Unknown problems drying curling leaves

Hey guys. first post.

I have a few plants in an ebb and flo. timer is on 8 minutes drain, 2 minutes fill. 600 watt hps
reservoir temps at 22 deg celsius, after a flush it is down to 12 deg celsius . air temp is at 24 deg celsius

nutrients is flora series GH. I put like 15 mil of each of 3 parts to a 50 liter reservoir.

system is completely automated, drains and fills reservoir with fresh water remotely. auto corrects PH remotely.

problem is.. I have noticed a lot of the older leaves and growth dying, wilting.. and drying and curling at least from my IPTV footage. shown here. I haven't been to the site in 10 days. did a flush last night and reffilled nutrients. another problem is the PH doesn't go down easily. my dosing system has been dropping a few drops of PH down for the last few hours. Is it because I added a few parts made of steel into my reservoir and it is corroding?

I don't know. I've been having this problem with dead leaves for the past 2 weeks though, even before adding the steel parts.

Please help!

From what i see looks like a root pathogen has invaded the plants.

I had root rot in the previous grow... and I cloroxed my system scrubbed it down.. is 23 degrees celsius still too warm to stop root diseases.. worst part is.. I just bought a chiller, but didn't install it.... because I thought with the winter and the weak light there wouldn't be a need. What should I do now? I return to the site in 10 days..

Hmmm, with all due respect, there's no way to determine a root pathogen from that photo, it's a black and white taken from a bad angle.

Call me old fashion, but I think automating a small grow like this sorta defeats the purpose and may be the base cause of your problems, especially since you're going so many days without checking on them.

Have you successfully grown like this in the past?

without seeing the actual color of the leaves, it looks like over fert. the leaf curling and stunting is typical of over fert. I can only guess but since you didn't write how often you're flooding, that it's flooding too often. Since you didn't write your ppm amount, it's possible that this is too high. People worry so much about pH apparently without realizing that it's ppm that drives pH. Get your ppm right and you probably won't have to worry much about pH. Just using ml isn't enough in hydro. You need to know your ppm, so you'll need a meter and find out what is good for different stages or weeks of plant growth. If your ppm is too high and you're flooding too often, then this explains why your plants might appear fried. Heat is another issue, but it looks more like over fert right now.

wow dude those look bad...sorry but something when wrong somewhere...like really wrong

Hey Punk, I have only completed the construction phase this past summer, the farthest I got was to a tree like state in veg, plants 3 feet to 4 feet tall. They died because at the time I didn't have a proper cycletimer, and used a cheap mechanical timer, switched the flood timing to 30 min on, 3 hours off. there is a bit of leftover liquid in the tray and this plus the hot lights heated the water and between the 3 hour off periods, pythium grew and killed my girls. I made modifications to combat this from happening again. I built a plastic standoff so that the plants are lifted away from the half a liter or so leftover liquid in the tray, since the tray won't drain completely. I installed a cycle timer and set it to 2 min on/8 min off. I bought a water chiller, but didn't install it since summer was over.

this is the start of a 4kw heath robinson style tree grow. 4 lights. minisplit, CO2 enrichment.
unfortunately due to my professional working schedule, I cannot tend to the site regularly atm, this will change later this season, but I have to do this for now.

Polish pollock, the trays are flooded, 2 minutes every 10 minute cycle. The ppm when I left the site was at 600 ppm. Until I flushed the reservoir remotely yesterday.. now I don't know the ppm but know how much fert I dosed in a clean reservoir. I admit it is not ideal until I get a continuous ppm meter in there soon.

I am waiting on a break in my work schedule to get out there and see it in person.

Part of this is an experiment on how well I can automate this, and I have had some success in the past, albeit not to completion (flowering), I am not ready to give up yet.

if you can take pics, do so from a distance and up close, clear and good color, so people can see exactly what you have there. Also, there is a lot of oxygen exposure with flood and drain and this is like aeroponics. People have really cooked plants with aero because they use too high a ppm. This method isn't ideal for a remote grow and I'm guessing flood and drain isn't much better. Complex grow, good luck.

Best of luck, my friend. Polishpollack and myself tend to see eye to eye on things, and I'll have to echo his comments as well.

Just some pics of root pathogen damage.

Oh wow Jarvild,

You are right it does look similar, we will find out soon enough when I get back there. How did all your plants get the same disease if its in soil and not sharing a recirculating reservoir? I thought soil is a lot easier to deal with root diseases? I guess not..

Ekhart said:

Oh wow Jarvild,

You are right it does look similar, we will find out soon enough when I get back there. How did all your plants get the same disease if its in soil and not sharing a recirculating reservoir? I thought soil is a lot easier to deal with root diseases? I guess not..

Click to expand...

Coco coir DTW , Thing is it only affected this strain and none of the others in my garden Luckily.

jarvild said:

Coco coir DTW , Thing is it only affected this strain and none of the others in my garden Luckily.

Click to expand...

When you say root pathogen, do you mean root rot? because last time I saw the roots, they were white and healthy.. no bad odor..

you also say it's been over one week since you've seen them. in hydro it's usually algae that's the issue. unless it's a fert problem. it will be interesting to see what you find there.

I'm kind of concerned with the brass fittings and small steel plate I have in my reservoir. This is the second month its been in use with my recirculating pump. Do you think we are seeing the signs of copper toxicity from the brass?

I forgot to mention I am maintaining a 5.8 pH using automated dosing using continuous monitoring. I'm now thinking this is too high now too. Getting some kind of nutrient deficiency maybe?

5.8 is probably okay. 6.0 might be better. You won't really know until you see them. If the leaves are dark green and dying at the tips and edges, most likely it's over fert. either ppm too high or flooding too often, or both. you're the first person I've talked to that is so remote to their grow so it's hard to say because you can't put up photos right now.