Need advice on PH and PPM, pics

[GodtyrLoki]

hey guys, so at the moment I'm running about 650-750 ppm and about 6.4 PH for a coco grow using GH nutes at the 6/9 ratio with some cal mag and epsom salts ... now I know 6.4 is high because I think coco is meant to be from 5.5 to 6 PH ... yesterday I ph'ed the runoff and it was a perfect 5.8PH ...

Now should I still back off the PH of my initial solution to around the 5.8PH mark (with some PH down) and risk the coco reducing the PH even more than that? or should I stick to what I'm doing since the runoff is perfect PH

Also are my PPM's too high at 650-750? (meaning I should back off the nutes) here are some pictures of the ladies so far at the current PPM and PH I mentioned above

 

[gr865]

Please take pics with LED's off.

 

[GodtyrLoki]

Please take pics with LED's off.

These are pictures from the day before the ones above just before i repotted them into the bigger containers

 

[CS21]

Hey Loki from what I understand it's more important that you are feeding at 5.8ph. Runoff should not matter in coco.
As for the ppm it's really hard to say without more info.
Are you using tap water or RO?
I mean ppm seem a little high but they look healthy still. How old are they?

 

[GodtyrLoki]

Hey Loki from what I understand it's more important that you are feeding at 5.8ph. Runoff should not matter in coco.
As for the ppm it's really hard to say without more info.
Are you using tap water or RO?
I mean ppm seem a little high but they look healthy still. How old are they?

these guys are 15 days old .. I am using tap water ... at the moment I'm using 0.4 GH micro per litre (1.5ml per gallon), and 0.6 GH bloom per litre (2.2ml per gallon) and 0.5 cal mag per liter (1.9ml per gallon) and a quarter of a teaspoon of epsom per litre (tea spoon per gallon) ... I am basically doing the 6/9 method scaled down by a quarter atm because they are young.

 

[CS21]

Ok still not enough info exactly but let's see if we can figure this out.
What is the ppm of the tap water to start??
Then what are you adding for calmag?
Then as far as the 6/9 ratio I am unsure of this exactly but I would just go with 1/2 strength of the recommended dosage for 2nd week. Less is more.
Easier to add nutes than to take them away!!

 

[GodtyrLoki]

At the moment the plants look picture perfect but after everything I've read, my ppm's and ph seem like they are on the high side

 

[GodtyrLoki]

I just checked and my tap water PPM is 270 .. I add the product cal-mag and Epsom salts for the calcium and magnesium

 

[GodtyrLoki]

the 6/9 method is the lucas formula .. it's basically 6ml of GH micro and 9 ml of GH bloom per gallon ... with some epsom and cal mag in there for the calcium and magnesium at the moment I am running this method at a quarter strength

Lucas Formula

 

[CS21]

Ok so after you add your calmag yo the tap water what is your ppm?
What I am looking for is how much actual base nute ppm are you using?
I'm guessing around 200?
If that's the case then you should be fine.

 

[gr865]

Less is More
I believe your pH is out of range and your ppm is too high for that young of a plant.
IMHO, base nutes in veg, 200 to 250 ppm, in flower 300 to 350 ppm.
Your plant don't look bad at all.
I ran H3Ad's formula for coco, started at 6/9 ended up at 2/3 multi feeds daily.

Again, what has worked for me.

 

[GodtyrLoki]

Less is More
I believe your pH is out of range and your ppm is too high for that young of a plant.
IMHO, base nutes in veg, 200 to 250 ppm, in flower 300 to 350 ppm.
Your plant don't look bad at all.
I ran H3Ad's formula for coco, started at 6/9 ended up at 2/3 multi feeds daily.

Again, what has worked for me.

as in the 6/9 was too hot? because this is what I'm experiencing .. seems to much nitrogen for my girls ... someone did suggest I knock it down to 3/6, but to keep the 6/9 ratio I might go 3.6/5.4 which is a 1/3 H3ead formula ... even the 50% H3ead was too hot for my girls.

 

[GodtyrLoki]

I'm actually starting to put 3ml micro and 6 mL bloom into 6 Litres of water with my tap water ppm of 250 ... high ppm tap water is annoying (but getting RO water in my town is almost impossible in rural Australia) and I'm not ready to drop 500 bucks on an RO machine just yet. So if I do this I get a ppm of around 600-650 .. if I wanna drop in some cal-mag too I put in like 1.5ml into 6litres which puts my ppm's at around 720 ... I think this will leave magnesium a bit low so I foliar spray magnesium (a quarter of a teaspoon of Epsom salts for 1 liter of water in a spray bottle) every second watering .. the girls seems to be perking up and losing some of that super dark green leaves so I think I'm on the right track and getting it dialed in.

once I know this is perfect I will feed twice a day .. i tried to leave my water in a bucket in the sun to see if it lowers my ppm but i tested it after like 5-6 hours and it was exactly the same

 

[GodtyrLoki]

Less is More
I believe your pH is out of range and your ppm is too high for that young of a plant.
IMHO, base nutes in veg, 200 to 250 ppm, in flower 300 to 350 ppm.
Your plant don't look bad at all.
I ran H3Ad's formula for coco, started at 6/9 ended up at 2/3 multi feeds daily.

Again, what has worked for me.

yeah I have no idea how those guys were running 6/9 my plants would be dead or severely burnt the next day with a dose like that I reckon haha

I have been using this chart below from a fluence bioengineering paper I was reading when I was researching how to grow to guide my PPM's, do you think this is too high PPM wise?

 

[farside05]

I am not concerned about PPM. It's not really so much about PPM as it is the amount of Nitrogen in the mix. Nitrogen is what will fry your plant faster than anything. Example...You have RO water with 0 PPM. Feed the plant 300 PPM of straight Nitrogen. Result...fried plant! With that same water, feed 700 PPM, and of that 700, 125 of it is Nitrogen. Result, plant is fine (at least as far as burning goes). Concussion...it's not the total PPM, it's what the PPM is comprised of (to a point, get crazy and feed 1800 PPM of anything and you'll have an issue). Right now you're really not feeding that much Nitrogen in your feed. You're at 25 PPM Nitrogen with your 1.5ml of Micro, 2.2ml Bloom, and 1.9ml of Cal Mag per gallon. At 2 weeks old I'm targeting 60 PPM of N. I'm not really sure why you are feeding the Epsom Salts. Calcium and Magnesium play off each other and should be in a ratio of approximately 3 Calcium to 1 Magnesium. By adding extra Magnesium, you're throwing that balance off and can possibly create problems down the road. Drop the Epsom Salts and just use your Cal Mag that has both in the correct ratios. Also not sure where the Gro is. Isn't this a 3 part nute system?

 

[farside05]

OK, so I checked your Lucas link, searched the net for some GH labels to see what's in each part, ran some numbers through my calculator, etc. Here's what I come up with...

At week 2, where you are now. Shoot for 60 ppm from Nitrogen. Each week you'll up the ppm from Nitrogen by 30. So week 3 is 90, week 4 is 120, week 5 is 150. Your plants may get a touch of tip burn at 150. If they do, drop back to the 120 level. Maintain that 120-150 level for the rest of the grow. Using your 3 products, Micro, Bloom, and Cal Mag, blend like this...

M-B-CaMg
4-2-2 = 58 ppm from-close enough to 60
6-4-4 = 90
8-6-5 = 120
10-6-5 = 145-close enough to 150

Edit: all those numbers are ml per gallon or 4 liters.

Don't worry about what the final ppm is with your water. At least that's my take on it all. Use the info as you wish.

 

[GodtyrLoki]

OK, so I checked your Lucas link, searched the net for some GH labels to see what's in each part, ran some numbers through my calculator, etc. Here's what I come up with...

At week 2, where you are now. Shoot for 60 ppm from Nitrogen. Each week you'll up the ppm from Nitrogen by 30. So week 3 is 90, week 4 is 120, week 5 is 150. Your plants may get a touch of tip burn at 150. If they do, drop back to the 120 level. Maintain that 120-150 level for the rest of the grow. Using your 3 products, Micro, Bloom, and Cal Mag, blend like this...

M-B-CaMg
4-2-2 = 58 ppm from-close enough to 60
6-4-4 = 90
8-6-5 = 120
10-6-5 = 145-close enough to 150

Edit: all those numbers are ml per gallon or 4 liters.

Don't worry about what the final ppm is with your water. At least that's my take on it all. Use the info as you wish.

Thanks for the tips, I will take your advice on board man ... if you want, you can check out my grow journal in my signature, I updated it today with what has been happening with me learning to feed a plant ... any advice is always welcome