Water Testing Results- Help Interpreting Data

[latigid aikon]

2 hours ago, Cajafiesta said:

I'm a bit suspect of the test, almost.

Get a cheap EC meter, if your water is as soft as the report says it'll have a very low EC value.

 

Does the report mention EC or conductivity?

[mysticriver]

23 hours ago, Cajafiesta said:

the math doesn't make sense to me. 

I too would like to know why my hardness is at 0.7ec but my water test results, specifically the Ca & Mg levels dont account for anywhere near that. What other contaminants make up for the rest of the ec value?

 

 

mystic

[latigid aikon]

42 minutes ago, mysticriver said:

What other contaminants make up for the rest of the ec value?

Sodium salts? What does your report say?

[mysticriver]

21 hours ago, latigid aikon said:

What does your report say?

apologies for the delay in getting your water test done I had some time off and your test arrived then, the others are not confident using the mini spectrophotometer.

Results are below, values in parts per million (ppm) except pH.

Calcium        66

Magnesium  24

Sulphate       54

Alkalinity       97.6

pH                 7.4

 This is a moderately hard water with  moderate levels of Calcium, Sulphate and alkalinity along with high levels of Magnesium. We would recommend using a hard water food with this water. The high Magnesium value gives a Ca:Mg ratio of around 2.4:1 when using our food which is inside the good range so should not be a problem.

 

 

mystic

[latigid aikon]

@mysticriver I assume that's a Growers Ark report? Have you looked at your water company's report? That will have more info and it'll be interesting to see if it correlates with the Growers Ark data.

 

[mysticriver]

Just now, latigid aikon said:

ave you looked at your water company's report?

yes its on another thread somewhere, I haven't compared the two but then again im on RO water now so im not that bothered.

 

 

mystic

[latigid aikon]

Just now, mysticriver said:

im on RO water now so im not that bothered.

Have you asked Growers Ark if they have recommendations for using their products with RO?

[mysticriver]

Just now, latigid aikon said:

asked Growers Ark

no im using shogun coco a&b along with their calmag atm

 

 

mystic

[latigid aikon]

@mysticriver How is that working out? Are you using the same amount of calmag with every watering or tailoring it to the stage the plants are at?

[ukbudz]

On 26/02/2022 at 1:25 PM, Cajafiesta said:

flowered in 1 gallon pots. 

Ah my bad mate I thought you were running in a much bigger pot for true no till.

 

I'd say the pot size is the problem as it won't have anywhere enough nutrition to last a full grow and cycle the nutrients hence why you're seeing problems through starvation which can appear as several deficiency's at once. That's why the clones in the new richer mix have picked up.

 

Get some bigger pots at least 56l or 10gallon fill them with your new mix and give them just water and I'll bet all your problems go away.

 

If you want to stay in smaller pots they'll need fed after say 2 weeks with bottled nutrients, then you're cal/mag water ratio would matter more. 

[mysticriver]

23 hours ago, latigid aikon said:

How is that working out?

I have issues. I was at a loss, but the other day I read on FastBuds site (they were answering a question from another grower) that there may be an increase in need for Ca & Mg when grown under 24hr lighting conditions. Which does sound like it could have some merit, so (its been 2 days since) I upped the CalMag concentration from 400 microsiemens, which is 0.4ec in our common language, to 450 (which is 0.45ec)

I was already at a level [at 0.4ec] which I thought was really the upper limit of how much we should be making the RO water up to. ive nothing to lose by trying it. (Saying that, of course I do have the girls/ladies to lose, but im at a loss for what else to do)

The symptoms im having are, even though ive managed to keep most of the dark green leaf colour in most of the plants and, there aren't any deep seated deficiencies to speak of, however, I have issues in the lower leaves where it drained the dark green leaf colour, and I can see issues therefore in those, and on other plants there is a general draining of the healthy leaf colour.

im gonna need photographs here...

Back soon.

 

 

mystic

[mysticriver]

27 minutes ago, mysticriver said:

Im gonna need photographs here..

this is the darkest green stardawg I have, but there are issue in some of the older leaves

here's another dawg, note the draining of the leaf colour (and before you say 'owt, it happened before flower)

another. there's a theme developing...

and another

dawg 5 is next. deffo a theme developing. she's prolly the worst

close up of the above plants leaves

and

Next up there is a Big Yield auto by phoenix seeds. She's younger than the others (~23 days from seed), so there aren't any issues really - perhaps a little colour drain but that is improving, I have no worries with her. The stardawgs are at 5 weeks 2 days.

Lastly there is a Ginger Punch (Hobbit) auto by I forget the name (freebie, like the big yield auto)

and here's a close up of the leaf issue with the hobbit

 

That is the general theme that has happened with them all. These plants, or the way I grow them, is so sensitive its unreal. I managed to have them all a healthy colour, that was at 2.5ml/L coco nutes, and I noticed that there were early signs of over feeding in the leaves i.e. a rich dark green colour and the tips of the leaves starting to turn down - toxicity - so I backed off to 2ml/L coco nuts, for like 3 days, and thats when I lost the dark green colour and the other issues started becoming more apparent. That was in mid to late veg, that backing off of the nutrition, and ive been playing catch-up ever since...

Its been bit of an experiment because although I had a good result with a finished stardawg recently, I didn't know how to start them, as I switched to RO water about 2 weeks in on the stardawg that won. So they've been started on anything up to the calmag at 0.4 and plus up to 2ml/L coco nutes. And they've still had issues develop. The hobbit and the big yield are on calmag and 2.5ml/L nutes, the stardawgs are on the calmag and 3.5ml/L.

Increase the Calmag. Already have done.

 

 

mystic

 

Edited March 1, 2022 by mysticriver

[mysticriver]

and I add that they have all started in a similar way to the hobbit. with the big yield, that doesn't look that bad, she's on some LST and ive trimmed the bottom offending leaves.

 

 

mystic

[mysticriver]

Also, I contacted Fastbuds for clarification. They wrote back today and said (because I asked to what level I should up the calmag to?) that on the Shogun website it says to add between 1 - 2ml/L, so go with that.

1ml/L of calmag gives an ec of 0.33. 2ml/L would be an ec of 0.66, which seems a lot.

Considering that I have to add coco nutes on top. 1ml/L of coco nutes is = to 0.5ec. So 2ml/L of coco nutrients, on top of the calmag, would (and does) give an ec of 1.4ec. Which is what I fed the hobbit, 1.4ec, at seedling, and it still went

They all did. the others were started on less coco nutes per L - like I said I didn't know what to start them on, and gradually worked up to 2ml/L when I later started the Hobbit. 

I was scratching my head until I read about the possible increased need for Ca & Mg when grown under 24hrs light (especially LED I would have thought). Another thing that makes me think and hope that the issue is the calmag, is that once I got to 2.5ml/L coco nutes with all of them, they have put on a healthy dark green. When I backed off to 2ml/L, that wasn't enough. But even at 2.5ml/L and the healthy dark green, the issue [with Ca, I reckon] still manifested on some lower leaves. Because I trimmed at 3 and 4 weeks LST.

 

 

mystic