Two different problems... flush or just PH?

OK, so let me give a little background:

Soil - FF Ocean with some clay balls at bottom of pot for drainage and some balls mixed in with soil maybe 15% mixture at most.

Water - PH'd mostly at 6.5 (I am using a color type test so I am not exact, but I tried to keep it consistently in the color range of 6.5) until my last watering, where I lowered it to a 6.0 on the advice of a friend that grew in hydro. I think this was bad advice and going to adjust back up to 6.5 this next watering.

Nut's - FF products 1st few weeks nothing then I started the Big Bloom for a week at 1/4 then bumped to 1/2 for a week and then added Big Grow and have gone to the FF chart.

Lights - 1st week under 40w floro (didn't know it was so low) then moved to 250w floro and I have a couple of babies under this one now along with two larger clones (none of these show any problems) as of 6/1 the bulk of my plants are now under 400w MH currently.

#1) First problem I want to talk about is a Yellow stripe and it is mostly happening on the newer growth old growth doesn't seem to be affected. This stripe starts at the top of fan leaf edges and is working inward. I thought this might have been HEAT stress so I gave it a few days as it was only affecting a few plants (like 2 of 16) but I have fixed the heat issues and the problem spread AFTER I got the temps under control. So, I am thinking this is NOT a HEAT issue, right? I was thinking maybe PH issues, but it was there before I lowered my PH, but it got to a few other plants after the PH was lowered, so who knows.


#2) Next is a problem with rust colored spots one plant is showing it all around the edges just like a deficiency of something like:

Calcium
Potassium

This 2nd problem started just after I lowered the PH so I figure this will correct once I adjust PH, am I going in the right direction on this one?



More background, the largest part of this crop was hit by spider mites some bad some not so bad and they experienced long periods of time with low light levels so they were weak and spindly when I brought them home on the 2nd, they were treated before they came over and have been treated twice since and it looks like this is not an issue any more.

I am debating on if I need to flush with correct PH or if I should go on normal schedule and see if PH'ing fixes problem or if I just do a normal watering with corrected PH water and no nute's? Or do I need to do something else to fix problem?

Nobody has any impute?

Well for now I am only going to try to change the PH for this watering, I still need more feedback as to what is going to get fixed and what is permanent damage, will I see an immediate improvement or will it be a fix that affected growth stays in current condition till trimmed but new growth will be fine?

So I am watering right now and raised my PH to the 6.5 range, added nute's tested again seemed a bit low and raised it back up to 6.5 range, watered the plants and tested some run off and it was in the orange range 5.0! Kinda freaked me out this was one of the affected ones and when I did it to one that was not as bad the run off was low but more 5.5 - 6.0...

These should be in the mid 6's right?

I thought maybe I would water let it drain a bit then water a second time and see if run off get's higher for those plants and not re-water the ones that show better run off? Am I going in the right direction or am I just making a small problem a future big problem?

Help anyone? I am trying to do some research on my own so I don't have to bother people with small things, but right now I am fumbling along and just need to know if I am fumbling in the right direction, I know this is a bit long but PLEASE!!! PRETTY PLEASE!!!! With extra THC on top PLEASE help me.

when in doubt - flush them out.. soil ph 6.5-7.0 range for soil, hydro would be 5.5-6.0 some would say 5.5-6.5. id definitely flush their ph back to a neutral range then water w/ proper ph'd water. anytime you start to have any discoloring youre not real sure about, for soil before the problem gets out of hand. flush them out. =D

Thanks, pretty much what I wound up doing. Tested PH's and any less than 6 and they got flushed with water at about 6.5-7 flooded them let them drain, repeated several times till I saw a change in PH reading, then I let them drain and put them back. Everyone looks ok today so far.

Was this the right way to go about it?

Should I have kept it up (flooding) till run off was in the range I was after? (I was afraid of changing too much so I just waited for a slight increase, figuring the soil needed a little time soaking before it adjusted to a more acceptable level.)

" Should I have kept it up (flooding) till run off was in the range I was after?" YES! your run off water is the ph value of the soil. when you flush you're trying to neutralize your soil. I.E. put it back to PH 7. 7 being the neutral. lastly I wanted to mention as i missed the quote before. Anytime you discolor a plant, STOP all nuting. Some nutes are very alkaline as some are very acidic. By nuting youre raising and lowering your PH values and/or raises the salt content in your soils. I'm not sure if your practice a leech cycle or not. Generally people in soil will water with nutes 1-2 times then water w/ straight water as a small "flush" in between to keep their soils PH balanced.

Ok, thanks!

I did that with most of the plants, but I didn't get all of them that high, at the time I made sure that they were in the 6 to 6.5 range; well at least the one that were in the 5's. I thought maybe going to high too fast might be worse?

I had a very difficult time with half of the ones that had low PH's. I must have flushed 5 to 1 before I would even see a slight change in PH. I thought I was gonna drowned them, so I stopped on a few plants that hadn't changed much after a ton of flooding and on the next watering I only had low PH's on a few plants and I have repeated the process on the last water. I still have a few plants giving me a hard time but it is now only 2-4 instead of 10+

I really appreciate your help, thank you for the responses. Next water I will make sure to flood (well not literally but you know what I mean) till it gets there.

i have had to flush quite a few times when i was learning. by the way that does look like a ph imballance causing possible soil lock up. i have always put 2 to 3 times the size soil in water through it and let drain for an hour or so. then i add about a half cup to a cup of 1/4 nute mix after to replace what i just washed out and leave it alon till it dries completely, almost to the point of wilt before watering again. most nutes will lower ph.
do a ph of the soil. dig down carefully about half way into dirt and scoop some out, put in some water and swirl it around, strain the soil out and test that.

bonz said:

most nutes will lower ph.
do a ph of the soil. dig down carefully about half way into dirt and scoop some out, put in some water and swirl it around, strain the soil out and test that.

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I noticed how much the nutes lowered my ph, I was kinda surprised. Thanks for the tip I will do that!

i had the exact same funky leaves tokk a bit to realize it was locked up because of the different deficiencies it showed. thats lock up because it locks out all those different ellements causing multiple problems. good luck. it realy is a flooding they need kind off say a 1 gallon bucket of soil needs 2 to 3 gallons of water to properly flush, they will look sick after but will bounce back. thier pretty tough. good luck

thanks for all the info!