autopot coco/perlite, nute deficiency or lockout?

[VirginGrowbile]

A couple of things I noticed. First your EC numbers are missing the decimal point and that can be confusing to many. Here is a conversion chart so we are all on the same PPM

View attachment 1215068

Like Pop noted your starting water PPM is too high. GH has a hard water FloraMicro nutrient that might work better for you. One reason PH goes up in circulating nutrients is due to the calcium carbonate precipitating out of solution. To mitigate that aerate your water for a day or two prior to using it. That will help to stabilize the PH.

I also agree that you are over-feeding and it may be the source of the lockouts.

I don't understand where this idea of light burn has come from. Everybody thinks they have light burn. If your buds are not up IN the light it ain't light burn. I have run COBs that are much much stronger than scattered LM301s as close as 8 inches without any light burn. If you were talking HID then you can be talking light burn.

Hey Man! Thanks for the tips. I was showing my EC in microSiemens, 1000 microSiemens (µS) = 1 milliSiemen (mS). But that's OK, I've converted all mentions of EC in my OP and responses to milliSiemen (mS) as shown in the charts. Hope that helps

I always thought water PPM of 150 is considered ok. Should I still get hard water FloraMicro? I do aerate my water for 2 days prior to using it, I definitely noticed the stabilizing of pH after doing so.

Ok, if not light burn then I may have simply been overfeeding it. These signs started 4-6 days after I stopped hand watering and turned on the autopot reservoir. When I was handwatering, my EC was 1.1 and pH 6.0-6.1, and when I turned on the autopots, my EC was 1.22. pH 5.8 (but drifted to around 6.3 in reservoir). Then I started to increase the EC after seeing these signs of "deficiencies" which I'm not sure if I should have just stuck at EC 1.1 in the reservoir.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Hey Man! Thanks for the tips. I was showing my EC in microSiemens, 1000 microSiemens (µS) = 1 milliSiemen (mS). But that's OK, I've converted all mentions of EC in my OP and responses to milliSiemen (mS) as shown in the charts. Hope that helps

I always thought water PPM of 150 is considered ok. Should I still get hard water FloraMicro? I do aerate my water for 2 days prior to using it, I definitely noticed the stabilizing of pH after doing so.

Ok, if not light burn then I may have simply been overfeeding it. These signs started 4-6 days after I stopped hand watering and turned on the autopot reservoir. When I was handwatering, my EC was 1.1 and pH 6.0-6.1, and when I turned on the autopots, my EC was 1.22. pH 5.8 (but drifted to around 6.3 in reservoir). Then I started to increase the EC after seeing these signs of "deficiencies" which I'm not sure if I should have just stuck at EC 1.1 in the reservoir.

Yes starting water at 150 PPM is ok. I am sure I got confused by the numbers. We talk PPMs here in the states. The rest of the world uses EC in Milli-Siemens. I think I need to revisit all of this because I got lost in the numbers and too much information to get to the root of what is going on. I will come back to this latter.

 

[VirginGrowbile]

Yes starting water at 150 PPM is ok. I am sure I got confused by the numbers. We talk PPMs here in the states. The rest of the world uses EC in Milli-Siemens. I think I need to revisit all of this because I got lost in the numbers and too much information to get to the root of what is going on. I will come back to this latter.

sounds good, thanks for taking the time

Getting a little frustrated and worried since I've been trying my hand at mainlining as well, and I'm running low on fan leaves at this rate so I've been doing some more reading on flushing with autopots. Maybe just flush it since I see signs of nute burn, and restart at EC 1.0 or 1.1 (including starting EC of 0.3, meaning 0.8 EC of actual nutes) with pH 5.8. There was a site I stumbled across another board someone mentioning that autopot coco pH should be around 6.0, wondering if 5.8 could be causing some deficiencies? I was busy chasing what appeared to be cal-mag deficiency problems by adding more and more nutes but looks like a nute burn now.

There seems to be 2 commonly discussed flushing methods for autopots:
1) add pH 5.8 tap water with no nutes/feed for 5 days or so (leaves will turn yellow and some will be sacrificed, risky for me imo)
2) take pots out and flush them with enough pH 5.8 water (probably cant let this water sit for 2 days) about 2-3x the pot size (so about 3x a 5 gallon bucket).

Really wish I can get this dialed in soon

 

[St. Tom]

sounds good, thanks for taking the time

Getting a little frustrated and worried since I've been trying my hand at mainlining as well, and I'm running low on fan leaves at this rate so I've been doing some more reading on flushing with autopots. Maybe just flush it since I see signs of nute burn, and restart at EC 1.0 or 1.1 (including starting EC of 0.3, meaning 0.8 EC of actual nutes) with pH 5.8. There was a site I stumbled across another board someone mentioning that autopot coco pH should be around 6.0, wondering if 5.8 could be causing some deficiencies? I was busy chasing what appeared to be cal-mag deficiency problems by adding more and more nutes but looks like a nute burn now.

There seems to be 2 commonly discussed flushing methods for autopots:
1) add pH 5.8 tap water with no nutes/feed for 5 days or so (leaves will turn yellow and some will be sacrificed, risky for me imo)
2) take pots out and flush them with enough pH 5.8 water (probably cant let this water sit for 2 days) about 2-3x the pot size (so about 3x a 5 gallon bucket).

Really wish I can get this dialed in soon

i grow in autopots and I've had 1 plant behave differently to others and i sometimes feel like a flush is needed and if need be i will take the said plant off the res and pop her in my bath and i always make some weak nutes say at an ec of 0.8 and make sure my ph is say maybe 6.0 and i will just feed now till run off and if the ec is sky high i know she needs a flush and if its high it normally overfed or some sort of lockout and then i will run it through till the ec comes out same as I'm putting in

 

[VirginGrowbile]

i grow in autopots and I've had 1 plant behave differently to others and i sometimes feel like a flush is needed and if need be i will take the said plant off the res and pop her in my bath and i always make some weak nutes say at an ec of 0.8 and make sure my ph is say maybe 6.0 and i will just feed now till run off and if the ec is sky high i know she needs a flush and if its high it normally overfed or some sort of lockout and then i will run it through till the ec comes out same as I'm putting in

Thanks St. Tom, I think I might just start to flush two of the pots tonight. Been doing more reading and thinking... it can't be nute burn since they first started showing deficiencies without tips being brown, and the only thing that changed was going from hand-watering @ pH 6.0 (just around the roots) to autopot reservoir switched on @ pH 5.8-5.9.

Really starting to think it's Nutrient Lockout due to:
1) pH imbalance in the coco medium - I use "pre-buffered" canna coco and just started watering it in a small area directly above the roots to ensure the roots dig downwards before switching on the autopot reservoir. I think flushing the medium entirely (not just around the roots) despite being pre-buffered, with plain pH 5.8 tap water first may be the right way to go.

2) Since reservoir was switched on, I've always mainly increased my EC from 1.25 to 1.4 - 1.6, etc. But never seen an improvement, leaves were always showing deficiency from the few days after I switching on

Today is day 56 and the deficiencies are worsening, calcium deficiency brown spots showing on younger growth. Magnesium deficiencies showing lighter green between leaf veins, and tips are slightly brown and crispy.

 

[VirginGrowbile]

Just finished flushing, the first runoff readings from those 2 plants were coming in at EC 0.9 with pH 6.2 (Yellow pot) and EC 1.0 with pH 6.1 (Pink pot). I flushed it so both pots runoff were reading 0.7 EC and 6.0 pH. Yellow pot needed much more flushing to get the pH down from 6.2.

Either way, wasn't expecting the runoff to be in that range. The EC in the trays were 1.6 and pH 5.8-5.9.

I turned off the reservoir to stop feeding it and let it dry out a day or so before mixing a new batch of nutes and turning it on.

Also, I noticed 1 dead adult fungas ngat and 1 live one flying around... so I turned up the tower fan blowing the top layer of the pots, hope it doesn't get worse.

 

[St. Tom]

Just finished flushing, the first runoff readings from those 2 plants were coming in at EC 0.9 with pH 6.2 (Yellow pot) and EC 1.0 with pH 6.1 (Pink pot). I flushed it so both pots runoff were reading 0.7 EC and 6.0 pH. Yellow pot needed much more flushing to get the pH down from 6.2.

Either way, wasn't expecting the runoff to be in that range. The EC in the trays were 1.6 and pH 5.8-5.9.

I turned off the reservoir to stop feeding it and let it dry out a day or so before mixing a new batch of nutes and turning it on.

Also, I noticed 1 dead adult fungas ngat and 1 live one flying around... so I turned up the tower fan blowing the top layer of the pots, hope it doesn't get worse.

I think if you let them dry out a little it may stop the fungas nats I use the same coco and I do seem to get lockout but I realised before they went on this always feed them to run off as I think you can get a little build up before they start bottom feeding. also at times the autopots can be a pain in the arse fixing problems but I still use them but running multiple strains can be extra tricky also going by your run off I'd of expected it to be higher if you had a lockout or build up

 

[St. Tom]

Also I forgot to mention after flushing I would start top feeding them for a while I've found if I do that I can get the problem plant back on track before I put it back on the res and don't forget to feed to run off I will do that for maybe a week

 

[MidnightSun]

I grow in a 50/50 coco perlite mix. With wicking my MAX EC is .9 which is about 40% normal nutrient strength. I use Jacks 3-2-1 @ 6.1 PH. 24-0 light schedule for Autos. I can pretty much run this the entire grow and things are fine while getting a DLI of 73.
I don't flush or change nutrients for grow/bloom, don't need Cal/Mag. Depending on the strain this will support 70 gram plants up to 350 grams each just fine....these are dry weights. Most problems i read about are from people using WAY to strong of nutrients IMOP. Hope this helps.

 

[pop22]

Good to see more people realizing that overfeeding is NOT the way to grow! And keeping PH above 6.0 too. Almost makes me want to grow in coco again!
( on a cold day in hell lol! )

I grow in a 50/50 coco perlite mix. With wicking my MAX EC is .9 which is about 40% normal nutrient strength. I use Jacks 3-2-1 @ 6.1 PH. 24-0 light schedule for Autos. I can pretty much run this the entire grow and things are fine while getting a DLI of 73.
I don't flush or change nutrients for grow/bloom, don't need Cal/Mag. Depending on the strain this will support 70 gram plants up to 350 grams each just fine....these are dry weights. Most problems i read about are from people using WAY to strong of nutrients IMOP. Hope this helps.