into the reservoirs, so it's been an adventure thus far. Keep fighting the good fight

 

[CannabisMingus]

First signs I saw appeared to be an Mg deficiency, so I upped my calmag.

I only run water only los soil for my soil grows, so I will defer any advice other than to say more often than not this is the problem. A common response (I've done it too) and maybe resulting in lock out. I would tag @Mañ'O'Green @pop22 @derek420colorado for their input
IMHO, YMMV, etc

 

[Badfinger]

Reading the leaves drives me crazy to figure out an issue, I compare it to your car throwing a code, the same dam number could be anything from a blown head gasket to a loose gas cap. Do I need a brain surgeon or a proctologist?

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Well You have an overall nutrient balance problem. I cannot make guesstimates based on a ml of this and two of that? A schedule using EC is required to determine the problem.

Do not flush soil. It will just make matters worse.

At this point I can recommend two things:

Feed the pot with Balanced nutrients at 500PPM not counting your starting water.

Tutorial - A word on Nutrients

The proper use of “salt” based fertilizer to grow Auto Flowering Cannabis. Salts: Natural and man made any chemical compound formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, with all or part of the hydrogen of the acid replaced by a metal or other cation. Learning how to use salt based...

www.autoflower.org

Get some Earth Juice Micro Blast and do a foliar application on as many of the leaves you can avoiding the colas.

 

[CannabisMingus]

Reading the leaves drives me crazy to figure out an issue, I compare it to your car throwing a code, the same dam number could be anything from a blow head gasket to a loose gas cap. Do I need a brain surgeon or a proctologist?

Sometimes my head is so far up my ass, they're the same thing.