Ok, I have transplanted all of the large plants and they were certainly due. Anybody tried the fabric bags to grow in. Am trying them on this transplant. Fox grow media and a TDS meter. my tap water is 324 and coming out is 208. That is with no nuits. So what does that mean? Plants are looking better already from last night’s transplant, no shock at all. Thanks
That means you have a lot of the “hard water” minerals staying in the soil, they will eventually build up and make your soil way too alkali. Just like all the limescale that builds up around your faucets, all that stuff can build up in your soil too. Water much above 100 PPM to maybe above 150 PPM could potentially cause you problems in the long run.
It sounds like you really could invest in an r/o water filter:
http://www.amazon.com/APEC-Premium-5-Stage-Reverse-Drinking/dp/B00I0ZGOZM/?tag=greenrel-20
And I think you can find a 100 gallon a day R/O without all the extras for drinking, for about $75 on amazon:
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Should I water with DI water for now?
Yes, use near zero PPM water, and monitor your run off’s pH or keep an eye on it with a soil probe to make sure it doesn’t go too acidic, which can sometimes happen during flower. Shoot for keeping at 6.5pH.
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A thought about deionized water, the stuff from a water mart or grocery store is all you need. You don’t need to use the stuff supplied to hospitals, dialysis machines, or laboratories, you don’t need that ultra purified stuff, and in fact if it is “too de-ionized”, it will strip ionic mineral compounds from your soil, and that could be a bad thing. Plus that stuff tends to be really expensive and you just don’t need to go to that kind of trouble.
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Thanks Mac, Got some “Distilled” at WalterMart and some from the Water store with an expected result.
WalterMart = 00 ppm and Water store = 22. I believe the Water store is R/O and I would expect the distilled to be 00.
So based on your comments, the 22 is better than 00. However I have ordered the R/O unit and this is just for the meantime. What should I expect from the R/O unit? BTW, this water discussion has been very enlightening, finding out what our tap water is (324 ppm) and we were drinking it. We can use the R/O unit for all our drinking and watering needs. Feel much better about that. Thanks
Na, I’m not really saying one is necessarily better than the other, just you don’t need to pay extra to get it all the way down to 0.0 ppm. Ideally the zero ppm is best, only in that you have 100% control over what you are feeding your girls.
Also the measurements we are using to zero ppm, or distilled water from the grocery store, we are not talking the ultra pure stuff that is so ion hungry it eats through copper pipes or strips minerals from your soil. There is a tiny bit of something in the zero ppm Wallymart distilled water I’m sure. It is probably just way too little to show on your average 10-30 dollar EC or TDS meter, like maybe 0.000 or even finer to read what it might be.
But in general, anything under 50 ppm, and with a good ‘complete’ nutrient system, and you’re golden.
Spring mineral water might have a relatively high ec/ppm but it would be supplying a lot of the nutrients that cheaper plant foods might not include, but then you need to know how it may also change your pH and maybe have to adjust.
Most of these newer “name brand” nutrient systems are assuming you are going to be using with near zero ppm R/O water, and actually using tap water or mineral mountain spring water might throw your pH off, or contribute to other unforeseen problems.
Have you seen our complete nutrient system? Buy Cannabis Nutrients | Marijuana Nutrients for Sale | ILGM
Happy growing!
MacG
BTW, be sure you follow the direction and properly flush the unit with 10 gallons, or something like that, of water, before you actually use it.
You might want to add a carbon filter for flavor – for drinking water.
And be sure you are getting plenty of minerals, like drinking tea made from it will give you some minerals from the tea leaves. Or a otherwise healthy mineral rich diet, bananas for potassium, and dark green leafy vegetables for iron and calcium, and garlic is good for calcium as well, as you won’t be getting any of it from those 300ish ppms, that was mostly made up of calcium carbonate, some iron and maybe some copper and other trace needed minerals, most likely.
Gotcha, just tested the runoff water with the 00 H2O and the reading was 170 ppm. BTW the girls are looking awesome, buds are about 3cm x 3cm. Two weeks flowering
Correction, buds are 1.5 x 1.5 cm
2.5 weeks into flowering and still have the tacoing issue, but I think they look awesome. Buds are growing daily. I didn’t think I had tacoing on the GG plants but looking at the pics, they have some too. GG are the shorter ones with less tacoing. I have transplanted, changed to 00 ppm h2o, watering every other day and giving nuts every other watering, ordered an R/O device, and still tacoing. They seem to be growing just fine and the lower leave flatten-out just fine. There is a big difference btw Kush and the GG. could it be just difference in strain? Here are some pics:
The twins:
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Yes, some strains are more sensitive than others to pH problems or too high of nutrients. If you are keeping the pH under control, it is probably too strong of nutrients building up in the soil.
Testing the run-off EC or TDS might give you some insight. The one’s with the worst taco-ing will likely have the highest EC or TDS in the run-off.
You might only need to give nutes less often, maybe every few waterings instead of every other watering.
Also, heat stress and humidity could be factors, especially if you are not seeing the usual tip yellowing or browning. This might explain the shorter plants taco-ing less as well, being farther from the lights and getting less heat, as well as less light…
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Yes they are getting pretty close to the light, now. will raise the light. What ph are we looking for in the run-off? I assume with out any nutes.
pH should be 6.5 in soil
Am halfway into the 4th week of flowering and everything looks pretty good to me. I believe we have made a major dent in the tacoing issue, however there is a little more curling of leaves in small areas, than tacoing. But for the most part the leaves are coming out nice and straight and horizontal. Remember, two different varieties; one is more bushy (Grape God) and the other more long and stemy (Kush). I have done everything we have discussed except ph adjust. Currently my ph is at 7.0. Should I adjust to 6.5? if so with H2SO4?
Yup, looking much better. Yes, if using distilled or zero ppm r/o water isn’t bringing it down fast enough, you can use a little sulfuric acid, sparingly.
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Thanks, been testing ph in swimming pools all my 60 yrs. Is the good ole phenol red testing kit ok
I think that is ok, maybe, in general. But as I understand it, phenol red is only good for testing between about 6.0 to 8.0
In soil you want to keep things at about 6.5, and in hydro at 5.8
In soil or in hydro, things can easily get well below 5.8 and well above 8.0 and so it seems it might be able to give a decent idea of what is going on in soil as long as things are staying around optimal, for soil, say keeping things between 6.0 and 7.0. But it would be lacking in tracking things close around the ideal range for hydro, say trying to keep things between 5.4 and 6.2.
There is a bottle of green drops that works very similarly,isn’t really any more expensive than phenol red kits, and would give you a better reading pH spectrum closer to what you want for your plants.
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Week 5 ofn flowering…I am blown away at the progress. Have done a fair bit of fimming (F@#$ I missed!) of the big palm-sized leaves to clear some light space. Almost all of the big leaves are gone now and buds are pulling away from the main branch. But all bud hairs are still white, maybe turning a little yellow in a few places. We are getting close to harvest, I think. Maybe another week or 2. any comments welcome.
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Well that type of pruning of big fan leaves is not FIMMING. But it looks like your grow is doing pretty well, thanks for sharing!