Calcium Lockout?

[Mañ'O'Green]

Well I am just sayin 350 PPM is not going to look like that in a plant?

 

[Kazman420]

Well I am just sayin 350 PPM is not going to look like that in a plant?

I hear you and I'm very concerned. I also really appreciate all the help you and the other AFN members have given me. I'm so glad I found this place.

The calibration fluid will be here on Thursday. Maybe the meter is badly out of whack because I have never given more than 400ppm (and that was only for about 3 days). The girls did have a little bit of a rocky start. Maybe they just never fully recovered/established themselves.

That Photone app is awesome! Calibrated it using my Lux meter and at my current light distance I am reading 719 PPFD / 51.8 DLI. I know I had a browser tab open with a suggested DLI/PPFD chart. (Can't find it right now, will have to search again). Pretty sure that is on the high end for flowering.

Edit: That number is for the dead center of the canopy. It drops off fairly drastically the further out you go.

 

[SargeantSpaz]

Did you by any chance go heavy on foliar spraying without doing just water sprays after every 2 nute sprays?

thinking the shine might be stomatas locking up a bit

 

[DCLXVI]

Well I am just sayin 350 PPM is not going to look like that in a plant?

I absolutely trust your knowledge on that. Hence, I thought perhaps the meter was way off.

EDIT: It is a cheap meter. You were also correct earlier on there being better tools available.

 

[Kazman420]

Did you by any chance go heavy on foliar spraying without doing just water sprays after every 2 nute sprays?

thinking the shine might be stomatas locking up a bit

No, I haven't done any foliar feeding. Should I maybe do a plain distilled water spray on the leaves? Do you think that would help?

I think @Mañ'O'Green is right about a nutrient balance issue, though I have no idea how to correct it. For veg I was using all 3 parts of the GH Flora series using the formula on the bottle, but significantly diluted. When she started flowering I switched to the Lucas/Head formula. (6ml Micro, 9ml Bloom. No Grow)

I'm pretty sure there are some other underlying issues as well, such as heat/light stress and the fact that they had a bit of a rough start as seedling. I had a lot of trouble getting the light right. There was a back and forth between too close and too far. I had a little fungal gnat problem early on which I resolved with mosquito dunks and sticky paper. They also got a neem oil treatment back around week 2.

At this point I'm just hoping she'll be OK. It's day 58 so she has to be getting close. I have a loupe/microscope arriving tomorrow, so I'll be able to look at the trichromes. Do you think she'll make it?

 

[SargeantSpaz]

I haven't done any foliar feeding

if it wasn't broken - let's not apply the fix

LE: a bit too late in day58 to foliar feed anyway. it would have to be a damp towel wipe on the leaves rather than spraying out of a gardener's bottle spray. but you don't need to do it, if you didn't even spray the stomatas.

day58 - if the hairs are starting to look good (5-10% of them amber) OR if you can check the trichs with the loupe and 10-20% of them are cloudy... I'm thinking it's time to drop the nutes all together and just go on water for the rest of it.
(dunno exactly the strain's lifespan)

so in day 58 one could say she "made it" already. depends on the hair color / trichs under microscope / magnifying glass

I'm actively ignoring stuff as much as possible with my ladies because over-correction is real (and especially on my type of character)
these buggers are sturdy, they want to live so it's really hard to kill them with one mistake. it gets easier to kill them when you try to correct a mistake with another mistake on top of it and so on

 

[MIAutomatic]

I will say again, I think you really need to increase your calmag to help with the uptake of of other macro and micro nutrients. A good meter will definitely help your sort it out. I am surprised no one else is talking about the coco/calmag issue, this is coco 101. Coco uses more calmag than other media and you are using very light feed across the board including calmag. This may be compounded by the not pre-washing the medium. I know Canna bags are pre-buffered with calmag, but I am not sure if the blocks are.

Good luck!

 

[SargeantSpaz]

I will say again, I think you really need to increase your calmag to help with the uptake of of other macro and micro nutrients. A good meter will definitely help your sort it out. I am surprised no one else is talking about the coco/calmag issue, this is coco 101. Coco uses more calmag than other media and you are using very light feed across the board including calmag. This may be compounded by the not pre-washing the medium. I know Canna bags are pre-buffered with calmag, but I am not sure if the blocks are.

Good luck!

on top of this, there are organic metabolic boosters to help you burn through the nutes. I use Biobizz line start to end - so in my case it's Biobizz Activera. everytime I over-nuted (mostly N P K) - I increase the Activera with 1-2ml extra than planned schedule and makes the plant burn through extras in the leaves.

you have to watch it though, make it come down after 1-2 waterings or then you over-correct from excess straight into defficiencies.
the line above directly relates to how over-corrections can kill plants while initial mistakes rarely do

 

[Bruce Campbell]

Overall, the yellowing doesn't look too bad and you may be able to make it to harvest without changing up anything, depending on how fast it progresses. But, in general, I recommend calculating out the elemental ppms in your feed as the first step in troubleshooting any nutrient issue.

You're high on Ca relative to K. Your pH Up is helping with that, but it's hard to determine exactly how much without more info. FloraMicro looks like it has enough Ca to balance out the K in the FloraBloom without adding additional cal-mag.

You're a bit low on sulfur compared to typical feed amounts, and that's what the yellowing could be. The cal-mag and your intermediate pH levels during mixing could be making that worse.

Your tip burn may have been due to VPD issues at the leaves, and not necessarily nute burn - so you may have room to increase feed levels.

I would eliminate the cal-mag and maybe try to increase the FloraBloom.
____________________________________________
Numbers:

I measured 10 drops of water from a pipette, and that was only ~0.5 mL. Here's some numbers assuming your "8-10 drops per half gallon" are about the same size, and your pH Up is ~20% potassium carbonate:

General Hydroponics

FloraMicro

6

mL

per gal

General Hydroponics

FloraBloom

9

mL

per gal

TPS

Cal-Mag OAC

5

mL

per gal

Generic

pH Up (20% K2CO3)

1

mL

per gal

N

P

K

Ca

Mg

S

Cu

Fe

Mo

Zn

B

Mn

Si

Total PPM (mg/L):

79.26

51.88

122.01

138.71

50.20

23.78

0.16

1.59

0.01

0.24

0.16

0.79

0.00

I usually try to aim for a 4:2:1 ratio of K:Ca:Mg. Removing the cal-mag gives a better ratio:

General Hydroponics

FloraMicro

6

mL

per gal

General Hydroponics

FloraBloom

9

mL

per gal

TPS

Cal-Mag OAC

0

mL

per gal

Generic

pH Up (20% K2CO3)

1

mL

per gal

N

P

K

Ca

Mg

S

Cu

Fe

Mo

Zn

B

Mn

Si

Total PPM (mg/L):

79.26

51.88

122.01

79.26

35.67

23.78

0.16

1.59

0.01

0.24

0.16

0.79

0.00

Typical ranges for S in feeds are usually ~50-100 ppm, and the yellowing could be consistent with low S. I'm not sure if there's any compatibility issues between the TPS Cal-Mag OAC and the flora series, but the directions for floramicro say to add it to fresh water first. Eliminating the cal-mag may improve S availability, as well as changing up your mixing order to avoid any large swings in intermediate pH.

If you want to increase the amount of FloraBloom, this ratio would give you a bit more S and should keep K:Ca:Mg pretty close. I'm not sure of its final pH / electrical conductivity, so you'd need to check those before using:

General Hydroponics

FloraMicro

7

mL

per gal

General Hydroponics

FloraBloom

15

mL

per gal

TPS

Cal-Mag OAC

0

mL

per gal

Generic

pH Up (20% K2CO3)

1

mL

per gal

N

P

K

Ca

Mg

S

Cu

Fe

Mo

Zn

B

Mn

Si

Total PPM (mg/L):

92.47

86.47

176.85

92.47

59.45

39.63

0.18

1.85

0.01

0.28

0.18

0.92

0.00

Another option would be to add epsom salts for S. They can be incompatible with the calcium nitrate in the FloraMicro, but that may be less of an issue since you're using it immediately - but, again, mixing order and intermediate pH could matter. You'd only need a small amount, so you'd need a powder/milligram scale to measure accurately:

General Hydroponics

FloraMicro

6

mL

per gal

General Hydroponics

FloraBloom

9

mL

per gal

TPS

Cal-Mag OAC

0

mL

per gal

-

Epsom Salts

300

mg

per gal

Generic

pH Up (20% K2CO3)

1

mL

per gal

N

P

K

Ca

Mg

S

Cu

Fe

Mo

Zn

B

Mn

Si

Total PPM (mg/L):

79.26

51.88

122.01

79.26

43.43

34.08

0.16

1.59

0.01

0.24

0.16

0.79

0.00

You can do a foliar application of epsom salts for mag deficiencies, but I don't think that would work if it's a sulfur deficiency since sulfur may be more immobile.

 

[Kazman420]

EDIT: It is a cheap meter.

Yeah I knew the TDS meter was on the cheap side. I didn't have a huge budget when I started and I read that if you are going to buy TDS/PH meters you should make sure the pH meter is a good one. So I splurged a little on the pH meter (Apera) and went with a cheap TDS meter.

I also really underestimated the upfront cost of growing. I already had the ballast and reflector, but everything else adds up quickly. $20 here, $30 there. Multiple trips to Home Depot and late night ordering on Amazon, etc etc. Distilled water also adds up quickly. I probably could have bought a cheap RO system with all the money I've spent on water.

I'll definitely look into a higher quality TDS/EC meter. If anybody has any recommendation on brands please let me know.