Something is wrong with my ladies, can you help??

[MassMom]

UH OH. Since transplant into their 3 gallon auto pots I have started to see an issue working its way starting at the bottom and getting worse. Can anyone identify this? They are in ½ canna coco and ½ canna terra pro being fed RO water, 3mg per gallon of mega crop, 1/4tsp per gallon of sweet candy, and 1ml/L CALMAGic. They are 20 days old. Tent temp 79.

I am leaning towards PH Fluctuation issues? I have never checked PH before as I always used AN Ph perfect nutes. I have now switched to MC and not a great PH checker. Sigh.
Should I give them a good flush with RO water and check runoff PH?

 

[LordGreenWood]

I am leaning towards PH Fluctuation issues?

howdy
imo ur right about da ph fluc


but im new to coco too

 

[Haylo]

I really like to do a little bit more cal-mag personally, especially when you are starting with a blank slate like RO water. I would recommend monitoring your ph input when you are mixing your nutrients also. I have never used AN but calimagic is not ph balanced, it is a general hdroponics product. I like to keep everything I put in at a 6.0 ph, unless a nutrient or nutrient line I am using says otherwise. I don’t think it is necessary to flush, maybe just keep checking your ph input, maybe a little more cal mag. I can say your plant otherwise is looking great and your environment sounds like a winner. I think it will grow up just fine

 

[davisgirl]

Are they all doing it?

 

[7.62]

pH or Cal,/mag maybe??

 

[MassMom]

Thank you guys. the large and medium plant are doing it...not the small one~ yet.

I cleaned out the res & calibrated my PH pen. I then put 2 gallons RO water in the res with megacrop at 3g per gallon (put in 6grams), Hydroguard at 2ml per gallon (put in 4ml) & CALiMAGic at 3ml per gallon (put in 6ml) and Ph'd the res to 6.0

Lets see what happens. They were doing so darn good in their cups, mom is in a panic.

I did have one person message me and tell me that I may have calmag overload because the MC2 already has enough cal mag. OK, now I am really confused.

 

[BII]

Consider foliar feeding with CALiMAGic or whatever supplement you think is needed - a quick(er) fix and doesn't involve addition to your base nutes feeding. Ideally use Transport/Optic Foliar or top- vs. bottom-of-leaves foliar feeding.

 

[Waira]

:smoking: Hey Nor'Eastah!
...so, they are all doing this odd spotty pattern and color fade? ...looking at the nutes, MC ( new stuff, or old BTW?), 3g/gal is about 1/2tsp (MC is about 6g/tsp), pretty mild dosing,... ditto for the Ca-Mg,... using RO, plus the coco being a Ca hog and to a lesser degree, Mg too,.... I'd say you aren't overloading things, though that happens more than folks realize! You may even be under Ca needs, if that coco is sucking it up and hasn't reached it's saturation CEC point,... And the actual source of the Ca in particular is very important because if it's CaCO3 based, the availability will be lower than with other anions compounded with it, like nitrate which is very soluble in water; CaCO3 is very pH dependent on it's relative solubility.... CaliMagic is nitrate and carbonate based, not sure about MC but likely similar....
This is where a TDS/EC reading would help,... measure the Ca-Mg ppm first, used as a base-line to see what your MC dosage is coming out to,... from what I saw with my MC run, it doesn't drive pH down that low, not like the PK boosters do.
Coco runs at lower pH than true soil, but lower pH means lower Ca availability too, relatively speaking-

>>> here's where a soil pH probe for direct in-pot pH readings would be the ticket,.. -- it would answer this question w/o all the hassle of doing a run-off test... The pickle here: because of the high coco content, running straight RO water through may, screw with the CEC some, but then you have soil in there too, presumably with a lime source in it... In straight coco, you have to make a special flushing solution to maintain the proper CEC (RO/Di water, with 150ppm Ca-Mg, plus another 150ppm nutes, pH to 6.0; pour though until pH and ppm's are close to ingoing values)... With true soil, you can use such pure water, best always with nothing that influences pH added because that will skew results, but regardless, run-off is a lousy measure of in-pot pH for true soil anyway,... that said, hold off on flushing for now, and see if upping the Ca-Mg more helps,...
Good suggestion by BII here, foliar will bypass all the "if's" going on in the root zone, plus it's the fastest way into the plant,... a few treatments should show if this is a Ca defc. or not, as symptoms are a bit ambiguous,... Half strength or label directions for foliar; use a wetting agent for sure, or a very mild soap like castile... this will make the solution coat and stick far better, and more gets in,.. spray tops and bottoms of leaves, more stomata on undersides, during lights on, when they are open and active,... better to remove from direct blasting light though until more or less dry,.. you can re-wet with RO water to re-dissolve and get a "second helping" in and remove residuals,.... try a couple rounds of this over a few days or so,..meantime the medium dosing should start helping as well,... If symptoms get worse, fast, or change, post more pics ASAP-
Make up a small batch of what's in the res' and see where that pH is for at least a starting point, going in,....

 

[MassMom]

Hi Waira! Yes, Near Boston. So I "pahhk my cahh!"


I am using the new MC2.

I have (3) different bottles of calcium here..are you saying that like humans the “type” of calcium given has an affect on absorption/availability by the plants? Very interesting. (nitrate/carbonate/citrate etc)

I added a little more calmag AND mc to the res, got a small cup out, and we are 5.97

My darn PPM meter just died so I will have to again trip over to Amazon.com.....

Would adding some epsom salts or lime to the coco when making up the pots at the beginning be any help to deficiencies later on?

 

[Waira]

...like Dr. Bubbles here says, "they're call KAAAAAHBS"!

...well what I'm saying is that different Ca compounds have different levels of solubility,.... -nitrate is very soluble, so is phosphate, and citrate (I believe), but carbonate isn't so much... this is the mineral involved with pH buffering in (water) solution.... actually, it's the carbonate/bicarbonate = CO3--/ HCO3- that's involved, the free Ca++ is not directly involved, but that's where the nutrient availability thing comes in, how exactly much of that free Ca is about, not locked up or cross reacted with say, sulfate....
'
... sounds good, but if it gets worse, we can call in some hydro-guru's! :smoking: ... ManO'Green, Boradan,....
you killed a TDS meter?! Did a lobstaaahh give it a pinch-cracky?