Calcium Lockout?

[Mañ'O'Green]

Just an FYI when I went out to buy the TPS I discovered it has other minerals as well. Their website fails to mention this?

 

[Kazman420]

@Mañ'O'Green Oh crap, I didn't know about the additional minerals in their CalMag. It does NOT mention any of that on the bottle! I bet that's screwing things up...



I use municipal water. It's an old house, so plumbing is definitely going to be a factor. I'll post the water report, I just need to blank out some geographical info in it. And I also need to eat dinner so give me a little bit.

 

[SargeantSpaz]

Every time I see something wrong my initial instinct is to do something to fix/correct the problem. It's just like being over-protective of your child, lol.

the "doing" part, I've channeled into more mental-work, rather than spray and pray.
Screenshot from a spreadsheet I started after I got scared with my plants (my first time ever starting spreadsheets, but here we are):



for example, on this cycle I'm a bit late to the party with the correct NPK ratio... oh well, I'll get it better next time!

another thing I always advocate is:
grow the same strain ~3 cycles
(maybe you'll be able to go down to 2 cycles with experience)

I'm on my first cycle, already made mistakes. I can only improve on those on the same strain.
so, I'll stick with SweetCheeseXL for a while, it seems half a year of my life, more or less. what I get out of it is - I will be able to grow it at any point later in life with perfect results! pull out my spreadsheet already iterated 3 times over and BAM! for more "green" people - I'll look like a magician. and yet, here I am, just the sum of my failures

Photoperiod Red Dragons in PC Cases with manifolding out of a 0.7L bonsai pot? I AM KING. had about 4-5 cycles. it's second nature now.
SweetCheeseXL? got my ass kicked since day1

PS: whoever depicted stoners as "slow" people in the 70s would giggle a bit about the total nerding that's going on now in the stoner-space.

 

[Kazman420]

@Kazman420 First off Your plants will survive if you do not kill them with kindness. They are really resilient. Thank you for the TPS Cal-mag product information. I don't know how they made Calcium Hydroxide available in hydroponics but it is a blessing if it works. Lime is usually only for soil. I will be acquiring some immediately.


View attachment 1384421

As to the Iron I do not know if we are talking about the same scale? but you are still in range if we are talking mg/L, can you show the report? If you live in an old city the iron can be coming from the plumbing. If it is municipal water they would have to fix it or are you on a well?

A 44 PPM starting water should be fine. We need to know we are using the same scales.

Killing them with kindness is exactly what I'm doing, lol!

Here's the water report:

The rest of the report covers synthetics, acids, radionuclides and 100 other things I can't pronounce. Nothing was detected.

The interesting thing about Well #3 and #8 is the treated/untreated numbers. It does appear that after treating the Iron would be minimal, however the Max Result column is a bit scary. I think the bigger problem is that my house is 60 years old with original plumbing. I have no doubt it's adding Iron and probably other stuff too. But I have no way to test that.

Is tap water preferred over distilled in coco? I figured distilled would allow me to control every single element that goes into the pots but I can't help but wonder if the distilled is contributing to my pH swings.

 

[Kazman420]

the "doing" part, I've channeled into more mental-work, rather than spray and pray.
Screenshot from a spreadsheet I started after I got scared with my plants (my first time ever starting spreadsheets, but here we are):

View attachment 1384459

for example, on this cycle I'm a bit late to the party with the correct NPK ratio... oh well, I'll get it better next time!

another thing I always advocate is:
grow the same strain ~3 cycles
(maybe you'll be able to go down to 2 cycles with experience)

I'm on my first cycle, already made mistakes. I can only improve on those on the same strain.
so, I'll stick with SweetCheeseXL for a while, it seems half a year of my life, more or less. what I get out of it is - I will be able to grow it at any point later in life with perfect results! pull out my spreadsheet already iterated 3 times over and BAM! for more "green" people - I'll look like a magician. and yet, here I am, just the sum of my failures

Photoperiod Red Dragons in PC Cases with manifolding out of a 0.7L bonsai pot? I AM KING. had about 4-5 cycles. it's second nature now.
SweetCheeseXL? got my ass kicked since day1

PS: whoever depicted stoners as "slow" people in the 70s would giggle a bit about the total nerding that's going on now in the stoner-space.

Those are great notes that you take. A spreadsheet really seems like the way to go. Right now I just write everything down on a whiteboard in the grow room and take a picture of it when it's full, hehe.

That's an excellent idea about growing the same strain at least 3 times. I'm thinking that for my next grow I'll do more plants with smaller pots. (I really need to upgrade to an LED light, but It's probably going to have to wait until after the holidays). I've been grabbing various Mephisto strains but still have some of what I'm growing now; Forum Stomper and Skywalker. I'll definitely make sure to grow them both again next time! Thanks for the advice!

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

There is nothing wrong with your tap water. You can stop buying DI. I think you should just balance out the Nutrient mix, be sure to fertigate to 20% run-off every day you fertigate. Check the calibration on the EC meter. Is it possible you are reading the meter wrong?

Look here the ingredients on the website are different than on your bottle?

I have Ion meters to measure the Ca when it gets here.

 

[Kazman420]

There is nothing wrong with your tap water. You can stop buying DI. I think you should just balance out the Nutrient mix, be sure to fertigate to 20% run-off every day you fertigate. Check the calibration on the EC meter. Is it possible you are reading the meter wrong?

Look here the ingredients on the website are different than on your bottle?

View attachment 1384500View attachment 1384501

I have Ion meters to measure the Ca when it gets here.

Thanks for letting me know about the tap water @Mañ'O'Green! Of course I just bought 10 bottles of distilled water the other day, lol. But at least I won't have to buy anymore. Do I need to do anything special other than let it sit out for 24 hours to remove any chlorine?


I plan to have the meter in hand for when the calibration solution arrives. This particular meter is very straightforward. Here's a sample of my current nutrient solution, showing all 4 modes the meter has:



As for the TPS CalMag, I wonder if they recently changed the formula and I have an older bottle? I can't offer any other explanation as to why the website would list different ingredients and I'll feel bad if you ordered it and it's not what you wanted.

But definitely let us know when you receive it.

 

[SargeantSpaz]

Do I need to do anything special other than let it sit out for 24 hours to remove any chlorine?

I never did that and plants were fine for 7-8 grows across different countries.

How I did kill a plant (over the course of 3 weeks)
was by using a de-calibrated PH meter.

you're supposed to re-calibrate your PH meter every 3-4 weeks, especially if used every 2-3 days when watering

I didn't know that, was running the PH meter as it came out of the box for about 3 months, it was slightly skewing down .2 every week / every two weeks so I literally burnt the plant in acid water although for all I could read on the meter - it was 6.5 spot on. in fact, it was 4.5

I was (and still, to this day) using Milwaukee PH meter


now I calibrate it every 3 weeks... maybe a month tops. Never had another problem, feel like the bastard knows he owes me one now

 

[Ryno_nuggs]

Amazon has had the blulab combo meter on sale. It is an awesome meter that does both EC and ph. I am really glad I bought this.

 

[Kazman420]

I never did that and plants were fine for 7-8 grows across different countries.

How I did kill a plant (over the course of 3 weeks)
was by using a de-calibrated PH meter.

you're supposed to re-calibrate your PH meter every 3-4 weeks, especially if used every 2-3 days when watering

I didn't know that, was running the PH meter as it came out of the box for about 3 months, it was slightly skewing down .2 every week / every two weeks so I literally burnt the plant in acid water although for all I could read on the meter - it was 6.5 spot on. in fact, it was 4.5

I was (and still, to this day) using Milwaukee PH meter
View attachment 1384555

now I calibrate it every 3 weeks... maybe a month tops. Never had another problem, feel like the bastard knows he owes me one now

Excellent advice.

I actually check the calibration of my pH meter every ~3 days. I wound up buying the kit that Apera sells and it's awesome. If your ph meter uses 4.00 & 7.00 & 10.01 to calibrate I definitely recommend it. (Link). They sell kits with multiple options if you don't want the 10.01 or storage solution, etc etc. But the surprisingly nicest feature is the little plastic CalBox that comes with it. I just leave a little of each calibration solution in there and it sits right on shelf where I mix up my nutes. Takes all of 60 seconds.

Speaking of calibration solution, Amazon reports my order is out for delivery. Will report back once I've received it.