MiniDro grow but droppy leaves

[Scott817]

Hola amigos
Well I made up the MiniDro setup for the party cup challenge but I am running into an issue. My leaves are all kinda droopy and I am not sure how to fix it. Since I am new to Hydro I am kinda lost on this one.

My ph is running at 5.5-5.6 and I am using 4ml AdvancedNutrients 2 part Grow nutes and am in just starting into week 4. The plant is really bushy but the leaves all seem to hang low and not really up or at the lights light I am used too.

I just moved them from my phototron where they were about 6 inches from the light to my grow box where the lights are around 16 inches higher now to see if that helps.

I am curious if its the slow constant flow and if I should add a timer to run the pump off and on. If this is the case what should the intervals be?

Any help is appreciated.

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[realcarlos]

Could it be over watering? I know you have the water running 24/7
Why not use a digital timer. With the timer you could do a run see how long it takes for water to dribble out of the hole and from there you'll get an idea of how long you should water it per day

 

[Scott817]

Hola amigo
Well I just setup a timer to run 30 min and then be off for 1 hour in a constant loop like that. We will have to see how that does. my timer only does it in 30 minute increments so I may need a better timer.

 

[realcarlos]

Isn't that too much watering though?
Why not run it once a day?
Count how long it takes to dribble a bit then run the timer for that long. Every day/other day or what not.

 

[Scott817]

being the can is so small and only has perlite I would be concerned the roots might dry out going that long. I want to make sure the plant gets a contious supply of nutes and wonder if leaving it that long would leave the plant hungry so to speak?

I will watch them a few days and then switch it to like 30 on and 120 off and kinda continue like that until I find a good number for this setup.

I will probably have to add a air stone to it at some point to help balance the ph and keep the o2 level in the water up since the water wont be circualting all the time.

 

[Northern Grower]

If you don't have an air stone in there, you might want one.

That's about all i can think of. I am not a hydro guy so I am just going from what i've seen with others.

It looks happy otherwise..

 

[Scott817]

I just added a airstone tonight so we will see how they look tomorrow.

 

[Scott817]

ok my plant is not feeling well. I started to notice a slight discoloration for the last few days and today its pretty obvious I have some issue. I have been running AN 2 part grow nutes at around 3ml per gallon at ph 5.6 as at 4 it seemed to burn the tips some a week or so back. Today I tried to bump it over to AN 2 parrt flowering nutes at 2ml per gallon running ph 5.9 thinking it was some kind of p or k issue but I am not sure. Also the can is getting pretty packed so I am not sure what I should do about that. Is there some nute or treatemnt to help out with this issue?

Any info is greatly appreciated.

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[JM]

are you in soil?

 

[Trifid]

Appears to be a macro-deficiency/toxicity - If you are running a deep water culture system i'd avoid adjusting the pH of your water on a daily basis - when using ionic blends such as AN with DWC, it is recommended that you make pH adjustments to the irrigation source only every 48-60 hours - since you're in an aquatic environment, adjusting the pH too frequently in DWC can lead to prolonged periods of reduced nutrient availability which can cause the salt precipitate or 'CF' to fluctuate at the rootzone. To emphasize this, as plants uptake water they do not necessarily uptake nutrients at the same rate and as a result the plants might be drinking lots of water but not consuming much of the macro-nutrient content. The consequence is that in a matter of hours, as the water selectively depleted, the concentration of the nutrients in the bucket approaches toxic levels. This has the effect of magnifying the macro-nutrient concentration at the root-zone well above your plant's nutritional requirements.

If you have to topp the reservoir, do your adjustment to 5.6 but be sure to change it once weekly with an application of cal/mag @100ppm - this would be enough to keep the pH and macro-availability in check during your 48-60hr period. I'd also recommend having something to circulate your water if you don't have this going already. Circulating by top-down (descending system) is more effective at maintaining a uniform pH throughout the system.

In DWC your reservoir temperature should ideally be between 66-68F - if your temps are too high adjust it by suspending a sealed bottle of ice-water with added sodium chloride in the reservoir.. This should bring your temps down by a few degrees for 24-48 hrs depending on the scale of your system. Hope you get to the bottom of it Scott..