PB's Persistent Pot Condo: Established 2019

Pbass said:
I guess with all this activity I've remembered that I might have some issues here:



Calcium def? Root rot? Maybe that Cruella Deville branch was trying to tell me something? I noticed a little root popping out of the side of my felt pot, is that ok? I'm using 1tsp cal/mag (Black Magic) per gal, along with recommended FF Big Bloom, Grow Big and Wholly Mackerel, diluted to 75% on the big gal, 50% on the others. Watering when they are light weight and dry on top and bottom (although the felt pot never gets wet on the bottom). Felt pot is up to 4 cups at 42 days old, 3 cups for the 28 day olds that are healthier and drinking more, 2.5 cup for my runt, she seems to take water way less often. Any thoughts?

Edit: This rust/browning is only showing up on a few of my big old fan leaves. All other growth looks excellent.
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What do you mean when you say “felt pot is up to 4 cups at 42 days old? 4 cups of water?

If you say the bottom of your pots never get wet, that sounds concerning to me. When you water you should have some run off out the bottom of the pot. It assures you that your roots are being fed properly, and drawing oxygen from the top of the soil to the bottom roots.

How big of a pot do you have them in?

Wow you have a root that broke through the felt? First thought, is that it is a concern... but in all reality one root may not be as big of issue when thinking about the entire root system. Maybe try, carefully, moving it back in... might have to make the hole a bit bigger.. I don’t know exactly how to handle that problem. Never had it happen to me.

Those browning leaves... with time I’m sure you will prune your girls, and they will be the first to go I assume. You say the new growth is coming in nicely, that’s a good sign. My first thought at those pictures is a calcium deficiency like you say, but the new growth would have the same problems no? When you feed your girls, do you check the ph of your water? It’s a simple task that I’m sure everybody knows to do so, just trying to narrow it down. If so, have you checked the ph of the run off of the water? Or the soil it’s self?

I would say with your next feeding, hold off on the nutes. Giving them a bit of a flush. Checking the ph of the run off. When they dry out give them a weaker strength solution of nutes. Then gradually get stronger.

If your under feeding your plants, that can lead to issue as as well. Will go into further detail with that if you are interested.
 
Backlipslide said:
What do you mean when you say “felt pot is up to 4 cups at 42 days old? 4 cups of water?
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Yes, 4 cups of water or water/nute. I'm nuting every other, I'd say I water or nute/water 2 - 3 times a week, nutes diluted at 75% on felt pot, 50% on bluejean pots. Not on any schedule, only when they are light or the pot is dry (will explain further below). The felt pot just never gets wet on the bottom, but she dries out nice and grows just fine. I have a magic soil wand, I haven't been using it lately, but it's definitely has shown the pots getting wet then dry on the bottom. I know those tools aren't very well thought of, but I've done some comparison testing for soil moisture anyway and it seems accurate enough. Same with the PH, I know the better ones are pretty cheap but I just don't have the scratch for some of the auxiliary implements atm. I know my water is right about 7 even from a pool tester I did get my hands on and the soil ph meter (again I know not super great indicator) reads right on the 7. I have been putting 4 tablespoons of vinegar in with each gallon I mix with nutes or feed straight. Due to no good PH meter I can't test runoff, as the color throws off the pool tester guage.

The reason I haven't been concerned about no runoff on the felt pot is when the plants were smaller I fed them equal amounts of water or nute mix. The bluejean pots soak right through to the bottom, I might get a bit of runoff but the big indicator is the bottom of those pot will become saturated, I can feel wet denim with my hand. As time passes I then can judge how well its drying at the bottom of the pot as easily as the top, just by feeling it. That and weight is how I judge. I've assumed that the reason I don't get runoff on the felt pot is because it's about 3 inches deeper. I have been happy with the magic soil wand's readings along with the speed the other bottoms dry and of course the pot weight wet and dry.

Backlipslide said:
How big of a pot do you have them in?
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Well I had no idea I'd need a big pot thinking my plants were going to be trained to be small, so I modified a 5gal felt to about 3.5 gal for living space consideration, I'd say the bluejean pots are 2.5gal. Could I be root bound? The little root that popped out of the felt pot looked white and fat and happy.

You guys I'm about as book dumb as a rock and I hate spreadsheets. Pretty much everything I do is by feel. As you can see by my new grow room, it doesn't always work out pretty, but it tends to muscle through. That's what I'm hoping happens here! Tomorrow I'm going to cut a door in my felt pot and take a look, I'll show you what I see before I sew it back up. Hopefully nothing to worry about!
 
Pbass said:
Yes, 4 cups of water or water/nute. I'm nuting every other, I'd say I water or nute/water 2 - 3 times a week, nutes diluted at 75% on felt pot, 50% on bluejean pots. Not on any schedule, only when they are light or the pot is dry (will explain further below). The felt pot just never gets wet on the bottom, but she out nice and grows just fine. I have a magic soil wand, I haven't been using it lately, but it's definitely has shown the pots getting wet then dry on the bottom. I know those tools aren't very well thought of, but I've done some comparison testing for soil moisture anyway and it seems accurate enough. Same with the PH, I know the better ones are pretty cheap but I just don't have the scratch for some of the auxiliary implements atm. I know my water is right about 7 even from a pool tester I did get my hands on and the soil ph meter (again I know not super great indicator) reads right on the 7. I have been putting 4 tablespoons of vinegar in with each gallon I mix with nutes or feed straight. Due to no good PH meter I can't test runoff, as the color throws off the pool tester guage.

The reason I haven't been concerned about no runoff on the felt pot is when the plants were smaller I fed them equal amounts of water or nute mix. The bluejean pots soak right through to the bottom, I might get a bit of runoff but the big indicator is the bottom of those pot will become saturated, I can feel wet denim with my hand. As time passes I then can judge how well its drying at the bottom of the pot as easily as the top, just by feeling it. That and weight is how I judge. I've assumed that the reason I don't get runoff on the felt pot is because it's about 3 inches deeper. I have been happy with the magic soil wand's readings along with the speed the other bottoms dry and of course the pot weight wet and dry.



Well I had no idea I'd need a big pot thinking my plants were going to be trained to be small, so I modified a 5gal felt to about 3.5 gal for living space consideration, I'd say the bluejean pots are 2.5gal. Could I be root bound? The little root that popped out of the felt pot looked white and fat and happy.

You guys I'm about as book dumb as a rock and I hate spreadsheets. Pretty much everything I do is by feel. As you can see by my new grow room, it doesn't always work out pretty, but it tends to muscle through. That's what I'm hoping happens here! Tomorrow I'm going to cut a door in my felt pot and take a look, I'll show you what I see before I sew it back up. Hopefully nothing to worry about!
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7 seems a bit high. Optimal ranges should be around the 6.0 to 6.5 range in soil, and 5.5 to 6.3 range for hydro and coco coir.

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First step to a calcium deficiency, is to flush. I’m kinda thinking it’s going through a bit of a lockout. If the ph has been high for some time, that definitely wouldn’t help. Also the mixture of under watering can cause a lock out as well.

The way it was explained to me was, think about it this way.

Plants love BLT, Bacon Lettuce and Tomato. When you feed a plant a dose of “BLT” but not allow the water to get to all of the roots. Then the plant is having a lot of bacon a little bit of lettuce, and little to no tomato. It doesn’t reach all of the roots so the L and the T sit idle in the soil. Then the top of the soil seems dry, so you give them a full dose of BLT again. Pushing the old L and T down, giving them a full Bacon and some more Lettuce and more Tomato. (I might not have explained that as well as it was explained to me, but all I can do is try lol)
 
With the nutrients I use, I also feed with nutes every time I water. When watering my 5 gallon cloth pots. I always watered them 1 3/4 gallons. Which works out to 7 cups of water. It gave me some run off, and my plants loved that regime. 1 1/2 gallons seemed to be not enough, and two gallons almost seemed to be too much.. although I’m sure two gallons would be better, but I had my girls tied up to keep the top branches lower. So it wasn’t very easy to get them in and out. So 1 3/4 gallon was perfect so I didn’t have to lift the plant out to drain the run off out of my lil water catcher I had. (Dollar store tin foil oven pan) it worked out perfect. :ganjamon:
 
Thanks @Backlipslide that's great info, and a reminder to what I read before and maybe wasn't understanding. I like the idea of a big flush, I want to switch to 12/12 as you know so maybe it's appropriate anyway eh? Runoff is discarded?
 
Concerning PH, without the proper tools I am gimped I know. With what data I do have, I know I can get the ph of my water down, but I'm having a hard time bringing the soil PH down. I can't test the soil or the mixed water properly, is there a application that I could apply that is known to have some lowering affect?
 
Hmm yes, but not much. I use a turkey baster because I found it easy to water in close circle around a small plant in a big pot in the beginning. I've since gotten all the way to the perimeter of the pots but continue to use the baster because they were squat to begin with and I trained them so damn low to get everything watered evenly I have to!
 
Okay, so I just realized something. I was mixing up some water for my seedlings. 4 cups is 32 oz. one gallon of water is 128 oz. so your feeding your ladies with 1/4 of a gallon. I suggest doing a good flush with at least the same amount of water as gallons of soil your using, of clean fresh right ph’d water and or RO water. Discard the run off water.

Once she is dry. (Give it three, four maybe five days using your own judgement) then introduce a 50% dose of , maybe start off with 3/4 of a gallon of water and wait for run off. If you don’t see run off then add the 1/4 remaining gallon. You always want to make sure you water the entire surface area of the plant, making sure all of the roots are being fed.

I apologize if you already told me to what size of pots you are using, but what size are they again?

Also, what nutrients do you use again?

The nutrients I use is a three part system, and gives me directions to the amounting tsp of each to use per gallon of water. All the way from early seedlings, to late flower stage.
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Super easy, and I like that!! :thumb:
 
I also thought about the possibility of having water droplets on his leaves. But at a close look you can tell that it’s water droplets harming the leaves. What his plants are showing is a deficiency is calcium (I’m almost certain) because it’s roots are locking out nutrients because of the lack of water going through those roots. :surf::headbanger:
 
Good morning! Flower day 1 today, I am so excited!

@Backlipslide I modified a 5gal felt to about 3.5 gal for living space consideration, I'd say the bluejean pots are 2.5gal. Im using FF Trio, so far just grow big and big bloom mixed at recommended amounts and cut to 75% for the big girl and 50% for her sisters. I wonder if I'm just looking at some burn. I actually don't own the FF Tiger Bloom yet but they sell it at the grocery here and I I'll do that big flush first on the next feeding.

I was able to quickly dail in lights off temp, it gets a bit cool in my basement and I have it steady at a balmy 70%. It's a bit warm (80 degrees, 55% RH) and a bit stuffy in my new room with lights on, gonna have to figure out that vent sooner or later. What do you do about light coming in through the vent? This room is in a room that the light stays on periodically during the day. It's a storage room that's connected to the rest of the lights in the basement and two of my sons live down there so it's on for a while regularly. I'm thinking of replacing the bulb with a green one!

Regardless of my various little issues, they look really happy this am and all new growth still looks great (knocks on wood).

That wood knocking is a integral step you know. Cheers! Have a great day today!

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Looking good mate, I agree with @Backlipslide a good flush with PH balanced water with 3 times the amount the pot size. Let them dry out for a few days (2-3) start at 25% for a week maybe nutrients try water/feed/water, then 50% for a week, then higher if you think they can handle it. Give them some time to adjust, better to increase then do another flush not ideal for your ladies. I am in coco running at about 75%, your soil should have nutrients already not needing you to go as high as this. I have caused nutrient lock out just recently which caused a potassium lock out. Which was caused by having a high salt build up from to much nutrients. I'm a over nurturer/waterer but I'm slowly dealing with this problem. Also PH is everything! Like once/twice a day (reservoir). If you can spend a little coin on something invest in a good PH meter and some good PH up and PH down.
You could put a cover over your vent, or something just off it. You could some non reflective ducting put a few turns in it which will stop the light.
Good luck mate, I'm only learning aswell, hopefully some of this helps. :)
 
You could try dolomite to lower the ph in your soil. Or a jug of cal mag will do just fine.

Here’s a link to something to read about it if your interested, not sure if I’m allowed to do this or not, but here it goes,

Do you have Calcium Deficiency in your Marijuana Plants ?

Yellow, brown spots on new leaves. These are some of the signs of calcium deficiency with marijuana. Discover easy ways to recover stop it in it's tracks!
www.sensigarden.com

I agree with @Curiousnoob I know money may be tight but you will thank your self if you spend a lil money on a nice ph metre. Definitely a necessity in this hobby. :bong:

Yeah 80 degrees is a bit warm, ohh the joys of dialing in a grow room lol, I feel your pain. Nice lil setup you have sir!:high-five:
 
Thanks for the complements everyone. And for the votes in the Mars Hydro contest...I'm only 5 votes away from the top! Whew that light would be nice to add to the mix. I'm seeing from all these awesome pictures that you never really can have too much light.

I'm so happy with my room. My fam thinks I've gone bonkers, but they are rolling with it nicely. I'm just a small distance away from convincing them my pot condo needs a veg room addition already! (Yes I really must have a 18/6 room as well as a 12/12 room....you really don't want me growing weed in my closet forever do you?)

Concerning my rusting/discoloration on old leaves issue...I'm convinced from everything you guys have told me and lots of reading that my core problem is PH fluctuation (I will order a pen), and that's what Cruella Deville was trying to tell me (RIP). Not sure why, but I had great trepidation about a full on flush. I nutted up again and did it anyway. Ph'd my water (as close as I can tell) to 6.5, then we had a bath! Each pot got 4 times it's size in rinse. Won't need water for a while now! Cheers yall, have a great day!

Edit: I used my magic soil want before and after the flush. Before = mid to low 7ph, after = High 6's ph. I'll watch them as they dry out and keep testing, but for now it's down about where I was when I started. Could salt have caused my issue?
 
I used the cheap pH pens for several grows. You have to be very careful which one you get. The ones I used had an accuracy of ±0.05pH with a precision of ±0.01pH. These specifications are what I'd call the minimum standard. Many of these low cost pH pens need to be adjusted with a jeweler's screwdriver. All pH pens should be checked and re-calibrated if necessary before each use.

I use a HM Digital PH-200. The cost has come down dramatically since I bought mine. It has an accuracy of ±0.02pH, and precision of 0.01pH.

Precision and accuracy are generally poorly understood. Accuracy refers to how close the measurement is, not what is displayed. Precision is how well that measurement is displayed, usually ± the least significant digit of the display. So the display on the low cost pens I used showed a pH that was within ±0.06 of the solution I measured, and the display on my HM Digital is within ±0.03pH.
 
If you're going to buy a pen, spend the extra money, and get one that's waterproof. I know, I was laughing too, when I dropped my 2nd $15 jobby in a sink full of water.

I bought my tester as a "kit" on A-zon, and it came with 3 bottles of calibration solutions, storage solution/cleaning brush for the probe, and a hardshell case that rivals the case for my Strat. $70.
 
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