New Grower My First Grow. Finally. Feedback appreciated!

[indicalla]

The light has been up a few inches since this morning. Tonight they’ll get some dark. I think the leaves are showing other signs of stress too now:

I don’t think the problem is heat or humidity, as she’s steady around 79 degrees and 65% humidity.

I’m also wondering if I’m just having problems with my soil. @Mañ'O'Green warned that my mix is too hot. I know some strains will be fine in it, but perhaps this Purple Punch isn’t one of them. My money is still on light stress, but we’ll see. Maybe it’s both.

I got my TDS meter. My tap water is 8.1 PH with a TDS PPM of 125. Not bad for tap, I think.

The local spring water I’m testing had a PH of 6.8 yesterday evening, and it tested at 6.7 after a night in the bottle. The TDS PPM is 28.

Seems to me like this spring water may be a great option for me, maybe even with no PHing at all. Not totally devoid of minerals, like distilled, but also not so much that’ll it’ll compound potential problems from my hot soil.

 

[Bill.de.Cat]

The light has been up a few inches since this morning. Tonight they’ll get some dark. I think the leaves are showing other signs of stress too now:

View attachment 1309729
View attachment 1309730

I don’t think the problem is heat or humidity, as she’s steady around 79 degrees and 65% humidity.

I’m also wondering if I’m just having problems with my soil. @Mañ'O'Green warned that my mix is too hot. I know some strains will be fine in it, but perhaps this Purple Punch isn’t one of them. My money is still on light stress, but we’ll see. Maybe it’s both.

I got my TDS meter. My tap water is 8.1 PH with a TDS PPM of 125. Not bad for tap, I think.

The local spring water I’m testing had a PH of 6.8 yesterday evening, and it tested at 6.7 after a night in the bottle. The TDS PPM is 28.

Seems to me like this spring water may be a great option for me, maybe even with no PHing at all. Not totally devoid of minerals, like distilled, but also not so much that’ll it’ll compound potential problems from my hot soil.

Thing is to test it after the nute mix, might end up perfect.

 

[indicalla]

Thing is to test it after the nute mix, might end up perfect.

Right, but I will have no nute mix for at least another week or two, and for three or four more weeks for my babies. Just water, some Fishsh!t, and some PH down if necessary. Gonna try it with my big girl for her next watering and see how she likes it! I'll probably create some new problem.

 

[indicalla]

"A little dab'll do ya!" Just sprinkle enough on the top of you water to make some suds on top when ya wisk it in. I whip it up with a bamboo stick. It doesn't take much at all.
BAS has an extraction of the effective material(saponin )....it's always sold out. I use a water soluble powdered yucca by Raw off of Amazon. Get the smallest one. It will last several grows.
You could ferment alfalfa with EM1 and add in to your water as another source of saponin, just not every watering like you can with the yucca. I'm gonna experiment with a foliar fermented alfalfa with EM1 spray on future grows.

I ordered some Raw Yucca today. Thanks for the heads up. Does it affect your PH in a meaningful way?

 

[indicalla]

I watered my big girl this evening, and her 3-gallon pot took about a half gallon of spring water. It PHed at 6.8, and I added 3 mg of Fishsh!t, which didn't affect the PH. I did not PH it down further. The PPM before the additive was 038.

She's definitely not right. Her leaves are tacoing a bit, they're a bit splotchy, and they feel papery. Now they're bending down toward the soil a bit, but I think that's because I just watered. I watered to runoff, as I wanted to test it. I ditched the first runoff and came back about ten minutes later and was able to get enough to test. The numbers:

PH: 5.6
PPM: 1574

Well shit. Am I just fighting bad soil?

I've raised the lights, as I do think they were too strong, but what's up with these crappy numbers from my runoff?

I know it's probably user error. Maybe the numbers don't mean what I think they do. Not really sure what I should do to help her at this point though. Hopefully she looks happier tomorrow.

 

[DDubs]

Ya, that runoff is pretty low. I wouldnt expect more than a .1 or .2 drop between water in and runoff. Is there anything you can top dress with that can bring the ph up?

 

[indicalla]

Ya, that runoff is pretty low. I wouldnt expect more than a .1 or .2 drop between water in and runoff. Is there anything you can top dress with that can bring the ph up?

Thanks, I’ll read up on it. @Mañ'O'Green suggested I ignore runoff and just PH her water to 6.4. I just can’t seem to get her balanced and happy for more than a day or two though.

She’s growing a lot even with problematic leaves though. I figure LST is in my near future.

 

[Zer0]

Thanks, I’ll read up on it. @Mañ'O'Green suggested I ignore runoff and just PH her water to 6.4. I just can’t seem to get her balanced and happy for more than a day or two though.

She’s growing a lot even with problematic leaves though. I figure LST is in my near future.

I think she will grow out of her stress as she gets bigger (she looks good to me) and you can start lst now if you want to.

 

[derek420colorado]

Thanks, I’ll read up on it. @Mañ'O'Green suggested I ignore runoff and just PH her water to 6.4. I just can’t seem to get her balanced and happy for more than a day or two though.

She’s growing a lot even with problematic leaves though. I figure LST is in my near future.

Ok here’s where I am gonna step in and calm you down a tad.

she looks good, as @DDubs said I think she will grow out of these “issues”

We can def love them too much. As I’ve said before you have all the intellectual curiosity in the world and their is literally an internet’s worth of info out here and it can be a lot.

Just ask @WildBill how much time I spend in my grow. It’s a lot lol, but I have had to learn patience to the max.

I think you may be getting a little too detailed. Also we are our own worst critics! The greatest in sports always said they hated losing more than they liked winning. It comes from a place of not wanting to disappoint ourselves, trust me I get it.

you are doing great, if you want to see what screwing up looks like go read my first LAG journal lmao. I killed something like 130 plants before getting a harvest. So with that being said. You are doin awesome and your baby is lookin happy and healthy.

One more thing, DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER GROWERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is only one way to become great at doin this, and that is by doing it lol. Every single grow you will learn something and do it better the next time.

Again I will end by sayin, your baby looks great and you are doin a great job. Ease up a tad and let her do her thing. You are well within the range of a healthy plant.

I am pretty high sorry for the rant lol

 

[derek420colorado]

Also with all that said it looks like you have a slight pH issue and you are working on that. You are headed in the right direction for sure