Feeding Time or Somethin Else?

TreeGod

TreeGod

Member
Whats up RUI,

Got these two plants about 2 weeks from germination and now the tips are slightly yellowing and the leaves are beginning to curl under a bit. I haven't given them any nutes at all, the temps in the grow area are around 74-80 at all times and RH is around 20-30% at all times. I have a 400 watt MH about 2 feet away from them also. Anyone care to shed some light on what I should do?
 

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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
It's always feeding time in a DWC. I don't see why there are some who advise to use tap or RO on seedlings. You're gonna need to put some nutes in there or you'll be here in a few days asking why your seedling isn't growing as fast as everyone elses.

Plants want nutrients regardless of whether they just sprouted or they're 10 feet tall. A lot of people will argue otherwise, but there's really no point in starving your seedlings when you can perfectly control the ppm.

TreeGod said:
Whats up RUI,

Got these two plants about 2 weeks from germination and now the tips are slightly yellowing and the leaves are beginning to curl under a bit. I haven't given them any nutes at all, the temps in the grow area are around 74-80 at all times and RH is around 20-30% at all times. I have a 400 watt MH about 2 feet away from them also. Anyone care to shed some light on what I should do?
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rwbrock

rwbrock

Active Member
Alot of people start off with cal/mag or very light feeding with RO water.....do you have a PPM/EC meter? Obviously plants need nutrients but you would not feed something that just sprouted the same as a 10 foot tall mature plant. Start around 200 ppm at this stage. I assume you got everything covered have your nutes, know your PH etc.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
I basically feed them the same ppm when they're big as when they're small, slightly lower to be cautious.

full strength isn't going to burn babies, it's just that if you do burn them, there's no recovering so most people start low and work up (too slowly imo) to see how much their plants want before they show signs of toxicity, then back away a bit. The quicker they raise their nutes, the quicker their purposefully induced deficiencies go away and the plant can grow at full speed finally. It could have just started off with the good nutrients and gotten to that stage faster.

There's really no logic to making the ppm lower just because it's a baby. Soil in nature doesn't taper itself up in nutrients, in fact it does the opposite as the plant begins to eat faster than the bacteria can replenish nitrates, otherwise why did old time farmers have to have rotate their crops every season? It's because they wanted to plant new seedlings in the recovered nutrient rich fields, not the deficient fields.

I understand people want to cover their asses when giving noobs advice, but when noobs come in using 0ppm water for the first few weeks of their grow and have slow growth, it's also sort of a waste of time. They could have started off with strong healthy growth. It's DWC so there's really no guessing games on whether the nutes are too strong or not. The TDS meter outright tells you how strong the solution is. It's not like soil where you can mess up.

rwbrock said:
Obviously plants need nutrients but you would not feed something that just sprouted the same as a 10 foot tall mature plant.
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TreeGod

TreeGod

Member
I do have a PH and PPM meter. I've been using PHd tap water in the reservoir and the PPM is around 200-300 without nutes so should I add 200 ppms worth of nutes still or somethin way lower?
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
Raise the solutions ppm to at least 500ppm mang. I run my plants between 700-1200ppm, but they can go past 1600 before they start to disagree with me. I've been negligent and let the ppm go off the meter (water sucked up faster than I wanted to change) , and all it resulted in was a few yellow polka-dots.

200ppm may as well be 0.

If someone is at 700ppm and claims they're burning their plants, it's likely because they're using too much P or that their mix isn't that good in general.
 
rwbrock

rwbrock

Active Member
I still would argue that at a younger age they will not need as much food. I mainly grow in soil and have had seedling and clones that I put into hot FFOF and had them burn a little and assume it is due to the nutes in the soil....and from there I would not feed for 3-4 weeks or until the plant tells me to. I am newer to the hydro game and DWC.....but all that I have learned and read would tell me if I started out at 800 to 1000 ppm it would be to much and I have never tried it to be honest. I always start off slow (1/4 strength) and work my way up. It just makes sense like a baby child would not need the same nutrients and eat as much as a grown man. If you force fed him what I eat and make him take down a 16 oz steak, potato, etc he would surely get sick. As he grows into his teen years that protein would make he grow bigger and stronger. My first hydro run on a ebb and flow I thought more was better and tried ramping up quick on the nutes....guess what all it did was lead to over feeding and lock out. There is a big difference between organic food and salts (chemical ferts) so your soil argument doesn't apply here...There are always going to be different opinions but I am not one to try and force 5lbs of shit in a 1lb bag....meaning I don't overfeed let the plant dictate what it wants, keep it green, not into all the super blooms (snake oil), I don't keep my lights 4" from my plants, etc....and I don't really advocate flushing either (soil). Of course if you have overfed with salts the whole time or hydro it is a good idea. Not saying it is bad to push the limits but you need to know the plants genetics and have experience before you do so....So for noobs and most people yeah lets cover our asses :) If he wants to become a mad scientist with his plants then he can check out the advanced growing section and build what he has learned from this go around.

Personally I would start off low (200 ppm) build up (peaking mid flower) and then come back down as the plant finishes....I would also use a CFL or T5 to start my seedling and have the light a little closer as it starts, then as it gets bigger put them under 400. So church what PPM do you start a young plant from seed and how many PPM's do you give your plants? Are you a steady 500-600 PPM?
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
I've never used FFOF personally, but if you take a look at the problem threads, a HUGE percentage of them are using fox farms.

It's had me scratching my head, because finding solutions in soil is generally way more complicated than in hydro and it seems like everything goes wrong with all the FF grows. The thing about soil, however, is that even soil that's not hot should still have a higher runoff ppm than 200, at least I'd expect. It's impossible to really control these things in soil.

In some parts of the world, soil is high in lime and that causes high pH issues, but in other parts, soil is very low in lime and that causes calcium deficiency and lack of pH buffering... It's all just a huge headache for someone trying to help from the sidelines.

rwbrock said:
I still would argue that at a younger age they will not need as much food. I mainly grow in soil and have had seedling and clones that I put into hot FFOF and had them burn a little and assume it is due to the nutes in the soil....and from there I would not feed for 3-4 weeks or until the plant tells me to. I am newer to the hydro game and DWC.....but all that I have learned and read would tell me if I started out at 800 to 1000 ppm it would be to much and I have never tried it to be honest. I always start off slow (1/4 strength) and work my way up. It just makes sense like a baby child would not need the same nutrients and eat as much as a grown man. If you force fed him what I eat and make him take down a 16 oz steak, potato, etc he would surely get sick. As he grows into his teen years that protein would make he grow bigger and stronger. My first hydro run on a ebb and flow I thought more was better and tried ramping up quick on the nutes....guess what all it did was lead to over feeding and lock out. There is a big difference between organic food and salts (chemical ferts) so your soil argument doesn't apply here...There are always going to be different opinions but I am not one to try and force 5lbs of shit in a 1lb bag....meaning I don't overfeed let the plant dictate what it wants, keep it green, not into all the super blooms (snake oil), I don't keep my lights 4" from my plants, etc....and I don't really advocate flushing either (soil). Of course if you have overfed with salts the whole time or hydro it is a good idea. Not saying it is bad to push the limits but you need to know the plants genetics and have experience before you do so....So for noobs and most people yeah lets cover our asses :) If he wants to become a mad scientist with his plants then he can check out the advanced growing section and build what he has learned from this go around.

Personally I would start off low (200 ppm) build up (peaking mid flower) and then come back down as the plant finishes....I would also use a CFL or T5 to start my seedling and have the light a little closer as it starts, then as it gets bigger put them under 400. So church what PPM do you start a young plant from seed and how many PPM's do you give your plants? Are you a steady 500-600 PPM?
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
It's not like you're force feeding the plant to eat the whole tank, it's just the concentration of nutrients available. A baby plant drinks the nutrient solution extremely slowly. The main risk of running a high ppm is that when water level goes down, ppm will be even higher, but babies barely drink any of the water. A better analogy would be to feed a baby human the same strength milk you feed an adult, which people do.

Nobody waters down milk before feeding to a baby, it's rich in nutrients. The baby will drink as much as it needs. It's not like you're forcing the milk down its throat. Seriously, could you imagine a bunch of mothers insisting that their babies are safer because they drink watered down milk and are thus less likely to catch bone burn? People are more worried about overfeeding their baby plants than their baby children!

I agree that more isn't always better, but in this case it is. I also think it's totally worth experimenting by seeing how far you can push it so you can get an idea of what the strain actually does best in, after all, it's only a plant.

rwbrock said:
It just makes sense like a baby child would not need the same nutrients and eat as much as a grown man. If you force fed him what I eat and make him take down a 16 oz steak, potato, etc he would surely get sick.
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1itsme

1itsme

Well-Known Member
200 ppm (added) should be quite safe for baby plants. i would recomend starting there and slowly raising it up if your using chem nutes. ive seen realy high runoff ppm from organic soil mixes that didnt burn plants at all (2,3,4+ ec.). however, i can almost guarantee that much over 400ppm of most chem nutes (not the tapwater ppm just the nutes) will burn plants that small.
 
DeeTee

DeeTee

Well-Known Member
I tend to agree with most of the replies, just feeding water wether it's 200 ppm's or more doesn't have the nutrients the plant needs, say nitrogen etc. so add a small concentrate of nute to raise you ppm's too 300 or 400, you should be safe, bare in mind water alone doesn't have what the plant needs, you've got to feed it.
 
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churchhaze

Well-Known Member
I wish we didn't have to hide our true identities due to the illegal nature of the forum because I'd wager a lot of money on this bet that you're wrong.

Also, there's no point in separating ppm from tap and ppm from nutes. It's all salts.

1itsme said:
however, i can almost guarantee that much over 400ppm of most chem nutes (not the tapwater ppm just the nutes) will burn plants that small.
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TreeGod

TreeGod

Member
What if the roots haven't even gotten thru the basket? Do the roots still get nutes if they're chillin somewhere in the hydroton?
 
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