Help save the babies!

[George Parker]

Hey guys, I'm trying to determine what is exactly wrong with my girls. I have had just about everything go in the wrong direction since day one, pH was off, res temps, you name it. I have since got everything back to stable but the plants themselves.

I have received some great advice in my grow journal and just want to be sure what the problem is before I try and fix it.

What deficiency causes the lumpy leaves? Zinc, Manganese, Magnesium???

Also the roots just seemed to stop growing and became soft (Pythium?) but no color changes, still white. Yesterday I drained the water, added fresh water, a small dose of GH 3 part nutes (300 PPM) and 10 ml of 29% H2O2 to the mix (7 gal. of water) which is about half of what the bottle says (3 ml per gal.) pH is 5.8 in the res. I mixed up a foliar feed batch at 1/4 strength and misted the top and bottoms of the leaves.

This morning the roots on two of the girls actually grew over 1-2", but only about two roots per plant. The plants are drooping a bit but three or four leaves have flattened out on one of the plants.

I would have tackled this sooner but I had a death in the Family and just didn't have the time. Please let me know what you think, I'm frustrated to the point of paralysis and want to save my girls.

Thank you in advance for your time!

 

[George Parker]

If this is a Zinc problem, what products can I use? All I can find is chelated Zinc in a pill for humans.

 

[PrairiePoet]

First off, I have no ideal.... <s>

But looking through the Plant And Pest Solving post, I'm not sure it is Zinc. Looks more like magnesium to me. The reason I say that is in the Zinc image it looks like all of the dark green is gone at the same line, where as with the mag image, it looks like the vein stays darker towards the tip.

But I'm no expert.

Prairie

 

[George Parker]

Thanks Prairie. I've stumped two hydro shops too; one said he would get back to me and another said the girls were hungry and to add cal/mag to the nutes and up the total PPMs. The best they looked was after adjusting the pH to 5.5 and letting it rise. The pH is 5.9 right now and they don't look too happy. I guess starting them at 5.5 and letting them rise would allow them to pick up what they need as the pH rises. Foliar feeding is helping. I guess I'll see in a day or so. The grower I got them from is gone for a few days but said he would help out when he gets back.

Thanks for your imput.

 

[shadow123]

I take it that you are in hydro. What kind of water treatment are you using for the water? R/O, city water, or well water?

It looks like city water to me, even if it was run through R/O, it wont take the chloramines out of the water. Chloramine in the water treatment process, creates bi-products that are "vegatative inhibitors" which means anything that tries to "grow" in the water it will kill. Yep, even roots. Even if you have had sucessful grows before with the same water, more and more municipalities are turning to chloramines to treat water that comes out of the tap. It is cheaper, lasts longer, more stable, and less odor than chlorine.

Hopefully this is not the case, but from the looks of it probably so. No matter what you do with PH, nutes, H202 it will not help. A carbon filter would be the key, but it MUST be a good one. The $5 or $10 filter from wal mart will not do it.

Let me guess, PH was all over the place, and so were ppm's? You finally got that stabilized.....but only for a day or two. Then right back at it being all over the place. I lost two large grows with city water, couldn't figure it out until I changed the water I was using.

Just my .02

Good luck

 

[George Parker]

I take it that you are in hydro. What kind of water treatment are you using for the water? R/O, city water, or well water?

It looks like city water to me, even if it was run through R/O, it wont take the chloramines out of the water. Chloramine in the water treatment process, creates bi-products that are "vegatative inhibitors" which means anything that tries to "grow" in the water it will kill. Yep, even roots. Even if you have had sucessful grows before with the same water, more and more municipalities are turning to chloramines to treat water that comes out of the tap. It is cheaper, lasts longer, more stable, and less odor than chlorine.

Hopefully this is not the case, but from the looks of it probably so. No matter what you do with PH, nutes, H202 it will not help. A carbon filter would be the key, but it MUST be a good one. The $5 or $10 filter from wal mart will not do it.

Let me guess, PH was all over the place, and so were ppm's? You finally got that stabilized.....but only for a day or two. Then right back at it being all over the place. I lost two large grows with city water, couldn't figure it out until I changed the water I was using.

Just my .02

Good luck

Thanks for those .02!

It's city water through a Dupont WF-IR100 in-line filter. The tap water comes out at ~ 220-260 ppm's depending on time of day. Filter brings that down to 130-150 ppm's. Holy crap, I just realized that in my journal I listed the tap water at those filtered ppm's... Faaawk. Filter has no affect on pH though.

Home Water Filters | DuPont Water Filtration | DuPont USA

The water data I received for my area does not show Chloramine, but does show these:

DISINFECTANTS & DISINFECTION BYPRODUCTS

TOTAL CHLORINE (ppm) 1.22
TRIHALOMETHANES (ppb) 33.9
HALOACETIC ACIDS (ppb) 12.6

I wouldn't count the water out of this equation as keeping my lawn green is almost a full time job in itself. I have to fertilize 2-3 times a month through spring, summer and fall. During winter I don't even water it as temps get into the teens every night and the grass isn't growing anyway. But, before I started this grow our house plants were getting non-filtered tap water and they are fine. Those plants are in soil though...

Before I got the res temps stable, pH was jumping everywhere. Now, no matter what the pH is when I set it, it will climb 0.4 in 24 hrs.

Well... back to

 

[shadow123]

TRIHALOMETHANES......the direct bi-product of chloramines. they remove the chloramines from the water, yet the bi-products are still there. It is killing your plants. Hence the PH jump up and down. PH swing in that amount will certainly cause lockout. The plants will look sick, and droop hard. Unfortunately they will mostly be lost.

Look up and do research on chloramine water treatment, your eyes will widen greatly with this knowlege. No book will tell you any of this, nor will a grow store. They will tell you that you have a pathegen, and you need to kill it. This is not the case. It is your water from the source.

Again this is just my .02

 

[shadow123]

Sorry, should be a charcoal filter, not carbon.