Nutrient / Substrate question

Ok guys, im not new to this by all means, i know my stuff and im trying to work out what the hell is going on in my room.

i started up again in a new room with Autopot's with coco and green house nuts under a high powered led.

things all ok but i could tell something was not right with the growth, not 100%. im using LED lights so its taken a few go's to get the correct light heights. Now i have the correct heights i move onto another thing that's confusing my head and i don't know the answer.

This new grow i accidentley bought so Gold Label special mix peat substrate so i decided to use this alongside some coco which i used before so i have one pot with special mix in it and the others have coco.
After 3 weeks of veg the plant that's in the special mix pot is excelling much more , its a much richer green, the others are not even close to it so i'm trying to work out why now. That plant was actually a little poorly at the start so in theory should have been behind the ones in coco.
The special mix has apparently enough nuts for a few weeks but surly if i have nuts (greenhouse) mixed correctly at the correct ph the other plants should be getting the correct nuts to perform just as good??

i'm at a loose end as i want the plants to all perform the same but not sure why the coco plans are lagging a little compared to the special mix...


any help or advice would be great guys

So your using autopots with a res full of nutrients feeding all plants the same and there is one plant in special mix doing better than the rest?

If that's correct your feeding the special mix plant far more nutrients than the others. If it was poorly at the start its possible it didn't like the constant moisture in the medium or it was just getting too many nutrients with the res nutes and whats in the special mix combined, now its got a better root system its taking more nutrients. There's also the possibility that one plant is receiving more light with the overlap from your lights.

All this is assuming you have 1 res connected to all autopots rather than a res per pot.

Got any pics of your set up?

One other thing, I'm not familiar with greenhouse nutrients, is it coco specific? If not there could be a lot less calcium in them than coco specific nutrients, I assume the special mix would have calcium in it already, that could be a major factor.

Are all plants from clone or seed and are they all the same strain?

hi dude, thanks for the reply.

ok yes teh special mix is doing better, there is just one res for all so it is getting more nuts , in theory too much but its reacting amazing compared to the others,

It was poorly at the start but this was before it was being fed from the res, so its not that thats made it like that.

all plants are from the same cutting and the greenhouse mix nuts is all good as i have friends who use it in coco but not in autopot and it really works well for them.

at this stage im still feeding from the top , im just about to connect up so it feeds from the bottom as the roots will be fine now so what i mean do is up the feed in the other pots only to see if that makes a difference but not sure if it will as they are getting enough ec nut for the stage they are at...

i will take a picture shortly of the set up and plants.

heres some pictures, as you can see the one on the end in the special mix is bigger and has many more internodes and also the lower internode growth is much faster. the thickness of the stem is larger too.
ive also taken picture of one of the ones in coco and the leaves are arching up at the edges, not on all of them .
im really puzzled here with this.

just to add to these notes,

i know there is alot of stuff about checking the ph of the drain off from coco as the coco can play havoc with ph but this autopot system doesnt have drain off, it just fills the bottom and the roots take in the water and nuts so its not got drain off.
but i did do a test and have just been feeding from the top until there is drain off and by the time it fills the bottom when i test it the ph has gone up but when the water fills the autopots from the bottom and i check the ph in this there is no change so its just when it runs through the coco i get the rise. i dont know if this is effecting my plants, something is, im finding coco and real nightmare with these autopots.
obviously the problems are just not effecting the plant in the special mix so im thinking its something to do with ph/nut at some stage and the special mix pot has a stable nut and ph unlike the coco, its not my enviroment as the plant in the special mix would be affected but thats going amazing.

coreywebster said:

So your using autopots with a res full of nutrients feeding all plants the same and there is one plant in special mix doing better than the rest?

If that's correct your feeding the special mix plant far more nutrients than the others. If it was poorly at the start its possible it didn't like the constant moisture in the medium or it was just getting too many nutrients with the res nutes and whats in the special mix combined, now its got a better root system its taking more nutrients. There's also the possibility that one plant is receiving more light with the overlap from your lights.

All this is assuming you have 1 res connected to all autopots rather than a res per pot.

Got any pics of your set up?

One other thing, I'm not familiar with greenhouse nutrients, is it coco specific? If not there could be a lot less calcium in them than coco specific nutrients, I assume the special mix would have calcium in it already, that could be a major factor.

Are all plants from clone or seed and are they all the same strain?

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im using calmag so any calcium defs should be ironed out but like i said, i have a few friends growing in coco but not in autopot and they are all fine and they use the same feed, enviroment is almost the same too.. arrrghhhhhh.

Do the auto pots recirculate or is it a drain to waste? I'm not familiar with them. How often are you feeding?

TCH said:

Do the smartpots recirculate or is it a drain to waste? I'm not familiar with them. How often are you feeding?

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hey, they are a gravity system so the tank is higer and just feeds the bottom trays . Once each tray empties they refill . so the roots pull up the water so no recirculation here.

autopot dot co dot uk

im feeding when they need it automatically. they are meant to be a good system but whats more puzzling is that the pot which has not got canna in it is going really good, im sure its some issue with canna and ph/feed.

STARMAN111 said:

hey, they are a gravity system so the tank is higer and just feeds the bottom trays . Once each tray empties they refill . so the roots pull up the water so no recirculation here.

autopot dot co dot uk

im feeding when they need it automatically. they are meant to be a good system but whats more puzzling is that the pot which has not got canna in it is going really good, im sure its some issue with canna and ph/feed.

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Ah, I see. I think the coco would benefit from a daily feed from the top. You may try feeding it daily for a few days and see what happens. When I started the daily feed, my plants exploded.

TCH said:

Ah, I see. I think the coco would benefit from a daily feed from the top. You may try feeding it daily for a few days and see what happens. When I started the daily feed, my plants exploded.

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well ive been feeding them from the top, ive not set up the system yet, for the first few weeks you top feed so the roots grow and reach to the bottom.. are you growing in coco ? what feed are you using and what ec and ph just out of interest?

STARMAN111 said:

well ive been feeding them from the top, ive not set up the system yet, for the first few weeks you top feed so the roots grow and reach to the bottom.. are you growing in coco ? what feed are you using and what ec and ph just out of interest?

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I'm growing 4 plants in 2 gallon fabric pots in coco. I'm using botanicare nutes at 1/2 - 3/4 strength. I'm not measuring the ec, but I pH it to 5.7-5.9 and feed daily. I miss a day occasionally but never 2 in a row. My plants are at 45 days from sprouting. It's my first grow, so I'm still learning and taking in a ton of knowledge. At first I treated the coco like soil and would water every 3-5 days when it dried out and they did ok but would show some deficiencies but would come back. Once I started the daily feeding, they really took off.

OldMedUser said:

I'm sorry but I have to chortle about this.

Not just you but all the other uneducated nOObs that take such a simple task like growing a herb and blow everything out of proportion.

It's a f'n plant and grows like any other plant. Sure you can tweak it to grow better but but it's dead simple to grow good.

Just chillax and give it time. View attachment 4036077 View attachment 4036078

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i'm far from being a newbie dude.. iv'e been doing it for 25 years! never in coco though and it brings many problems which would hit anybody that has changed, especially when its a totally new enviroment, also test led and new medium and feeds so when something doesn't look right you find out the cause , hence why i'm on here.
what is happening is not easy to get to the bottom of.

just because my mem says in new doesn't mean i am, just that this is the first time in 25 years iv'e had to ask a question on here so may be that makes me a professional!

ive done another test.

i know there is no run off in this system but iv' fed from the top enough so the water runs through and fills the bottom tray and ive test ph before and after.
Ph before watering was 5.9 but ph after run through the coco was 6.7

so bearing this in mind and that my roots draw form the tray would anyone know if the Ph would change from the bottom tray while being sucked up to the roots ?
This is the only thing i can think of that is causing the problems!

so may be i need to actually do the original ph a lot lower to compensate for the rise in the coco ?

any advise on this would help heeps

Normally I wouldn't worry about ph of run off, make sure your PH going in is 5.8 ish.

But..

Wondering what type of coco you are using though, if its block stuff it usually requires a fair amount of washing to get all that sodium out. All sodium is high ph and will make ph go way off as well as causing problems for uptaking other nutrients. Even some supposedly buffered coco can need a good wash.

Cant hurt to take the pots out to a sink and flush the shit out of them.

And from what I understand, if they aren't waters to runoff daily, they will build up salts and add to that issue. As to your question, I would think that sitting in the high pH solution and sucking it back up would cause lockouts. I'm still a newbie though so keep that in mind. Good luck.

TCH said:

I'm growing 4 plants in 2 gallon fabric pots in coco. I'm using botanicare nutes at 1/2 - 3/4 strength. I'm not measuring the ec, but I pH it to 5.7-5.9 and feed daily. I miss a day occasionally but never 2 in a row. My plants are at 45 days from sprouting. It's my first grow, so I'm still learning and taking in a ton of knowledge. At first I treated the coco like soil and would water every 3-5 days when it dried out and they did ok but would show some deficiencies but would come back. Once I started the daily feeding, they really took off.

View attachment 4035803

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looks great mate so far, nice and healthy..... best of luck with it.

coreywebster said:

Normally I wouldn't worry about ph of run off, make sure your PH going in is 5.8 ish.

But..

Wondering what type of coco you are using though, if its block stuff it usually requires a fair amount of washing to get all that sodium out. All sodium is high ph and will make ph go way off as well as causing problems for uptaking other nutrients. Even some supposedly buffered coco can need a good wash.

Cant hurt to take the pots out to a sink and flush the shit out of them.

Click to expand...

im using canna coco, good shout on that im going to flush the hell out of them later.. thanks for that. will test the run off tomorrow and see how much the flush has affected the ph rates. will let you know just for your interest.