I do have a 4” exhaust fan that came with the tent and a 6” oscillating fan also. I also have a 3stage RO filter. The numbers I posted above were from it.
So when the Ph numbers are lower does that mean salt levels are higher? As I mentioned earlier this is my 3rd grow in 20+ years and back then I was mostly an outdoor grower. I dabbled with indoor grows for a couple of years but none of the technology or nutrients that are available were available then (or at least I didn’t know how to find them anyways) so my indoor grows weren’t successful at all so I’m trying to figure out how to get better at it.
The last 2 I grew I grew in 3Gal bags and I experienced the same general issues. Smokey told me then he thought they were overwatered also. I thought growing in a bigger bag would maybe be better but it’s not made a difference. I always try to water until I get a small amount of runoff and stop but maybe that’s too much. I read growlogs where people talk about watering autos daily. How do they get it to work?
Also would putting higher Ph water into the plant raise a lower Ph or should you just try for 6.2 or so and let it average out over time? It doesn’t seem to me like it works as I added water straight from the tap 7+Ph and the runoff didn’t change in Ph still tested at 5.25.
On the question about feeding I posted a photo above of the Fox Farms schedule and I am using exactly what it says except for the dry amendments. They say per gallon of soil and I think 7Tbs of any neut is way too much. They may be referring to outdoor grows but the schedule seems to me to be for an auto. But maybe they mean autos outdoors?
What type of Ph meter do you use to measure your soil?This is what I have and it’s one I bought off Amazon. Do I need something better than this? It seems to work. The Ph seems much better today after flushing with 5 Gal of water on Wednesday.
Also would putting higher Ph water into the plant raise a lower Ph or should you just try for 6.2 or so and let it average out over time?
Before you flip to flower make sure everything is dialed in. If you think pH in the soil is causing lockout it’s best to flush until runoff is at ideal pH then resume feeding next watering. You dont want to flush in flower if possible
On the question about feeding I posted a photo above of the Fox Farms schedule and I am using exactly what it says except for the dry amendments.
Im not too familiar with the Foxfarm nutrient line other than it tends to run hot. Im still feeling like your schedule is too hot for the plants, maybe a pH issue there too. Esp if you are feeding with every nutrient in that line
Yep I am using everything just like their little book calls for. If you look way up in my post there’s a photo of the pages I’ve been using. It’s a 12 week schedule so you would think (I did) that it designed for auto seeds. But it does seem like it’s too much and they call for twice a week feeding! Maybe if the conditions were perfect like a commercial grow or something that would work but for me I believe it’s too much.
Sadly she was budding when I had to flush but the alternative was going to be worse I believe. The soil tested good today. I haven’t done anything but foliar feed it since I flushed it. I’m waiting on it to dry out completely before I start watering or feeding again. As many of the leaves have the brown rusty spots I just hope they don’t wither up also. Hopefully new growth will improve.
I have two bags waiting for seeds and I checked the Ph in them today and it’s in the OK range. I had a few auto seeds either not germinate or die shortly after germing so I’ve started digging a hole in the center of the Happy Frog and putting about a cup of FF Light Warrior in it and planting the seeds directly. I’ve had 100% success since I did it like that. Those seeds cost too much to not get a plant out of them.
Also I want to THANK all of you that took time to answer. I’m just trying to get a grip on what I’m doing wrong so I don’t make the same mistakes again. I appreciate all the help and believe me I need it!
I have but I didn’t write it down and if I made a guess I’d probably be wrong. I will post it when I mix another batch. I’m thinking of only using 1/4 strength mix next time I feed because everything seemed to go better until I went to full strength feeding. She seemed to tolerate things well so I thought I’d be OK upping the amounts.
I read somewhere that when you flushed that you should continue until the water came out clear. Even after 5Gal of pure water the runoff still had a yellow color to it. There may still be an over abundance of neuts in the soil but the Ph was good today so shouldn’t the plant be able to use what’s in there if the Ph is good?
I also read that the salt level difference between your clear water and the runoff after feeding would tell you how much neuts were in the soil but there weren’t any numbers of what was too high or too low just that the higher the spread between the figures the more neuts were in the soil. Any idea what number would be too much? When I checked it the salt level in clean water was 317 or 0.03%. The runoff water I measured was way way up I believe 3000 +/- or somewhere around there? That’s why I thought I had too much neuts, along with the leaves showing signs. The plant has had rusty spots on the leaves for a month maybe, and again I read that was a “almost” sure sign of lockout, those differences made me think that was part of the problem.
If you read enough different stories online tho you find a lot of conflicting info. One place says it’s black another says it’s white, if you get my drift! It’s hard to figure out who is right and who is wrong until you mess up and hopefully realize why.
You basically have to reset it. It has some stored nutrients it can use for a small time while the soil is flushed. Then you go to proper routine to minimize damage. The damaged leaves can’t be repaired so just look at new growth
3000 ppm is more than double a safe range for peak flower, think we found the problem
Yeah stuff can be hard to diagnose online. Makes me appreciate communities like this one, trial and error are definitely part of the process of growing lol
After some thinking I reached out to the local store I get supplies from and they mentioned something I completely forgot about…
If your running autos and using happy frog you more than likely won’t need to add any nutrients at all because of what’s already in the medium and by adding them it could very well be WAY to much and could cause your problems.
Also your water will never come out clear because it’s going through your medium and collecting contaminated material which will change the color…I’m assuming it’s first use soil…I do a personal mix for my medium and it has close to if no nutrients at all in it.
Everybody’s water schedule will be different. You can get an idea but it comes down to what your plant/medium needs. I feed/water mine everyday but that’s the because of the mix I use , some people go a few days in-between watering
I did not read all of these but based off your issues this is why I ditched Fox Farms nutes, they are high in salts and if you don’t follow every step correctly this will happen. Too much like work for my stoner mind. To get good result you have to follow their system. While that is true any method, theirs has a lot of optional stuff which make if more complicated.
You are growing in a pot inside you shouldn’t need to Ph test your soil ever. You are right to focus on measuring the run off but mostly for TDS not Ph. I have not done either since changing systems.
From my personal experience with this it’s likely one or more or the following.
Your soil medium has too many salts from not enough flushing.
Your soil medium has too much stuff like bark hold salts. Making your own from coco and perlite well help, no bark or other stuff that might rot quickly.
FF liquids were made for hydro not soil that is why you have to do all the stupid human flushing to get it to work right. A cheat is to start with small pots and 50% back fill with fresh soil. My advice here is consider switching to hydro, dealing with it, or switch to something less involved.
If you can swing it a this stage, reset, re-pot into a fresh flower blend of soil, ride it out. You are in 3 gal pot move to 5 or 6 gallon back fill. Something like FF Strawberry Fields should have most of the nutes you need for few weeks. Even if a large pot is not an option, I doubt the root ball is that big given the issues here, so you can still likely give it a gentle shake and back fill with fresh soil.
Just not enough time on the clock to dick around trying what might work vs some thing likely to help you. It’s falling in line with what Papakat420 is telling you.
Good luck. Also this will get easier for you, we all start being tested by Mary Jane first.
When I put the Ph meter in the soil I’m still getting 4&5 readings in the very bottom so the nutes are still high I believe. I’ve only been watering since I did the flush a week and a half ago… It’s already in a 7Gal bag and I don’t have anything larger.
I’ve seen so much about “not disturbing an auto” so I don’t really want to stress it anymore than I already have.
It’s 8 weeks in and flowering now so I’m gonna ride this one out and unless I see signs of deficiency I’m going to just keep watering and hope it makes something. It has decent sized buds although I have no idea how potent or smokeable they will end up being.
Given the time left that makes sense, to let it ride.
If you stick with FF stuff find someone who uses it with no issues and duplicate everything they do. The guy who runs the Grow Tent YouTube channel uses FF in soil or use too. That was one of the sources I used. Never perfected it myself by my 3rd soil grow I moved to a different system.
