beginning bubbleponic problems

pix didnt post least comment so here they are.

Please note that I am NOT an experienced grower at ALL. Take everything I say with a grain of salt but hopefully someone more experienced will back me up. I am only giving this advice out of the experience I have with a near identical setup.

First of all I strongly recommend NOT judging the color of your plants under the HPS. I thought for days that my plants were burning shortly after I got my HPS but if I look at them with just my CFL lighting they are very green and healthy. The light from the HPS just naturally gives them a gold tone. Except for the minor issues in the last 2 pics your plants look very healthy.

Secondly worry about your PH. PH PH PH PH PH!! Especially in hydro I can't stress this enough. I have had a few mishap soil grows and already some trouble in my hydro grow. Every error had to do with PH (my tap water sits around 8.2 which I was unaware of till just recently. It has made all the difference. The plants can grow happily with nothing but properly PH'd water. Sure they won't be as big, won't grow as fast, but they will live. Nutes, temp, grow medium, genetics, etc. are all very important to your plant, but without a proper PH your plants won't absorb ANYTHING and are basically doomed.

Third be careful with that thin lid on your tub. My fan died one day while I wasn't home and my water temp heated up around 85. I got the temp back down overnight but the damage was done. My PH started spiking from 5.5 up over 7 or 8 every few hours. I opened the lid on my bucket to find mirky brownish green water, a RANK smell, and some brown gunk floating on the surface. I drained the water, cleaned with bleach, dried it with a clean towel, and let it air dry to evaporate for about 30 mins. As the bottom half of the bucket dried I got a piece of cardboard and laid my lid over it. I traced all the way around the lid and then inside each hole. I cut it out stuck it to the top of the lid with some tape effectively creating a cover that my net pots could still rest perfectly in. 3 days later and I haven't added a single drop of PH down and my water temp is staying about 5-6 degrees lower.

My last advice is to wash your hydroton well - the dust tends to run off into your reservoir. I don't know if it will do any damage but it does make your water look nasty and hard to evaluate. It may also affect your PH I am not sure but better safe than sorry. Maybe somebody else here can answer for sure

I am enjoying reading your thread an will definitely continue to watch it. Good luck and happy growing!!

thanks for the info and please follow along help me out along the way. and yeah i was just going by a meter that didnt really tell the ph real well. now i have a digital ph meter and im keeping the water around 5.8 - 6.0 and when i start flowering im gona keep it around 5.5 but thats not until 3 weeks.

ill have my digi tonight so ill take real good pictures. the lemon skunk leaves are really getting a yellowish green tint. what causes that??

my roots are white but have like a layer of brown stuff but someone said that could just be from the nutes. should i start to take caution now and change water out and just ph it for a day or two??

also could that be the reason the leaves are turning a yellowish green color?? its mostly the first set of leaves except for white widow it is getting blackish brown spots and burn looking spots on it on first and second set of leaves.

help is appreciated.

after looking at some pix online i think i have a magnesium and/or zinc deffiency which is causing the discoloration and the curling upward of the edge of the leaves.

im going to buy some epsom salt and put 1 tablespoon per gallon so hopefully by tom morning everything will be okay.

any suggestions. im deff open to hear all. i will also post pix later also.

i also read that if i up my ph to 6.1 all the magnesium locked up will release into plants??

justsomedude said:

start by removing the foil.... It burns the plants

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You know for a fact that the foil burns the plants?? What about the foil tape that is used to wrap duct?

i dont have any foil on there anymore.

here are some pix of the roots.. i think you can the brown layer on there pretty good. if you think its beginning of root rot please let me know.

They look healthy to me, no brown as far as I can tell.

yeah the cam phone doesnt show it good but they deff have brown over them.. i wonder if i should just flush my tank tonight and see if they come out of this.
lemon skunks top leaves are deff turning yellowish and the first set of leaves on the others are turning yellow like dying.

no idea what is wrong or what to try. put a good amount hydrogen peroxide in res. havent put any new nutes in the res in a couple of days. should i try that?

Yeah you should add some nutrients and top it off. Are you using any micro nutrients?

There is no root rot there, they look fine. Browning can happen, will even brown more if you use certain nutes. I use Technaflora nutes and my roots go brown after the first few weeks of feeding. I also use Humic Acid which is black and it turns them brown when I do res changes. Don't sweat it, those roots look nice and healthy.

Also, I went back and re-read your posts. If you just started feeding, which I am assuming you did, then you don't want to stop. If they start to burn, then you will just want to cut your nute amount in half of what you were feeding. As they get older, they will require more food, after you and the plant get used to each other, sounds weird but true, you will know (hopefully her) her wants and needs. It truly sounds bizzare, but true. Monitor your PH like you have been doing and you will be enjoying her fruits in no time!!!

Oh and those very bottom leaves turning yellow, that is natural. Those "feeder" leaves will do that. Just let the plant drop them or pull them off when they get a little crusty. As long as the stem is green, you might want to leave them alone. Anything green ever taken from a plant, causes the plant to heal the affected area, taking precious resources (nutrients, cells, etc.) from the rest of the plant, causing stress. Many think some, many think none, now I don't have a Biology degree but just like a weed or healthy plant, they repair themselves when injured, causing extra effort they could be using elsewhere. Hope this helps!!

put a tablespoon of epsom salt in there. ph is around 6.0.. the bottom leaves are deff yellowing.

the lemon skunk at the top where the new leaves are shooting out are turning yellow and looking dried with wrinkles.. im hoping its a mg deficiency so the salt will take care of it. ive also put a good amount of hydrogen peroxide in it and it seems to be cleaning off the roots some.

everyones post has helped and i appreciate it hopefully some keep following along and help all the way to harvest. got my digi just gotta charge it and buy a sd card for it so i can get good pix on here.

sounds like your worrying to much mate my roots are light brown it's nothing to worry about

jzs147 said:

sounds like your worrying to much mate my roots are light brown it's nothing to worry about

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Very cool, looking great so far. Keep going, I wanna see it finished!

flushed res. water already fresh from sink is already 6.1 so didnt have to ph it but i did put 30ml of hydrogen peroxide in res to take brown off roots..

dont know if it is over nuted or a mg def. so thats why i flushed so i can start fresh. i wont be adding any nutes until tom. a couple ?.. my res temp is normally around 76. i duno what to do to get it down to 65ish so im going to buy two water bottles so one is frozen at all times and switch them every 12 - 24 hours. any other suggestions on how to get res temp down??

this is day 17. how much nute should i be feeding them so when i go to do it tom i can do it. using flora nova nutes. grow and micro hardwater at the moment. should i put 1/4 or 1/2 strength per gallon or 1/4 or 1/2 strength altogether??

dont know if i should put the epsom salt back in the res yet until tom so i wont do that either until i put the nutes in.

any guidance much needed. im glad to see alot of people giving suggestions and own experiences i use everyones info at the moment and take it in for later use when something else starts to go wrong!!

ordered ppm meter should be here beginning of next week. dont really know much about ppm. how do you adjust your ppm if it is way off?

according to directions of flora series nutes i put 5ml grow. 5ml mirco. 5ml bloom.. so thats what i did so far and it spiked ph up to 7.0 so i downed it to 6.1.. see what it is when i get home and drop it to 5.9.

if anything im doing i should do differently please let me know.

a major problem for the yellowing was the res temp being close to 80 got it to around 71 last night and this morning plants looking alot healthier and i started feeding them right as far as i know and can tell.

any ideas on how to keep res around 65 - 70 without changing a frozen water bottle everyday or even less than a day??

now that the roots are almost all in the water should i stop running the feeding tubes??

heres a pic as of this morning.

Yeah once the roots are in the water, remove the pump and tubes. This will keep your res a few degrees cooler.

okay. thanks. sounds good to me i need something to get res temp down. i deff think that was main reason nutes werent getting to plant.