Quote:And last but most certainly not least, your nutrient concentration. I'm using organic nutes which apprantly, can be difficult to measure ppm accurately. I followed someone elses nutrient schedule and had around 240-330 ppm during the first week. My plants suffered all kinds of problems and i freaked out (mind you I also had hydroton ph problems which likely excerbated the problem). Of course I got a myriad if generally unhelpfull advice from the forum but I showed a picture tinny hydro store manager he needed about 2 seconds to say "your underfeeding them". I took ppms to around 500 and they bounced right back. My suggestion therefore would be to go ahead and run the 300 for 4-5 days and let them settle in a bit but I would up the ppm to around 500-600 by day 7. The salinity of your roots should slowly increase as the plants age but even at this stage, a ppm of 500 would not be higher than the roots which would cause the cessation (or reverse) of nutrient uptake do to the lack of saline concentration in the root zone (again see my thread for explanation).
I dont agree with this, and tyhis is why. You didnt prep your hydtot correcly. So you basically made mud. The other think is you had problems with PH swinging all over the place which is often the case on a new set-up. So I doubt to little PPM was the problem. More likely they couldnt take in anything when PH is so far out. Also, I often start mine with low PPM. Sometimes they stay low the first 2 weeks and Ive never had deficiency problems. Now, their are factors I know that make it difficult to measure one grow over another. Like how many plants etc. Your grow is beautiful no doubt. But your PPM level has nothing to do with someone else's. I only saying this not to shit on anyone but because youve looked at many threads and grows. So, youve witnessed what we see in a lot them. People burning up their plants like mad. Which is from jacking nute levls way too high. These plants are hard to kill even if you tried. I've seen grows in soil and hydro. Ive done both. I've also produced bigger and better buds than those using four times the PPM. So I doubt your plants were starving from low PPM. If anything, the PH was the biggest factor along with hydrotten problems which anyone who uses can tell you prep is the most important thing with hydrotten. When the PH is out the nutes are blocked, doesnt matter what level of PPM. This is just my thought from following your thread, your enttitled to your own. People thinking they can jack their nutes to 600 PPM just cause they saw someones else do it, doesnt mean it is right for them . Each grow is different just like each plant. They can only take what they can take and if your PH is whacked out, obviously your PPM is wrong, plain and simple. Besides needing PH to be in range to absorb nutrient uptake you need to know what it's doing to correct PPM levels. Unless your PPM stablizes or rises slightly, your out and not optimizing intake of nutrients. You cant follow someone else levels. All you can do is introduce them moderately and observe. The plants decide their own level. Not Joe Smo's thread levels
. Thinking of maybe skipping the switch from the botanicare hydro bloom to soil bloom. Yellow leaves and necrosis on the jack herrer's.