Hi, I'm doing my first grow at the moment, currently 15 days into flowering, but some leaves are starting to look pretty dodgy.

I've got a Budbox L, 600w hps, RVK125. Growing in Biobizz Allmix and feeding them Biobizz Grow and Bloom and just started to give them Topmax too. Only started feeding when I moved to 12/12

Some of the fan leaves have started to go yellow, and have some strange spots on them that I can't really identify. I had some rusty spots in veg on a few leaves, but I was pretty sure it was LSF. I got some Essence and gave them a dose about 8 days ago. I had already cut in half the infected leaves or removed the fan leaves completely and there wasn't any signs of (what I thought was) LSF when I dosed them with the Essence, but now it looks like it has come back anyway..

PH seems really high out of my tap. I am bringing down to 6.5 when I water, but was giving them the super alkaline stuff at first, I thought the soil would adjust it..

Also I let them dry out maybe a little too much the other day. These pics are from the day after watering after that.

Any advice much appreciated, I know you get loads of threads like this, bloody noobs
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The yellowing looks like the beginning of an Mg deficiency to me. the fungal spots are most likely where the dying leaves are beginning to decompose. Are the spots only on the yellowing leaves? do they go yellow first and then start going patchy?

They look wet, have you sprayed them with something?

ahh just read again, that will be the residue from the essence....

Dont Adjust the pH of the water, Biobizz allmix, grow/bloom/topmax

I would ditch the topmax right away, Its had some bad reviews about making the smoke more harsh.

how much are you giving per water grow & bloom

Could be lock-out as it's showing multiple symptoms to me.

LSF spreads through a plant, looks like you have effected leaves in different places, Meaning I don't think it's LSF at this current time

I haven't given them any Epsoms or anything, so I was thinking maybe mg deficiency too. Just had a quick look and it does seem like any strange spots are restricted to the yellowing leaves, but it's hard to tell which came first really. There is a couple of leaves that are quite green, but have started to yellow and have the rusty spots.

They aren't wet, that's the residue from the Essence!

I'm just really worried it's fungal

But when I stick my PH tester in the soil, it is really high! Are you sure it's ok not to adjust?

I will get rid of the Topmax then, harsh smoke is the last thing I want..

I've just been giving them 1ml per litre of each Grow and Bloom so far. They were in Light mix, but potted them up in All mix and then changed them to 12/12 and started to feed them.

You dont need nutes with allmix, they have all the nutes ontil flowering or a few weeks into flowering. Since you have just put them in Allmix + nutes = lock out or over feeding

How much feed are they getting, & how often do you water/feed?

What are you using to ph down? Forget about your ph.

And follow a wet/dry cycle - don't let the compost dry so much that it comes away from the pot sides. It really is detrimental to plant growth!

This is exactly what I have done. I had them in light mix and vegged them for about 6 weeks. 2 days before I flipped I put them in final pots with allmix. Today is day 16 of flower. Since the repot I watered them 4 times. The first 2 were just water. Then I added Grow on the 3rd time, 1ml per litre. Then for the 4th time I gave them 1ml per l of each Grow, Bloom and Topmax.

So I am watering every 4-5 days.

I'm ashamed to say but I have been using a hydro ph down, phosphorous acid I think..

Cheers for the help guys

It's not totally bad to use Ph adjusters for soil, you just dont need it.

4 waters in 16 days, are you sure they arent drying out.

I will stick to my theory of over feeding, Allmix is designed to last 6-7 weeks from the start of using it, you've just repotted them with Allmix from Light mix, this should be enough ontil harvest really, the Nutes are over doing it. if you want to use nutes, you could go back to lightmix that you had used already if you still have it

They haven't been drying out drastically apart from once before the last water, but I will start to water every 3 days instead. I have seen the soil pulled away from the pots a couple of times.

Maybe I have misunderstood the concept of repotting, but I just transplant almost everything into another bigger pot and surround it in new soil. Is that wrong? The roots totally wrap the soil up, I didn't remove much of the old soil.

So should I remove all the affected leaves and stop feeding and lowering Ph? And not worry so much about fungus?

yes just pull em of and just giv water for bit. till they look better .

Ok great, thanks again for your help everybody.

This is my plan, providing nobody thinks it's a bad idea. I'm going to remove all the yellow/dead leaves. Then I'm going to start watering about every 3 days, with just water, until I see any signs of them needing a feed again, which maybe I won't see at all... And I'm going to stop lowering the Ph.

At least that makes my watering job a hell of a lot easier! I hate measuring all the things out and trying to get the Ph to just the right level

Water when they need to be watered.

Well we've finished the grow now, a lot of the leaves continued to have problems, but fortunately the buds never got affected.

We stopped feeding for a little while, but they started to look like they needed a feed again, the leaves were lightening a lot etc, so we started feeding again and fed them Epsoms too. The leaves started to look healthier, but there were still brown spots spreading on the leaves but they seemed to slow down at least. It wasn't fungal, I'm pretty sure the plants just had to suck nutrients out of the leaves and the brown spots were the result. I'm still not totally sure what went wrong, whether it was under or over feeding, or lockout caused by who knows what - maybe from using phosphorous acid to ph down a lot during veg?

It looks like the only thing that was affected was yield anyway. The buds came out good - they are not as juicy as they might have been, but they are supremely potent and tasty It gets me completely battered and I am used to smoking quality weed. We ended up with 8 ounces, so not complaining at all for a first grow, and we've definitely learnt a lot from this, hopefully next time things will go a little bit smoother

Good shit.

If you want to use anything to lower the PH of your feeds, get some citric acid from wilkies. It's in the brewing section for about a quid. Lasts forever.

People say not to bother adjusting your PH when in coompost. But when I add the silicon to my water, the PH goes up to over 10. Also, I use Coco in my mix, so after this, I'm not sure what the buffering ability of my compost actually is. Giving a PH 10 feed time after time, in the mix I'm using, surely can't be a great thing. So I bring it down to around about 6.5.

Have you got good air circulation? I was just pumping the air back into the room the tent was in for far too long really, then we upgraded the ducting and exhausted straight outside and let air draw in passively from the rest of the house with the flaps on the inlets taped open to let more air in. Once we did that, things did seem to look up a bit.

But I'd have to agree with other people who replied on your thread that it's overfeeding, and that was probably my main problem too. We had them in allmix for not too long at all then we started feeding, pretty similar to what you did I think. We flushed ours not long after that and that seemed to help though, but I've heard that flushing isn't great for soil as it gets rid of lots of good microorganisms, so not sure if that's your best bet.

If I was you I would make sure circulation is good, stop feeding for a couple of weeks at least until you see definite signs of needing a feed. The other thing we got a bit wrong at first was how we were watering, so make sure they don't dry out too much, but don't overwater either. It sounds stupid to be getting that bit wrong, but it's worth reading up on how to water again anyway.

Arnold Layne's advice in your thread seems spot on really.



We used Essence and even if we didn't have a fungal problem, it is a preventative for potential mold and fungus nightmares. It's a bit of a pain to brew up and apply, but I think I'd use it on every grow in the future, just in case.

Try not to worry about it too much though, your plants look pretty healthy overall. It's really easy to get worried because a few leaves are going wrong, just try your best to take care of them and remember we're still learning

I was really really happy to get 8 ounces, but we would've been happy to get 1 ounce at this stage really. I'm sure yours will turn out good in the end too mate

Good on ya for giving us a final report...

Interesting that you noticed an improvement once you'd changed your ventilation... I've had similar problems on all of my grows (especially around the mid-point of flowering) and have tried many things but am coming to conclusion that improving my extraction is key... I'm also noticing that a lot of people face similar probs. but that might just be me...

See this thread FYI: http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?show...=177899&hl=

ATB

Stan

No probs mate, glad it's giving people hope!

I had a look at your thread and think you should definitely improve airflow if your buds are bleaching along with the leaves. I was using a non-aircooled reflector with a 600w and we had it about 12" from the top of the canopy. No burnt or bleached buds at all. If your using an aircooled reflector, I really can't see that being your problem.

We just had 2 clip fans in there. They were setup to maximise airflow, but next time I would try and get an oscillating fan in there if I can find room. But we had one of the clip fans at the bottom to move air through the plants too. If you just have one fan passing over the top of them and bad extraction, there's probably not much air passing through the plants, which means not much CO2 for your babies.

Taping the flaps open really helped if you are using passive intake in a budbox or similar, but watch out for light leaks. We built cardboard hoods that taped over the inlets that prevented light leaks but still let loads of air pass go into the tent. And we had a RVK125 extracting straight outdoors, with good airflow coming from the rest of the house. Next time I'd like to use another RVK as an inlet but we'll see.

Check how you are watering too as overwatering and/or overdrying can cause problems like yours and mine too. Like I was saying to Gsxr, it might sound a bit stupid to be getting that wrong as it seems so simple, but I'm sure lots of people don't read up too much on that as there are loads of things to worry about that seem more important when starting out.

Epsom salts could help you, it seemed to make a difference on greening up the leaves for us.

I'm still not 100% convinced about the pH thing, we have really crap water here, pH is off the scale on my little meter. I think I would take papduc's advice above and get the citric acid for my next grow.

I'm no expert at all, I'm just a newbie that did 1 grow that came out ok - but just try to nail the basics and keep it simple. You can get more technical once you have a grip on a simple grow.

Hi Pookie

Did you go 12/12 2 days after final pot up?

Roots need time to develop like 10 days or more

Could have caused problems with your grow

Root them out before 12/12 bro



hb

- that's what I plan to do next time...


Thanks for those thoughts mate - I've dealt with the watering problems last year... I grow in hydro so it's a little different and epsom salts don't really apply since getting a deficiency is usually a sign of lock-out rather than underfeeding in hydro (the nutes contain all the necessary elements/compounds)... pH is, however, something to watch in hydro.

ATB

Stan