Do i flush with tap water (8.5) or wait till I get ph -/tester )coco coir)

[errorcode_11]

Problem:
Hey so im running a auto flower im on day 46 I have these orange/brown spots and light browning on the tip/corners to some leaves the leaf i showed that is fully brown is from another plant which im guessing is more in the process As it looks exactly the same in colour.
im mainly worried about the one im showing you now but i will apply the methods to the other as well. From what ive read I have had an imbalance in ph which has led to a salt build up. I would agree with it, i posted not too long about other things and most people said it was my ph levels. I have ordered a ph tester and fluid but they are taking the piss with delivering i understand though because of covid so im not gonna be a dick to em. first if im wrong please tell me aha i aint the best ive grown bud 3 times this being my third and the first two was very bad i mean normally get 14g from 2 plats (baso one cuz one did that bad) so far (apart from veg) its doing the best ive ever seen ik its still very bad for everyone here and ik where to improve upon in the next grow and next time i wont stunt my autos baso all thought the veg aha.

my main question is am I right is this a salt build up/ph problem second being is it better for me to flush now with around 15-20gallons of water of normally 8.5 ph tap water or wait till I get the ph tester/ph- and flush with 5.8-6.2 Ive seen people say 6 but there is a lot of people saying a lot of different things everyone here has always been right so im going to trust people here ik there isnt a perfect ph but if anyone can help that would be great.

Secondery: what are those yellow spots? Im pretty sure they are not leaf septoria however i may be wrong .

(Sorry if i spell words wrong im dyslexic.)

Medium/grow method: coco coir (no perlite ik this is bad)

Feed: and supplements used: A/B AN sensi bloom coco carbon load overdrive and calmag 1ml/L (ik this is low but my plants are small and I wont want to over feed).

This is the feeding schedule i was following.

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/...vWIxRbfectuWpiqc6R1dlrqkGYvsf01wbWx503WmVU1B8

water source:tap water (around 8.5) water ppm 140

Strain/age :kritikal orange punch from dutch passion/46 days old

light used: viparspectra 300w led grow light and fecida cr600 grow area is 0.8m x 0.8m x 1.60 m or 2.6ftx2.6ftx5.2ft.

Climate:day 45-50 somtimes going to 55. night i find it very hard to keep humidity low ussaly going to 70 ive added a heater to raise the heat as it only drops humidity when the lights go off not because its night time i ran a test to check.

Additional info: The orange/brown spots are not rust i believe as when i rub my finger over them nothing comes onto my fingers.

 

[St. Tom]

@Mañ'O'Green should be able to help you bro also a ph pen and an ec meter make life so much easier especially to figure out problems also when you feed your plants do you always feed to run off also regarding tangs feed thread isn't that for light mix soil i don't know if that matters

 

[Olderfart]

The good news is that your AN nutes should help with pH, in fact if you were using something else with pH 8.5 water, I suspect your girl would be in worse shape. The bad news, maybe, is that starting with pH 8.5 and 140ppm may be a bit much even for AN nutes.

FWIW, I would not bother flushing with pH8.5 water. You have to get the pH in bounds, which as you already note is ~5.8 to 6.2 for coco. 8.5 is about a hundred times more alkaline than your target pH of ~6. If your pH tools are not going to get to you soon, you could buy some RO or distilled water to flush with, but I am too new at this to advise whether this is likely to fix your problem. You could also just use pH drops and some pH down to at least get your tap water in the range for pH before flushing. The drops should be available at pretty much any garden store if you can get to one.

Again, FWIW, if I need to flush, I do it with nute mix at the pH and EC that I want the plant to see, not with plain water, but that is just me, lots of others use plain water. When I flush, I keep doing it until the runoff is at or very close to my target pH and EC. With my pot size, this often takes half a laundry tub of mix.

I will be interested to see what @Mañ'O'Green's advice is.

Good luck getting things sorted.

 

[DCLXVI]

Yes, the AN nutes tend to pull the ph to right around 6.0 I have found. But, I don't know if the coco specific nutrients do. My water is high 7.7-8.1 and 205ppm. You should still get that ph pen ASAP.

 

[errorcode_11]

Yes, the AN nutes tend to pull the ph to right around 6.0 I have found. But, I don't know if the coco specific nutrients do. My water is high 7.7-8.1 and 205ppm. You should still get that ph pen ASAP.

The good news is that your AN nutes should help with pH, in fact if you were using something else with pH 8.5 water, I suspect your girl would be in worse shape. The bad news, maybe, is that starting with pH 8.5 and 140ppm may be a bit much even for AN nutes.

FWIW, I would not bother flushing with pH8.5 water. You have to get the pH in bounds, which as you already note is ~5.8 to 6.2 for coco. 8.5 is about a hundred times more alkaline than your target pH of ~6. If your pH tools are not going to get to you soon, you could buy some RO or distilled water to flush with, but I am too new at this to advise whether this is likely to fix your problem. You could also just use pH drops and some pH down to at least get your tap water in the range for pH before flushing. The drops should be available at pretty much any garden store if you can get to one.

Again, FWIW, if I need to flush, I do it with nute mix at the pH and EC that I want the plant to see, not with plain water, but that is just me, lots of others use plain water. When I flush, I keep doing it until the runoff is at or very close to my target pH and EC. With my pot size, this often takes half a laundry tub of mix.

I will be interested to see what @Mañ'O'Green's advice is.

Good luck getting things sorted.

@Mañ'O'Green should be able to help you bro also a ph pen and an ec meter make life so much easier especially to figure out problems also when you feed your plants do you always feed to run off also regarding tangs feed thread isn't that for light mix soil i don't know if that matters

cheers for everyone's replies made the decision a lot easier. Im just going to wait till my ph pen and ph down comes.

 

[DCLXVI]

That may not be the only issue. The pros @Mañ'O'Green and @Proph are way better diagnosticians.

 

[Olderfart]

That may not be the only issue. The pros @Mañ'O'Green and @Proph are way better diagnosticians.

You should likely hang in there until you hear from one of the gurus, but they may advise quicker action if your delivery of pH tools may be much delayed. There is likely more damage already done than what you can see. I could explain why I think that, but lets just say recent experience is part of the picture.

 

[Proph]

You can't flush with out a ppm meter... How else will you know when to stop flushing, or if you need to flush? If you run 15-20 gallons of water through that pot you will completely shock the roots and things will get worse even faster. Tang didn't grow in coco.. Still doesn't.. That's a key factor to some of the issues.. I would recommend getting a ppm/ec meter. I would also advise that there is no set feeding chart or program that you can follow and grow great plants/weed. Every plant is different.. Every person's knowledge level is different.. Their environment, their medium/grow style, it's all different. Without a ppm/ec reading we don't know if your over feeding/under feeding or whether you need to flush or not. A ppm/ec meter will tell you how heavy/light your feed mixes are... It will tell you if your plant is feeding, or not feeding, by checking the run off.. If you have one, I would make it an almost every day tool. Coco is like hydro.. You should always be aware of your ph and ppm/ec when growing in coco.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@errorcode_11 Welcome to AFN Sorry you are having troubles. As @Proph stated coco is a totally different media than Tang grows in and many people who try to imitate him just don't pull it off.

You are getting the terminology mixed up PH does not change the "Balance" of the elements in a fertilizer. PH in the proper range allows the roots to intake the nutrient ions the plant needs. When the PH is wrong The elements cannot enter the roots.

Now lets talk about nutrient "Balance" There are 17 elements plus some trace elements a plant must have to grow. Water and Air provide Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon. The rest we provide in some manor to the plant. These other 14 elements we need provide have reactions with each other and those reactions are very complicated. Fortunately for us lots of scientists have worked out the basic information about what combination of these elements works to grow our C3 plants.This chart is not in EC it is in weight PPM/liter. It is designed to give you the balance range for the elements in relation to each other. In order for a fertilizer to be in balance ALL of the elements must be present in the ranges displayed.

If any one of these elements is out of bounds a "Lock-out" of it or another element will occur.

It can be a really big range for many of them. This allows for different formulas based on the plants maturity. Lets just look at the top 3 for example NPK 100,30,100 - 250,50,300 - 180,40,200 are all combinations that are in balance 300, 50,100 is out of balance and can cause lock-outs.

In the example of 300, 50, 100 the Nitrogen in the fertilizer is too high and can lock out Potassium and Calcium even though they are in a proper range.

I often encounter new growers adding Cal-Mag to a pot by itself. This is the definition of out of balance since all of the other elements are absent. In soil you might get away with this a little because soil will buffer what is going in (by the way in soil you should almost never need extra Calcium). In hydroponics this will cause the lockouts listed above.

So how to avoid lock-out = always feed balanced nutrients with all 13 elements in balance (sodium is generally not added as it is abundant already).

This is why you should choose a cannabis oriented nutrient line and use their entire line on their schedule. All of those different bottles of Secret Sauce have something in them you need. Don't Mix and Match other vendor products because it is very easy to get out of bounds on something. Nutrient vendors spend millions making products that work together. Take advantage of that. If you don't want to buy 13 products go to a different vendor and use their line.

Lets talk about the secret sauce. After you have provided the 17 essential elements the plant will grow and grow well but there are Bio-stimulants like kelp, Humic acid, B-vitamins and others that will enhance the plants ability to take in and use the essential elements. There are also Microbes and mycorrhizal fungi that will also ehnhance the availabilty of the elements for roots to absorb them. These beneficial microbes form a biome around the roots even in hydroponics. Roots can actually create there own microbes as the plant grows.

Now to your specific problem AN does a pretty god job of keeping the PH in range but it ain't perfect. AN is designed to be used with RO water and a PPM less than 10 is recommended by them. Your starting water PPM of 140 means you are starting with more calcium than AN is designed for. The AN coco product has extra calcium for the coco also and then you are adding more? This may be a factor in your problem but I think you may be fertigating coco wrong also. I looks as though you have too much of everything in the pot - salt build-up because you are not fertigating to 15% to 20% run-off every day or you are simply feeding too strong fertilizer. Alas you don't know because you do not have meters yet.

I discourage flushing because it ruins the root biome. I consider it a last ditch effort to save a dying plant. Your problem may get there but you are not there yet. You cannot fix the damage that has been done and it may get worse before it gets better. What you want to do is stop the progression. I have damaged plants way worse than this and had a decent crop at the end.

Fertigate to 15% to 20% run-off with balanced nutrients at 50% strength (remember that is 50% of each product on the vendor chart) and make any PH corrections to your fertilizer before fertigating at 6.2.

If there is anything you don't understand about this just ask for clarification.

 

[errorcode_11]

@errorcode_11 Welcome to AFN Sorry you are having troubles. As @Proph stated coco is a totally different media than Tang grows in and many people who try to imitate him just don't pull it off.

You are getting the terminology mixed up PH does not change the "Balance" of the elements in a fertilizer. PH in the proper range allows the roots to intake the nutrient ions the plant needs. When the PH is wrong The elements cannot enter the roots.

Now lets talk about nutrient "Balance" There are 17 elements plus some trace elements a plant must have to grow. Water and Air provide Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon. The rest we provide in some manor to the plant. These other 14 elements we need provide have reactions with each other and those reactions are very complicated. Fortunately for us lots of scientists have worked out the basic information about what combination of these elements works to grow our C3 plants.This chart is not in EC it is in weight PPM/liter. It is designed to give you the balance range for the elements in relation to each other. In order for a fertilizer to be in balance ALL of the elements must be present in the ranges displayed.

If any one of these elements is out of bounds a "Lock-out" of it or another element will occur.

It can be a really big range for many of them. This allows for different formulas based on the plants maturity. Lets just look at the top 3 for example NPK 100,30,100 - 250,50,300 - 180,40,200 are all combinations that are in balance 300, 50,100 is out of balance and can cause lock-outs.

View attachment 1280462

In the example of 300, 50, 100 the Nitrogen in the fertilizer is too high and can lock out Potassium and Calcium even though they are in a proper range.

View attachment 1280464

I often encounter new growers adding Cal-Mag to a pot by itself. This is the definition of out of balance since all of the other elements are absent. In soil you might get away with this a little because soil will buffer what is going in (by the way in soil you should almost never need extra Calcium). In hydroponics this will cause the lockouts listed above.

So how to avoid lock-out = always feed balanced nutrients with all 13 elements in balance (sodium is generally not added as it is abundant already).

This is why you should choose a cannabis oriented nutrient line and use their entire line on their schedule. All of those different bottles of Secret Sauce have something in them you need. Don't Mix and Match other vendor products because it is very easy to get out of bounds on something. Nutrient vendors spend millions making products that work together. Take advantage of that. If you don't want to buy 13 products go to a different vendor and use their line.

Lets talk about the secret sauce. After you have provided the 17 essential elements the plant will grow and grow well but there are Bio-stimulants like kelp, Humic acid, B-vitamins and others that will enhance the plants ability to take in and use the essential elements. There are also Microbes and mycorrhizal fungi that will also ehnhance the availabilty of the elements for roots to absorb them. These beneficial microbes form a biome around the roots even in hydroponics. Roots can actually create there own microbes as the plant grows.

Now to your specific problem AN does a pretty god job of keeping the PH in range but it ain't perfect. AN is designed to be used with RO water and a PPM less than 10 is recommended by them. Your starting water PPM of 140 means you are starting with more calcium than AN is designed for. The AN coco product has extra calcium for the coco also and then you are adding more? This may be a factor in your problem but I think you may be fertigating coco wrong also. I looks as though you have too much of everything in the pot - salt build-up because you are not fertigating to 15% to 20% run-off every day or you are simply feeding too strong fertilizer. Alas you don't know because you do not have meters yet.

I discourage flushing because it ruins the root biome. I consider it a last ditch effort to save a dying plant. Your problem may get there but you are not there yet. You cannot fix the damage that has been done and it may get worse before it gets better. What you want to do is stop the progression. I have damaged plants way worse than this and had a decent crop at the end.

Fertigate to 15% to 20% run-off with balanced nutrients at 50% strength (remember that is 50% of each product on the vendor chart) and make any PH corrections to your fertilizer before fertigating at 6.2.

If there is anything you don't understand about this just ask for clarification.

cheers mate you have helped me bare!