I cant get my nutes above 160 ppm with out burning them.

[pappawheelie]

Hey everyone this is my first post just wanted to say thanks for all the info on the site.
Ive been growing my mommas for about 6 months they are about 2 1/2 feet tall. I've cloned off of em and flowered em once with ok results still drying so dont really know how good. I have 6 mommas in a large aeroponic / dwc tote with about 18 gallons of R.O. water. I've had one major concern my nutes are at 160 ppm for my mommas, 50 ppm for clones and when i flowered them they were about 8"-10" tall and at 140 ppm. Any higher and they will burn. I started with liquid earth nutes but just switched to general hydroponics and have the same problem. I'll try and give as much info as poss but let me know if i had left something out.

I have R.O. water starting at 0 ppm ph'd at 6.0
water temp at 68
3 part GH nutes
in the tote i have 2 large air stones.
veg room temp 75
veg room humidity at 60
I have good ventilation and had co2 but mommas grew to quick.
I have a separate room for flowering
1 400 w mh light for veggin and 2 600 w hps for flowering.
They all look pretty healthy but it just seems kinda odd. Does anyone know whats goning on here?

Pappawheelie

 

[Racefan]

are you sure your pen doesn't tell you to times it by ten? When my PPM meter reads 160 with a smalll "x" in the readout it means times by 10 which would be 1610 and that's a pretty maxed out PPM mixture. If that's not the answer you need to either calibrate your pen or get a new one because 160ppm will not support life let alone growth.

 

[pappawheelie]

Hey Racefan
I have a new blue lab pen its calibrated for ph but I don't
know How to do it for the ppm I'm gonna look into it. And
as far as the X goes I didn't see one. I'm using GH nutes
2 tsb gro. 1 tsb micro 1 tsb bloom Into A 18 gal rez.
Every day I bring it up to 160 ppm and when I Check it
the next day its around 50 ppm

 

[Caber1]

In that size of reservoir with those 4 tablespoons of nutrient I would expect that the reading should go up much more than 160 ppm.
Meters are funny though and you need to know exactly how it is reading ie:what scales is it using, and you need to check it in different places.

Because of water movement and pumps and what have you when I take ph and ppm readings off my reservoir I get wildly high numbers in the ppm department.
Yet when I take a cup of the nutrient out of the reservoir and do my readings in the cup then everything seems to be at the right level and stable as long as I've mixed right.

 

[Stix]

Hey Racefan
I have a new blue lab pen its calibrated for ph but I don't
know How to do it for the ppm I'm gonna look into it. And
as far as the X goes I didn't see one. I'm using GH nutes
2 tsb gro. 1 tsb micro 1 tsb bloom Into A 18 gal rez.
Every day I bring it up to 160 ppm and when I Check it
the next day its around 50 ppm

Amounts will vary with age of your plants

Example: 3 weeks into veg. You should be using the following PER GALLON

Flora Gro 2 - 2.5 teaspoons

Flora Micro 1 - 1.5 teaspoons

Flora Bloom .5 - 1 teaspoon


As you can see your WAY below what you should be feeding your plants. Your not burning your plants due to nutrient overdose. Your killing them by starving them just like Racefan said. There's a GH Flora series feeding chart on this site somewhere. I just don't have time right now to search for it. Someone else may be able to find it for you. Take a look at it.
Good luck.

Anyway you can post a pic of the plants?

 

[pappawheelie]

I agree I'm way below in nutes but it is defiantly nute burn. Twisted leaves and holes burning through. Working on getting pics. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong as this is my first run at this. Something has to be holding them back. I had tried flushing with straight ph'd r.o. water for 3 days when cloning and they did look a little happier but no help. I was just thinking I never took into account all the roots in the tote. I have 6 plants way too close " will know soon which ones to keep" as I only plan on having 2 mommas. But when I had started the mommas they had no roots in the water. Now the entire bottom of the tote is filled with roots. So my point is my rez is not as big as it use to be I'm thinking like 8-10 gal rez instead of 18 gal. Do you think my rez is too small now. I change the water once a week! They still seem to be growing ok but not what they should be!!!

I'm gonna give a run down of things that I think are good.

1. My air lots of it intake exhaust osc fans top and bottem I have co2 but not using it now. Sentinel cooling heating humidity co2 controller. "love this"

2. Water and nutes started with 30 ppm tap water but switched to r.o. water @ 0 ppm for some time now. I had started with liquid earth nutes and thought that was the problem so I had switched to GH.

3. Air cooled 4oow mh light.

4. ph'd hydroten

5. When I change nutes I change totes with one cleaned with bleach water, 10% bleach 90% water let sit for twenty min with water pump and air stones and rinse everything good.

6. blue lab nute pen

Ok now things that could be bad

1. Me I have no idea what im doing so I just keep reading and searching in hopes of helping out my little babies with all ears open.

Also I do have the GH chart and tried the mild growth and growth programs and no help. I think I'm gonna switch to d.w.c. and ditch the aero sprayers for now and add more water to the tote. I'll let you know how it works!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I have not seen anyone else with this problem and it's driving me crazy.

Pappawheelie

 

[Stix]

Do you have an airstone running in your resevoir 24/7? If not, go get one immediately. It's critical that you have an airstone in your resevoir. Especially when your roots are sitting in the nutrients. Your roots need oxygen to live. You can simply go to an aquarium store and use an air pump and stone that they have.

 

[pappawheelie]

Yes Stix I have a maxima elite air pump. 2 outlets, 2500 x 2 cc/ minute, 2.5 psi recommended for 30 gallon aquariums with two 12 inch air stones running since the day I plugged it in. Do you think that's enough?

Thanks for the charts Pit but I already have it. I know it sounds crazy to have nute burn at 160 ppm but that's what happens when I go above that. In less there is something else that looks like nute burn but isn't.

I don't know much about growing but I do know a little about engines. When you build a motor up for more power you put on a bigger carburetor to get more gas now you need bigger intake bigger valves larger exhaust to get the gas out quicker and so on. I think I am missing a piece of the puzzle and it's not letting me go above 160 ppm. Like Stix said with the air stone I feel like I'm missing something like that that's holding em back. Could it be my 400w mh light? Also when I was running co2 I had it at 1500 ppm and still not able to go above 160 ppm.

Pappawheelie

 

[Stix]

We can most definately rule out nute burn. I'm thinking it may be a ph problem. Your airstones should be fine. What are you using to balance your PH. What tester are you using to measure your PH? What was the starting PH level of your tap water?
BTW: How old are your plants?