Last flush was June 23, around 8am. The PH Up/Down is Viagrow, got it from a Hydro shop. I did tell the guy that I was growing in soil and this is what he sold me. As for the water, it's from the local supermarket that we picked up for drinking, says purified and Ph test comes in at around 6.0 The pot is a little on the heavy side, i guess and the soil is still damp
LED still has not arrived, and UPS is only 25 minutes away......
Yeah, give it a day or two more. Tomorrow, mix up a 1/2 strength dose of nutrients and stir up well. Let it set for 30 min then test the pH and adjust. Don't go crazy with the pH up/down, it's super strong, so add a little at a time, mix well, wait 30 min and recheck until you get the pH to 6. Feed with that until you get some decent run-off and test the run-off water for pH too.
Hopefully, when you get your pH problem under control the plants will recover.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Well the SS400 final arrived 2 hours too late to hang today. Funny enough, the truck leaves at 9 am, but the customer service center opens at 10 am, so I could not have saved them the trip. Here's some photos. I would not suggest anyone look directly at the SS400 LEDs when it's on. A SS800 may be in my future.
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Thought I'd post photos of the test results in case I'm reading the chart wrong. One photo shows the soil test and runoff test one hour after watering. The second photo shows the same run off test due to the black box making it look darker than it really is. Both plants have been tested with similar results.
For comparison and I should have taken photos, yesterday the soil test was a bluish color.
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Run off PH test - One hour after watering. Same vial as one on the black box.
Runoff test.jpg (136.24 KiB) Viewed 1968 times
Soil and runoff PH test - One hour after watering.
Those drop tests aren't very accurate but you should be shooting for water or nutrients in and out at the 6.6 color with that test. So try a little less pH down next time...but give it a few days to dry out again.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
The guy at the hydro store said that a better tester would cost a few hundred $ so I took the low end route for now. I spent over an hour trying to get the PH level to as close to the 6.0 chart as I could this morning. It also took 1/2 gallon of water to get any runoff per 5 gallon pot. Is that normal? Both pots are starting to dry out since the watering this morning. I left the run off water in the tray. from the photos posted, do you think the Ph is less than 6.0? To me the level is in the 5.0 -6.0 range.
6.6 I can do that for the next watering. That will be June 27 based on what I see now. It may take two days for me to get the PH levels were I need them to be anyway. Buds on one plant are still growing. They are getting fat.
You may want to find a new hydro store or checkout an online store. Hanna pH pen meters are under 50 and while they're not the best they're better than the drop kits. They also make cheap ppm/ec meters.
Normal depends on the soil and size of the container. I wouldn't worry about "normal" in this case, it takes what it takes.
It looks closer to 5 to me too. You want Green-ish-yellow not orange so adjust accordingly next time. You don't need to test the actual soil, just the liquid going in and coming out.
Disclaimer: I still use HID and I'm NOT an LED expert. All of my LED knowledge is from other parties or research so I can't say from first hand experience one way or another. I also run a medical grow consulting business in SoCal.
Well today was a 'good' day. Rotated the plants and a stem split before I could add more support rods. Yesterday the SS400 was mounted and one 400w HPS remounted to make room. Current lighting: 400w hps, SS400, 400w hps in order. Temps in the room increased to 82 degrees, humidity dropped to 46%. A second small fan has been added but it's not doing much.
Major work on the house is about to start in a few days and the repairs to the lawn mower failed after the repair company left. Since I have most of whats needed, it time to stop wasting time playing around. I pretty sure with the right environment, a successful harvest can happen. It's been a steep learning curve. Plus I've been trying a save a few $$$. Got to spend some to grow some...lol
Thanks for for advice SisterMary, I welcome it. The new grow room is on the way. In a few weeks anyway...