Questions on pH/ppm/nute lock out - Pics included

Hey all,

I have a few questions and was wondering if you could help me diagnose what's wrong with 2 of my girls. Here goes:

PH:

I use a little battery-less meter to measure pH. It doesn't look incredibly reliable but it has shown that my soil is in the range of 7-8 pH, which I know can lead to locking out some nutrients. I don't have ph down or up yet, so I was wondering if you had any recommendations on bringing pH down using stuff I might already have around the house.

PPM:

I use a truncheon that you stick into the solution/water and it lights up along the side to show you the EC/PPM. I used it in my nute solution and it read 2.8 EC (1400 PPM ECx500 or 1960 PPM ECx700). I know either way that the PPM is too high (I've heard ideally you want around like 800-1100). I'm confused on the difference between ECx500 and ECx700. All I understand is that they are basically two different scales for measuring PPM but I don't fully grasp the concept.

Also, when I measure the ppm of my tap water, I get a reading of 1.4 EC or 700/980 PPM (EC500 / EC700). From what I understand your water should be around 90-130ppm before nutrients are added... If that's true then there are way too many minerals in my water to begin with, right? How can I correct that without dropping a lot of $$?

Nute Lock-Out??

So two of my girls look like the pictures I've attached below. I've looked at various nute-burn and deficiency pictures/charts but I haven't found any pics that look similar to mine. My guess is that because my water's PPM is so high already, that the calcium/minerals in the water are building up in my soil, causing certain nutrients to be locked out. But I'm not sure. And if that is the case, I can't flush it with tap water right? Since my tap water is already 500ppm, would flushing really be all that beneficial? I'm guessing it would still help but not as much as using an alternative type of water? Any and all suggestions are appreciated. I'm not rich though so can't afford a reverse-osmosis system or something like that right now.

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Thanks,

-jg

Can you buy your water in at all? I've seen some of the American growers say you can fill up your own empty bottles at Walmart maybe?

jollygreen wrote: So two of my girls look like the pictures I've attached below

Click to expand...

So those aren't your plants...correct? You do need to get better water. The plants in the pix show some tip burn and a fairly advanced deficiency of probably both N and Mg. And you could be correct in that it's a lockout...but how that relates to your plants is anybodies guess.
JD

jollygreen said:

So two of my girls look like the pictures I've attached below.

Click to expand...

So are these actually pictures of your plant, or are these pictures you found elsewhere and posted ?

I can't answer all your questions but I'll toss out a couple comments. Regarding your soil ph, be sure you have an accurate measurement before trying to fix it. Those cheap two prong testes are known to be unreliable. I've never had to lower my ph so I won't recommend products.

Your tap water is definitely an issue. You probably are adding the right amount of fertilizer when you back out your base water levels. So you need to fix your base water. RO systems can be found on the low end for $200ish I believe. Someone else in another thread was looking at a purification drip system for $80. You can look to catch your rain water. But you need to do something about it.

If you're around 8 like I was, you can use vinegar. NOT A LOT OF IT!!!.

Get some Dolomite Lime.

Looks like it needs magnesium, but it's a ph issue causing it. If you just add more magnesium, you'll get a calcium lockout. Probably more, but that was my experience.

ProdigalSun said:

Looks like it needs magnesium, but it's a ph issue causing it. If you just add more magnesium, you'll get a calcium lockout. Probably more, but that was my experience.

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Do you know a good additive for magnesium? I just flushed the ones that look like that.. so we'll see.

Also as far as pH goes I checked on all of them and it's anywhere from 6.6 - 7.3... so not quite as high as I thought.. still should try to bring it down some though.

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To top off all my problems, I just went to collect the trays and wash them out in case there is any mineral/nutrient build up on there that's causing problems and for one plant I found little bugs crawlin around in the tray... Tiny little white/silver/grayish bugs.. almost look like baby flies that cant fly yet. I have seen fungus knats flying around at the soil level (I dried the soil and used cinnamon to get rid of them.. and it worked for the most part, although a few still remain)... Not sure if these are just baby knats or not. I don't have a camera good enough to capture them in detail unfortunately. I flushed the plant thoroughly and washed the tray well... so we'll see.

I'll give you an update after a little bit to let you know if flushing did the trick or not.

Epsom Salts. Make sure it doesn't have perfume in it. 2tbsp to a gallon, let it sit for 10-15 min, then run another gallon of just plain water through.

It's a heavy dose!

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688 try looking here

my advice. go to the store. buy a ph tester for the water and the ph up and down solution. and check the water ph. don't worry about the soil ph. and get some nutrients at least a 10 10 10 then jump it to a 5 50 30 around there. have to spend money to grow money or weed.

for got to mention ph soil needs to be between 6 and 7 to low it will fuck the plant to high the plant gets fucked as well .