what intensity is the light set at? Do you have a meter or the PHOTONE App for setting PPFD or DLI. Each growth stage requires different lighting intensity 
I use Photone app. I think PPFD is around 300-350.
It sounds like everything you’re doing is fine except maybe over feeding and those cups might be too small already
@MidwestGuy @OGIncognito hey guys, so I’m really stumped now. I’m not sure what is wrong with this plant (same plant). The other 2 are doing fine, but this one has seemed to stop growing/stretching the upper nodes out, and the top leaves are still clawing. It’s basically just growing flowers now at the base of the nodes. This is 6 days now after the flush. I went to water them today but the soil is still damp 2-3 inches down. What the heck is going on? Her leaves don’t look the best either. The color on the other ones looks good but this has some weird stuff going on. Can you take a look? Thanks
(The first 2 are my other 2)
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Resembles nitrogen toxicity Growmie, what were the Recent run off numbers
They were 6.3ph and around 1,100ppm after flushing. Haven’t done anything since. But then this plant at the end of flower is back to 5.5 
(I’ll post pics below). Im so done with it bro. I flushed it last Tuesday for literal hours on end until finally getting runoff to 6.3 and I finally gave up. I just watered/fed it again yesterday and runoff is 5.5 again. 1,000 ppm. What the hell bro. Maybe a couple weeks left I think. I don’t know what else I can do. I’ve used dolomite lime on her twice. I give up. Buds will probably be fucked. And I probably just fed it again for no reason considering it won’t be able to uptake any nutrients with the root level ph being so low. Whatever
Like how the hell is runoff 5.5 again if it was just 6.3 last time I watered to runoff and I haven’t given it a single thing since?
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Also just to add, I think I had been giving it Cha Ching a little too early so I switched back to giving it Beastie Bloomz for right now. Don’t know if that was the right thing to do or not but the buds just aren’t super big and I was trying to help them grow more.
After doing some reading, I’m starting to think that all the PH down I had to use when I flushed it with like 10 gallons of 6.5 PH water has now built up in the soil and is consistently lowering my PH. The PH of my tap water is like 9. Normally when feeding, I don’t have to use it at all, because the nutrients bring it down. I actually have to use PH UP when I feed. But considering I just flushed it with hella PH down’d water last week, maybe this is the case? I still just don’t get how that’s possible if I only used PH down to adjust the water to 6.5 and the runoff was 6.3. But at this point I really don’t know what else it could be. All of my plants have extremely low runoff PH levels and thus shit is really making me just want to stop. I just can’t seem to figure out how to keep the PH up. Unless I should just start watering with a PH of 7.5, which that doesn’t make sense to my brain at all because I feel like if I do that, then the PH at the root zone will be 7.5, and then be too high. I also just don’t feel like I should have to do that shit. Like Happy Frog soil is supposed to be 6.5, I’ve always watered/fed at 6.5, I use dolomite lime, i water until runoff, and all my damn runoff levels are always low as fuck even after flushing. I think this might just be my last grow fr idk what else to do and no one seems to be able to help me bro. The whole thing is just really disappointing. My wife is also salty about how much time I spend trying to fix these levels and so am I. I spent 8 hours straight last week flushing and the closest I got runoff to 6.5 was to 6.3 and that was at 1am on a work night. I can’t keep doing this shit
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A stubborn plant or 2 can definitely be frustrating Grow Bro and have been there several times. Sounds like the medium is no longer buffering the PH at all. On the Plant with the low 5 PH, I would go in with a PH of 7.5-8 straight water, go slowl with the top watering so it doesn’t puddle up or run over the sides until your PH is in the high range of 6.5-6.8. Check the final PPMs which should be low and follow up with a feeding and PH at 7.0
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Thanks bro I will try that
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I know others have said nitrogen toxicity and I completely agree. It will take some time for her to recover, which I know is frustrating when you’re already in flower.
Sounds like you did a solid flush. Keep in mind you flushed the soil. You didn’t flush the plant (you can’t as far as I know), so it will still take her some time to work through all the excess nitrogen she already ate. Because she went through a couple stresses, nitrogen toxicity and a soil flush, she will be slow to grow and use up water in her soil. That’s normal, but again I know it’s frustrating.
One thing about testing run off - the pH and PPM should change! That means the roots are taking in nutrients. Likely there is some selective uptake happening, which would result in altered pH. Focus on having the correct pH for what you’re watering in to the soil. This is partly why frequent watering, and watering to run off, is important with salt-based fertilizer. Each time you water to run off, you’re ‘flushing’ out the old water that has a wonky pH and nutrient mix.
Something that might help is adding some beneficial microbes to your soil. They help buffer pH of the soil, and interact with the plant to help with nutrient uptake. You absolutely can use beneficial microbes and salt-based nutrients together. When salt-based nutrients are diluted to the proper PPM for feeding, they won’t kill the microbes. Some examples of good products: Recharge, Microbial Mass, Rootwise, and Mammoth P.
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Why the heck does everyone try to say that it’s so important to have runoff be 6.5 (what I’m watering/feeding at) if I’m feeding with salt based fertilizers, and that combined with nutrient uptake is clearly going to change the runoff PH? I tried to say this months ago, that I just assumed that my runoff PH was so low due to healthy nutrient uptake of nutrients, and people acted like they had no clue what I was talking about, saying that my runoff should be 6.5 (which in my experience is utterly impossible). My plants had also shown zero deficiency at all. The only “problem” for months was people telling me that my runoff was too low. My plants seemed 100% fine. So do you think it’s fine to have low runoff considering my circumstances?
I actually just got some recharge last week and was planning on using it on my 3 other plants in early flower rn after I water/feed them today. I was thinking of just giving them phosphorus/potassium/calcium/magnesium this feed though because I think they all have too much nitrogen right now. Would this be fine?
Also people say to stop using recharge around week 6 of flower, 2 weeks before harvest. So should I not use the recharge on my 1 plant that is super close to harvest? Or should I go ahead and do it to help with any potential root PH problem?
For the runoff pH issue, yeah it’s tough to wrap your head around sometimes. If your plant is healthy, I don’t think runoff pH or PPM is very important. Maybe if you’re a commercial grow and serious $ is at stake.
When the plant shows problems, run off numbers can in theory help with diagnosis. Salt-based fertilizers are very tricky this way. I gave up on them quickly. Organics have been much easier for me, and a hell of a lot less work.
I do respect salt-based fertilizers and their value. More than one way to get great bud. For me, it’s easier to use organics and mostly water-only. I don’t even have the tools to measure pH or PPM. I’ve been trying to go full living soil, getting there slowly. My living soil plants are certainly doing better than my organics.
Glad you already have recharge. I would treat all your plants with it. The ones close to flower, probably just the one dose will do. For the one with problems, try to give them as little water as you can with slightly more concentrated recharge, since you mentioned the soil is still wet.
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Should I water them before giving them recharge, or just give them 8-12oz of recharge now, since the soil is still damp? I’d imagine they won’t need watered until either tomorrow or Friday which is crazy because today is 1 week since flushing them.
I meant while giving recharge, give as little water as you can. Don’t water AND give recharge.
I don’t know the dosage for recharge. For example, let’s say if the instructions are teaspoon of recharge mixed into a gallon of water. Well for the one plant, that’s too much water. Instead mix the teaspoon of recharge into 1/3 of a gallon and give that to the plant. All the other healthy ones, give the normal dosage/amount.
Oh. The specific directions for recharge are mix 1/2-1 tsp/gallon of water and then give 8-12oz, after the soil is already wet. So typically you would feed/water your plants first, then give them recharge and apply it directly at the base
Ok thanks. So for the plant in trouble, you’re skipping the feeding/watering and just giving the 8-12 oz of recharge.
Yes. I just did that for all 4 of my plants now. Hopefully the 2 that seem like they need it will show improvement.
Question about defoliating, I just defoliated a little bit to clean up the underside of my plants and I was wondering, when trimming off the small leaves growing on a node right by a bud site, should I also trim off the flowers if they are so low on the node that none of them are getting light/I’m anticipating they won’t grow very much? Or will they just die/not grow on their own considering I am removing their direct leaves. (The part I am talking about usually has like 2 small leaves growing out on each side of the node and a flower in the corner of each leaf)
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I think there’s no one right answer here. I recommend over a few grows you try different methods. If grown and not defoliated at all. I’ve also done a pretty extreme lollipop and realized I removed mulch more than necessary and hurt the yield.
I personally, outdoor and indoor, do remove lower bud sites. I’d rather not have the smaller buds lower down grow at all. I would rather the energy go into the bigger buds near the top. I’m lazy with trimming so I don’t want to trim all the little buds either. Personal preference, and I’m still learning and tweaking all the time.
For fan leaves, my philosophy is I try to remove as few as I can. Very lower ones that are touching soil, gone. If they’re blocking a bud site, I try to tuck them out of the way first. If tucking won’t work, gone. I will remove leaves to open up airflow; I would rather hurt yield than have mold form. Moldy buds are heartbreaking.
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Lmao we sound like the exact same person bro
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