first time grower needs help/guidance! sick plants?

Hey guys. I am looking for some help This is my first grow and everything is going ok, but I think I may be doing something wrong.

Here's some background info. My setup is a 4x4 area with a 1000w MH light. A little overkill maybe, but the light was given to me. The light is about 2 feet over the plants, and I have an exhaust fan pulling the hot air out of the tent. Its about 70 degrees with 50% humidity. That all seems to be ok. I'm using an aeroponics setup I bought online. Right now I'm just using bagseed to "practice" with. I just got a RO filter and I've been using that for water. I'm using Mother Earth Super Tea Grow by Advanced Nutrients. I'd like to keep it as natural and organic as possible. The thought of synthetic chemicals turns me off. I'm having a hard time keeping the pH down. I'll add pH Down by General Hydroponics to get the pH down to about 5.5-5.7. I'll check it the next day, and it's up to 6.5. Is it normal to have to add pH down everyday? I see some people on here have a pretty consistent pH level throughout their grow.

I'm also concerned with the way my plants look. At first, it was just the tops of the plants, or new growth that was very yellow. It didn't look bad, just yellow. Now as they get bigger the yellow color is spreading throughout the plants and not just the newer growth. I posted some photos of it. Is this a deficiency? Is this nutrient burn? I check the PPM of the water, and its coming up around 1000, which I didnt think was that high for the size of these plants. I'm only using about 1/2 to 3/4 strength of what the nutrients say on the bottle. I did prune some of the bigger leaves to get light to the lower branches, but nothing too extreme.

I posted some pics, because I figured that would make it easier to diagnose. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Check out the links in my sig... top one had a plant diagnosis chart in it and a symptom diagnosis sheet, scroll down

Yea, I've seen that chart. Its hard for me to pinpoint which one it is, because I'm kind of a newb at this, lol

dam wish i could help /bump

Man I am sure it's a ph problem. As far as your ph rising I had a similar problem. I found that if i just bubble straight water from the tap the ph will rise for 24 hours or so then stablize. I would recommend bubbling your solution in a seperate tub until you get the ph stable then add to your res. I grow in soiless and doing this solved 95% of all my problems. I am no longer constantly chasing deficencies.

Hi, well the first thing i would do is get another ph tester, i had the same issue and found out i had a bad ph tester pen. I see nutrient issues there too, hard to pin point but at that stage of the plant i wouldn't run over 750. till there at least two foot tall. JMHO

I was actually thinking that. I recalibrated my pH pen today with the reference liquids, and retested water. It was like 2 points off. Maybe I just need to clean off the pH pen in between uses so it doesn't have left over residue. its one of those cheap hanna ones, so I may splurge on a better one. any suggestions?

I'm gonna dump out my resevoir tonight and put in new nutes. I took the suggestion of letting them sit out with a bubbler inside. We'll see how it goes. I hope it works because they are looking a bit worse today than they did in the photos.

What nutrient issues do you see from the photos?

If your pH is ok then it is a zinc deficiency. Sometimes with the organic nutrients there is little or no metal in there. Also check for iron deficiency. I think it is zinc but that color is very unique I would think in diagnosis. It should be easy to fix with some zinc or chelated iron, a little bit of a micro supplement like Flora Micro from GH. Good luck holmes!

this situation is mind boggling!

I went to home depot and got a 12 gallon container. I had a air pump and airstones already so I threw those in there. I got a new grow nutrient called roots organic buddah grow. its alot thicker in consistency than what I've been using. I mixed everything up, used R/O water, the Buddha grow, some of the advanced nutrients super tea, and a cal mag supplement. that has some micro-nutrients in it so i figured it couldn't hurt. I let it sit overnight and bubble away. The pH raised a bit, not not really that much. I didn't have to add any pH down the next day, which is a plus. I calibrated my pH meter, and I've been keeping it in the calibration solution when not in use. I didn't realize you were supposed to do that, and I think that's the reason I was getting inconsistent readings. I dumped the old reservoir, cleaned it out and added the new solution that had been sitting out for over a day. It was at around 5.4 and a PPM of 450 when I added it to the aeroponic system. The next day I checked it, and its back up to a pH of over 7! and my plants keep looking worse and worse. The PPM was at around 700, so that did raise a bit too. This is nuts. I'm thinking of ditching the aeroponic setup and going to DWC....it seems to be easier. Im not sure what the hell is going on. The solution I had stayed pretty stable for a day or two, but upon adding it to the plants, it immediately jumps up almost 2 pH points. I thought maybe there was a build up of residue or something in the tubes that was mixing with the solution everytime I ran it, but I cleaned them out too. I'm at a loss. The pH doesn't stay consitent in this thing no matter what I try to do.