Started an ilgm amnesia haze auto in tap water (ppm170) with added nutrients (4-3-6). Grew fabulously, now 3ish weeks, no problems. Added ilgm blueberry auto a week or 2 later, had issues (brown spotting on lowest true leaves) due to what I thought was switching to distilled water (tap is ph 9.5!) and resulting calcium deficiency. I ordered cal mag and added it, but symptoms got worse and started on the higher leaves too. Switched back to tap 2 days ago, continued getting worse. Added cal mag again today, but my little girl is looking crunchy and curling under, and I’m worried maybe its not a calcium issue. My older plant is starting to get brown spots on lower leaves now too. Both plants are looking pretty droopy after adding the cal mag today. Thanks in advance for any help.
Strain: ilgm blueberry auto
Age from sprout: 10ish days
Aerogarden hydro setup
PH and ppm of runoff or solution in reservoir?
6.2-6.5, 550-650 ppm, adjusted w ph down
What is strength of nutrient mix? 4-3-6, unsure ppm
Indoor or Outdoor: indoor
Room size: kitchen
Light system, size, height from plants: aerogarden plus 2 additional led lights totaling ~80 watts 6 inches from plant
Temps; Day, Night: 72
Humidity; Day, Night: unsure
Ventilation system; box fan in large room for circulation
I looked up my local water analysis and the last results show 13 ppm of each calcium and magnesium, 36 ppm of sulfates, 17 ppm sodium and 31 ppm chlorides, and a pH of 9.5.
Is it possible the higher levels of sodium and chlorides are interacting with my nutes?
The spots are rust colored on the lowest leaves and they are starting to curl under and dry out.
Welcome to the forum.
So your basically growing Hydro and I believe the solutions PH needs to be lower like at 5.8 or less so this may be an issue of the solutions PH being to high causing lockouts.
Can’t readily find the chart for Hydro PH recommendations but I’m thinking this is what you have going on.
When they are bigger what are your plans as far as moving them to bigger homes with adequate lighting to get to harvest?
Thanks for the reply. I dropped pH down to 5.8, I was hesitant to go that low because I don’t have any pH up to counter it if it drops further. I’ve also ordered some GH nutes because, after researching what I’m currently using, looks like my plants are completely missing some trace elements (boron and manganese). Hopefully switching to a more complete system will save them. I am a little confused as to why my first plant did so well and the second plant is in so much trouble when I used the same solution for both.
This is my very first grow, and somewhat of an experiment. I’ll add CFLs around the plants to supplement if they get very large. The aerogarden was a gift, I’m playing around with it. I picked some shorter strains to see if the full process could be kept in the system if I kept the roots in check. I suspect it won’t go great, but I’ve got 13 more seeds to try in a different system in the future.
