Please Help! leaves looking rough, droopy and curling

S

ShaunCash

Hi All
 
This is my first growing season and about 2 month in Im seeing some strange looking leaves.
 
They have lost their nice shiny coating looking more rough and matt (looks like the coating is breaking up on the surface), have started to droop and new leaves curl upwards. Also Growth seemed to have halted.
 
Background
 
Lighting are 75w 6500k florescent grow lamps about 1.6 feet above the canopy.
 
I water by picking up the cup and determining if the soil has dried out by feeling the weight of the cup/
 
I think the problem might be because I changed nutrients about 3 weeks ago.
 
I started the plants with BioBizz a organic nutrient brand.
BioBizz All Mix Soil
BioBizz Grow
BioBizz Root Juice
BioBizz Fish Mix
 
Plants were looking great until about three weeks ago when I made two big changes to their routine.
 
I changed nuts to Canna Terra Vega (all in one for vegetive growth). Not for any good reason other than giving them some variety.
 
I also changed lights to a Philips Son-T Agro HPS 400w for about 2 weeks but they did not look happy at all so I changed back to fluorescents.
 
In general when I add the nutrients to the water I kind of eyeball it but I get the feeling I always add too much.
 
Has changing Nutrient brands stressed the plants?
Do you think this is a case of too much nutrients, a sort of nutrient poisoning?
Was it the light change?
 
Pics:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36003746@N00/albums/72157666191699311
 
you are not over feeding anything. all in all they look rather healthy, or mostly healthy. everyone here has seen far worse.
 
there is what looks like some simple edema on some of the distorted leaves. what do the undersides look like?
 
edema is pretty common... lots of light and heat + a healthy watering can cause it, but you dont really need to change anything they will grow out of it.
 
some have curling of the leaf margins... this can be caused by heat or nutrient issues. i used to get this issue under my 600w HPS... when my frutenses get within a foot of the light the margins curled like a taco shell.  inside the midrib you would also see some minor bubbling or puckering inside the areas surrounded by veins(hard to explain, sorry).
 
how close was your 400w? could have been the issue. i would not let this minor curling dissuade you here... you have alot of plants. alot of plants will need that 400 watter.
 
one of the plants looks appreciably paler than ther others? is it fed any different?
 
also, this flikr photo album is shitty and annoying, no offense... it makes me look at adds like every 3 pics. can you post up the individual pics that concern you the most?
 
just put the image html code inside these [.img][./img] except remove the dots before img.
 
Sorry about that
 
Hope this works: 
 
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Welcome to THP!
 
The only thing I really notice is that when some people give nutes they don't realize that they typically have to cut the amount in half for peppers.  Tomato ferts work fine but just cut the amount in half.  This probably isn't necessary if you're happy with the results of your current feedings though.
 
to post an image type it like this
imgcode_zpsdcf4faec.jpg
 
Helvete said:
Welcome to THP!
 
The only thing I really notice is that when some people give nutes they don't realize that they typically have to cut the amount in half for peppers.  Tomato ferts work fine but just cut the amount in half.  This probably isn't necessary if you're happy with the results of your current feedings though.
 
to post an image type it like this
imgcode_zpsdcf4faec.jpg
Click to expand...
 
This is not really true. peppers nutrient requirements are a little bit less than toms, but mostly they just grow alot slower.
i water my toms and peppers with exactly the same nutrient profile and concentration the only difference being that the peppers must see some decent runoff volume while the toms can usually tolerate quite a bit less runoff volume.
 
if you water peppers with fertilizer, and without allowing runoff the nutrients tend to build up within the soil owing to how slow they are. if you water the same peppers without runoff and with half strength fertilizer solution... the same thing will happen it just takes twice as long.  
 
queequeg152 said:
 
This is not really true. peppers nutrient requirements are a little bit less than toms, but mostly they just grow alot slower.
i water my toms and peppers with exactly the same nutrient profile and concentration the only difference being that the peppers must see some decent runoff volume while the toms can usually tolerate quite a bit less runoff volume.
 
if you water peppers with fertilizer, and without allowing runoff the nutrients tend to build up within the soil owing to how slow they are. if you water the same peppers without runoff and with half strength fertilizer solution... the same thing will happen it just takes twice as long.  
Click to expand...
 
honestly it's been a few years since I even messed with adding ferts to peppers, I only grow organically and almost never have to add anything except when I repot or overwinter, even then it's usually just guano or castings.
 
Helvete said:
 
honestly it's been a few years since I even messed with adding ferts to peppers, I only grow organically and almost never have to add anything except when I repot or overwinter, even then it's usually just guano or castings.
Click to expand...
 
yea i get that. 
 
i just wanted to clarify what i believe to be a very common misconception here. people love to fucking BABY pepper plants so bad it drives me nuts.... like they are some delicate land race orchid from the jungles of bolivia.
 
its all about runoff. watering in anything without runoff is going to cause you problems in the long run.
 
Is that to stop salts building up in the soil? I've been using plant magic organic fertiliser every week or so and don't really have much runoff because of how my grow tent is set up, is that gonna be a problem?
 
Hey guys
 
thanks so much for the feedback!
 
The 400w HPS was about 2 to 2.5 feet above the plants and by the end of the day they were all droopy, same as in some cases when they are left outside in the full sun. Then by morning they had recovered.
 
Babying the plants Im definity guilty of, its hard as a newbie hehe, you get all excited, read all these forums, do soo much research and then spend hours staring at your plants double guessing yourself whether you did the right things or chose the best strategy hehe.
 
With runoff do you mean, watering your plants till you see a decent amount of water running out the bottom of the pot?
maybe this is adding to my problem, iv never allowed runoff, Iv always just watered the top half of the pot I would say. I think I do this because when dry, this soil is very lose so presumed one watering will kind of reach all the way. But I can see now how nutrients can accumulate then.
 
ShaunCash said:
Hey guys
 
thanks so much for the feedback!
 
The 400w HPS was about 2 to 2.5 feet above the plants and by the end of the day they were all droopy, same as in some cases when they are left outside in the full sun. Then by morning they had recovered.
 
Babying the plants Im definity guilty of, its hard as a newbie hehe, you get all excited, read all these forums, do soo much research and then spend hours staring at your plants double guessing yourself whether you did the right things or chose the best strategy hehe.
 
With runoff do you mean, watering your plants till you see a decent amount of water running out the bottom of the pot?
maybe this is adding to my problem, iv never allowed runoff, Iv always just watered the top half of the pot I would say. I think I do this because when dry, this soil is very lose so presumed one watering will kind of reach all the way. But I can see now how nutrients can accumulate then.
Click to expand...
 
just raise up your HPS untill they stop wilting. the plants will harden off eventually. try lowering down the light like 4-6 inches a day untill you get back to 24-36" height... or what ever height you need to cover your footprint. keep in mind that the aera directly under the bulb will be the brightest so maby place shorter plants there untill they are properly hardened off.
 
yes im talking about ensuring you get runoff when you are fertilizing via a watering. if you have not been doing it, just make sure you start. i do NOT reccomend you flush anything with tap water, just start ensuring runoff... about 10% is what you target but you can go above or under that so long as you get a decent runoff volume on average.
 
you can check for excessive accumulatin of nutrients by watering with a bit of distilled water untill you get JUST ENOUGH runoff to immerse your conductivity probe in.  the conductivity should be less than 3ec.
 
even with organic nutrients, you need to allow for some runoff. ammonia and urea and many other organic nutrients are quite toxic at elevated levels.
 
my bananna plant is quite vulnerable to ammonia toxicity... i have to be very careful with the osmocote beause in high temps it starts releasing faster.

ShaunCash said:
Do you think it would be a good idea to take some clean water next time and rinse out the soil allowing for good runoff?
Click to expand...
 
no not unless you have some acute symptoms. you do not. just get runoff going forward. far as i can tell your plant issues are not related to fertilizer, just stress due to heat/bright light.
 
when your plants mature, you should consider feeding more frequently unless you are going to  provide nutrients by amending the soil.
 
also, consider getting something brighter for your seedlings. im guessing what ever you are using prior to your HPS light is too dim to properly prepair the seedlings to be transitioned to the HPs light.
 
i use a 3 bulb t8 setup for like 2 weeks...letting them actualy grow up into the t8 bulbs. then on to a 255watt PLL fixture for like a week maby less, then outside. 
 
the plants NEVER wilt, never even blush at full noon sun.
as a rule i never exceed like 3x the light intensity when moving plants.  when moving out of the t8 fixture, i will raise up the PLL fixture untill its around 3 times brighter than the t8 fixture was... then i lower the PLL fixture untill its about 2-3x dimmer than noon sunlight. never fails me.

also, to post images from flikr you need to click the "share" button- lower right side of the image album view thing. then click to BBcode .
 
copy paste THAT html code inbetween the [.img][./img] code mentioned above.
 
here:
 
IMG_1258 by Shaun
idk shit about flikr btw.  maby there is a faster way? idk.
 
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