I hope it works out grof. I guess you have a couple of options. One is to try some bottled water as an alternative to the local tap water. Another option is to try a complete flush of the plant pots. Probably the biggest cause of 'unsolvable' problems I have seen in hydro is people getting wrong readings from faulty pH and EC meters. I hope the metal halide lamp improves things a bit. Canna have told me in the past that the lower IR evaporation with LED does affect nutrient uptake (especially calcium and magnesium). I think we will see a LOT more of LED in the future so I hope the nutrient people start thinking about a nutrient designed for the LED growers.
Hey Tony! I have done exactly that. I've flushed it out as to compensate pH rise, and have quadrupled checked calibration, measured against Hanna meters and different buffers. The meters are spot on. Calibrating like an obsessive-cumpulsive freak nowadays...
I know I said I'd only report back in a week, but today I've seen significant healthy growth... I don't want to shout victory too soon, but for the life of me I will bring them back to full glory even if I have to feed them my own blood! :ama:
(sweat and tears seem to help little, but not enough)
Ok, I'll take a stab at it. Seems you've tried everything. I would guess it's definitely lockout from either a PH issue, or overfeeding. I've grown in coco, and coco is SOOOOO easy to grow in it's rediculous. Plants can take the BEAT in coco, like you wouldn't believe it if I told you. Canna was partly right when they said you needed some evaporation. Coco will raise the ph of your feeds over time, so having them sitting in there for a week is no good. You want to be able to keep a steady feed, water cycle in order to flush out old shit, bring ph back down, and exchange the low O2 air that's in the coco with fresh high O2 air. It's really hard to over water coco if it's allowed to drip and the pot is allowed to drain without sitting in it's drain water.
Other than that, your hard water could possibly be messing your shit up. Some people subtract the entire background EC, some half it, and some don't even subtract it. There is still shit in your water that can screw your plant up. Mostly calcium and magnesium among other things, but say that your background EC was entirely calcium, and magnesium. Using coco specific nutes that are loaded with those two minerals would be toxic to your plant locking out one thing or another, and then you are adding feed on top of a 0.35 EC background. I would try RO water. Unless you know exactly what minerals make up the background EC of your water you can't make any sort of an informed decision about how to factor in your background EC. A water test is cheap and will tell ya what is in your water, but that won't help you RIGHT now. Seedlings won't always show the classic symptoms of over feeding like burn ime and from what I've read here and on other forums. Sometimes the overfeeding will just lock out other nutrients causing what looks to be deficiencies.
I think you really need some good water to start with. Just because someone else has a background EC of 0.35 and it works great for them even though they use the same nutes and all that doesn't mean it will work for you. You just never know what's in your water.
I hope this helps you in some way man. I'm gutted for ya man.
Hey Tav! Thanks for your input.
I've only done one grow so far, had no f*cking clue what I was doing but got an very nice yield of aprox 50g per plant (600w HPS, Kilomix and Atami nutes). I used the same water without any pH adjustment. My base water is pH 8. Looking back, I seriously overfed the 7 plants, yet they came out like champs!
This is to say, I used the same water. Different substrate, and lots more permissible of course, but still yet very very high pH.
A quick search and I found my city's quarterly water report. F*ckers dont give out the base Ca and Mg and EC... f*ckers!! (today I feel like swearing a f*ck-load)
To whom it may concern, feel free to comment... but from my knowledge our water is pretty damn good for human consumption. A couple of years ago I remember the news boasting we had some of the best water for human consumption in the world. The quarterly report for 2012 stated 100% compliance to standards.
But f*ck them anyhow for not giving out the Ca and Mg levels. I will look into finding the test kits you mentioned Tav, thanks for the tip, I didn't know there were such cheap test kits. Yo rcon in an aquarium shop?
Anyway, using Airpots and a tray beneath, so the coco is definitely NOT sitting in the run-off water.
I translated the report, hope I got the chems right...
Any chemistry nerds out there?
