33 day old tips & spots - Nute burn?

[vyserage]

Hey everyone, this is coming from my thread over at:
Vyserage's First Indoor Soil Grow - 2017

My issue is as the image shows below.

I have had those spots/tips like that for atleast 2 weeks now. Its very slowly increasing and the other plants also appear to be doing the same at a very slow rate. I have no fed my plants any nutes but the miracle grow i use is quite rich where the ppm would measure anywhere from 1200 to 1800. This is of course from day 1 water runoff ppm measurement. As the days go, it lowers. I'm curious if that is the cause of it, i don't think its a deficiency but i could easily start feeding it say 1/4th powered nutes (Fox farms) to see if it helps but up to this point i've felt it already has quite high ppm so the nutes weren't necessary. I just recently transferred them from 1gal grow bags to 3 gal grow bags so the ppm is likely high again with the new soil added. What do u guys think? I suspect the new ppm is going to run in the late 1000's and as high as 2200's. I'll know for sure at next watering.

Day 1 PPM:
* Water runoff PPM = 2030's, -44 ppm from water = 1986 range. Hopefully this wont destroy my seedlings, we'll see! Another plants ppm read in the 1600's

Day 7 PPM:
PPM measured out in the 1000's to 1200's for all plants, pH of water give to plants in the 6.4-6.5 range.

Day 15 PPM:
PPM runoff measured for the transplanted (into 1 gal grow bags) is:
#1 1713 (miracle grow soil)
#2 1587 (miracle grow)
#4 1469 (Planet Natural)
minus 394 for cal/mag ppm water (already updated numbers above accordingly)

Day 24:
PPM is as follows:
#1: 2653
#2: 1677
#3: 1483
#4: 1579
#5: 1460

 

[IndigoBreeze]

I'll never touch Miracle Grow soil again. Sooooo many Fungus Gnats.......

So many numbers - Dude, you're trying too hard.

 

[vyserage]

Haha im sure you're right, i am trying too hard. This is my first grow though so im sure ill relax as time goes on from my 2nd grow onwards. I have raised the light up about 4 inches to rule out light burn. I recently learned not to have the fan blowing directly on the leaves but instead away from them so that they all atleast still rustle around, the results i saw from 'wind burn' if u will, were identicle to my posted pic's above. So 2 things i can now rule out and see if it fixes the issue in a few days (i think it has haha).

Unfortunately i also have a bug problem. I have self identified them as springtails. I gave the plant in question a bath in a insecticide and it seem's to have obliterated all the white'ish/grayish bugs but i still see nothing but small white 'caterpillar' type larva or something moving around, seems those guys were the only thing to survive. Im sure in a day or 2 ill have more bugs since those ones survived. I wish i could get clear pictures but i ordered a 800x usb microscope kinda thing so ill be able to get good pics to show the bugs.

 

[Planter420]

Looks like insect damage take it seriously and kill them fast

 

[vyserage]

Okay guy's here's an update of those same leaf's on now day 36 almost 37 (3 days from first pics). What do u guy's think? I know the damage that was done to the leaves are here to stay, but seems to have increased in dmg in comparison. Its looking similar to nute burn from images i find on google.

Here are my water out ppm (water in ppm was 440 with calmag and ph 6.3-6.5), these numbers are already minus the water in ppm.

Plant #1: 3530 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #2 2642 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #3 2706 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #4 2201 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #5 1549 (in 1 gal bag planet natural soil)
Clone: 1123 (in 1 gal bag planet natural soil)

 

[AnimaSola]

Okay guy's here's an update of those same leaf's on now day 36 almost 37 (3 days from first pics). What do u guy's think? I know the damage that was done to the leaves are here to stay, but seems to have increased in dmg in comparison. Its looking similar to nute burn from images i find on google.

Here are my water out ppm (water in ppm was 440 with calmag and ph 6.3-6.5), these numbers are already minus the water in ppm.

Plant #1: 3530 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #2 2642 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #3 2706 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #4 2201 (in 3 gal bag miracle grow)
Plant #5 1549 (in 1 gal bag planet natural soil)
Clone: 1123 (in 1 gal bag planet natural soil)

Plants can still be Ca deficient when using calmag, Ca and Mg actually work against each other, adding extra Mg when your media already has too much can lockout Ca and vise versa. It looks like Ca deficiency to me, I always like to add a few handfuls of garden gypsum pellets to the top of my coco when I see leaves that look like that. Gypsum will add Ca and S without affecting the pH of your media.

 

[AnimaSola]

Springtails are good bugs and will help digest food for your plants.
Azamax root drench followed by spinosad drench will get rid of most soil dwellers.

 

[vyserage]

Awesome! Thanks for shareing that info! Thats now on my next thing to check! I just now flushed plant #1 down to 420's ppm (i was shooting to get it down to 1500 but only 2 gallons of water flush took it down faster than i anticipated. I let it sit for around 30 minutes and i whipped together a 1 gallon calmag + foxfarms nutrients. Water ppm read 1750's so i watered that to the plant in question, now water runoff reads 0560's so i assume in the next watering it'll actually soak up the water/nutrients correctly since its not 100% full of water already from a flush.

I'll see how the plant reacts to this and if its still worsening in a week, ill try cutting back on calmag by half as much of a dose.

 

[IndigoBreeze]

Sounds like Fungus Gnats to me and you are seeing the larvae. Do you have "Fruit Flys" flying around? (Fungus Gnats) After all - You're using Miracle Grow soil.

 

[NaturalSpirit]

Sounds like Fungus Gnats to me and you are seeing the larvae. Do you have "Fruit Flys" flying around? (Fungus Gnats) After all - You're using Miracle Grow soil.

I was thinking thrips. Last week I had them and it really scared me! Tho I found a Natural spray and after the second spray I cant find any of them anymore

Not Sure If This Could be the same, it looks a little different and you should be able to see 0,5mm thrips and Thats hard most of the times...

Anyway I wish that they get better because they have a lot of potential

 

[vyserage]

Sounds like Fungus Gnats to me and you are seeing the larvae. Do you have "Fruit Flys" flying around? (Fungus Gnats) After all - You're using Miracle Grow soil.

I have only seen a single bug flying around in the tent once and it was likely cause i had the tents main door open as i was checking the plants. Other than that, i have seen no other bugs. These same bugs that were in soil have never come up above soil, they stay inside.

The moment i see any above soil im gonna try and kill/catch one and put it up to my 20x-800x usb microscope for a good view.

I also just now ordered fly/gnat traps to place leaning up against the stem so ill know if bugs are coming from the plant. Then i can easily see the type of bug/gnats if they come up.

 

[vyserage]

I think at this point it MIGHT be safe to assume it was nute burn. After flushing plant #1 a couple days back, the leaf's i have been watching on plant #1 have not declined anymore, in fact i dare say they perked upwards just a bit. Here's a video. I'm planning to flush all plants down to a safe 1200-1500 ppm at next watering.

20170921 184339 - YouTube

 

[vyserage]

Soooo, figured out today while flushing plants that all the pH was from 5.3 to 5.7. Oh and the ppm for the 3 plants flushed today..well this is what the very first readings were vs the final reading where they now stand:

#1 (didnt flush this one, it was flushed last watering, i just watered this one some nutes)
ppm:2017 (hah)
pH: 6.13

#2
ppm: 5972 / 1761
pH: 5.30 / 5.82

#3
ppm: 3575 / 1976
pH: 5.75 / 5.94

#4
ppm: 4212 / 1875
pH: 5.62 / 5.90

#5
ppm: 1855 / 1590
pH: 6.9 / 6.59

Clone (didnt flush, these values are acceptable)
ppm: 1662
pH: 6.67

So you can see the very first water readings were crazy high ppm and waaay too low pH. Compared to plant #1 which was flushed on day 37, its easy to see that the flushing is guaranteed to help get control of my ppm and raise pH. I should have been paying attention to not only the pH of water in but the pH of water out. Im so glad to learn all of this! This means where before i deduced it to nute burn, this now means it could have literally been any sort of nutrient lockout from low pH and maybe nute burn as well from way too high nutes. My next grow is gonna be very closely watched every watering for these things now Its nice knowing my tap water at 7.2-7.5 pH can be watered straight to my plants without pH down, i didnt realize the soil changes the water down much lower so ill just keep watering without pH down until my plants water runoff is a good 6.3, then we'll see what happends and what ill do from there.

on another note, what do u guy's think about water runoff pH, is it even worth taking note of? From what im reading, people say dont bother with pH runoff, as long as your pH water in is correct range you're good. Thoughts?

edit: Some research led me to a thread with a very large debate and this is the answer i chose to follow:
Also I like to add some more insights, in case a lot of people go around and try to change the PH of their soil when it isn't necessary.

First of, no reason to change the soil when runoff water PH is at 5.5 - it's a very good PH level. You only need to be alerted when the runoff water PH is less than 5 or higher than 7.5.

Also if you are using organic fertilizers, the runoff water PH level matters less, because the nutrients are in a more complex form of compounds. The plant must decompose them before the using them during photosynthesis and respiration - therefore the level of charged ions will modified during the process of decomposition (usually to a mild and more plant-friendly level).

Now, have you wondered why we recommend to water at PH of 5.6 to 6.0 for hydroponic growing and at PH of 6.2 to 6.5 for soil? You guess it right, because in a hydroponic environment, the PH level of the water will not change much after watering. The pH of pure water is related to the relative number of hydrogen and hydroxyl ions. If water has a higher proportion of hydrogen ions, it is acidic and has a pH less than 7. If it has a higher number of hydroxyl ions, then it is alkaline and has a pH of greater than 7. But water doesn't naturally exist without other mineral ions being present. In a soil environment, there are many free uncharged elements around, so they will take up the number of hydrogen or hydroxyl ions to form new chemical compounds - and these new compounds may be helpful or harmful to the plant depending on the original chemical compounds.

When then original chemical compounds are simple compounds - usually found in non-organic nutrients like "GH bloom," etc, the PH level of runoff water represent an overall "helpfulness" of the new compounds absorbed by the plant. Therefore a PH level of 5.6 to 6.0 is optimal to the plant.

That being said, PH level does not represent everything. You can have a very harmful environment while the PH level is optimal, while you can also have a very helpful environment while the PH level is very acidic or alkaline. BUT, if you want to take less risk, it's good to keep the PH level at optimal.

so going by that info, its safe to say my pH of runoff is perfectly fine and all i should pay attention to is pH of water in and the ppm of water out. For now ill just see how the flush to lower ppm effects this grow, no need to go all crazy and watch pH of runoff all the time haha.