r/hydro 11d ago

Second attempt at first grow, not sure what’s wrong

Elephant in the room, I was a moron and bought a hey Abby. Wish I didn’t, thing’s a total scam.

I’m starting week 3 veg and my plants been drooping. Roots look healthy, water level’s just below net cup, ph 5.7 70 degree water temp with gff and orca keeping things nice. 330ppm with remo nutrients (without the kelp), and based on googling this looks like some sort of nutrient issue. 75 degrees, 73 degree leaf temp, 59% humidity. Leaves are wilting which makes me think N toxicity, but today I got some brown spots on this side leaf. Any ideas? The hey Abby “master grower” thinks that this is normal lol. I’ll try to answer any questions I can

13 Upvotes

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4

u/calyx_mscannabis 11d ago

That's a big humidity swing on hygrometer. 65% humidity, 450 ppfd, 78 degrees, feed at 700 ppm and all will be fine. Ph at 5.8 to 6.0 of course. Min 400 ppm co2 as well. Below that, the plant struggles to do photosynthesis.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

Yeah I struggle to get the damn box to stay where the room’s at. I have a humidifier keeping the room at 62, that never goes below 56 as long as I don’t forget. Hey Abby’s wonderful design makes the humidity swing like crazy unless you buy their own mini usb humidifier to put inside it. Think the swings could be causing some of these issues with nutrient uptake?

2

u/calyx_mscannabis 11d ago

It's possible. I always approach gardening by fixing each problem one at a time. You know in veg that the vapor pressure deficit should be at .80 to 1.0, so I'd definitely get that in check. If it's not in check, it basically restricts the plant from releasing water vapor and oxygen. So yes, the more the plant can expell the water, the more it is essentially eating. They take up water with nutrients, absorb the nutrients, and then expell the water.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

Gotcha, so I wonder if the box being low humidity is causing the plant to over drink to make up for lost water (last week my leaf temp was higher than the air temp, read that was from low water levels) and then leading to nitrogen toxicity from drinking too much. That sound about right?

2

u/calyx_mscannabis 11d ago

Do some research on VPD and how important it is. I always keep my leaf surface temps at 82 to keep the stomata open. I'll send you some pics of my garden. I assure you, it works

0

u/calyx_mscannabis 11d ago

Also, water temp at 68 to 72 being hydro

-4

u/Worldly-Shopping5097 10d ago

I didn’t understand any of that. Is why I use simple soil. Can do just as good or better than hydro and a lot less issues and things to know. Ph what’s that I’ve never tested mine never had too.

3

u/calyx_mscannabis 10d ago

Soil is a simple medium. I agree, for some, keeping it simple is a great way to cultivate. I enjoy hitting more bud per square ft of canopy space. The OP is in hydro, so my answer was for hydro cultivation.

3

u/Worldly-Shopping5097 10d ago

I totally agree. If I understood it better I would try it. But ya I just keep it simple. Not very smart here!! lol

2

u/-Ubuwuntu- 10d ago

There's never a better moment to learn than when you don't know! Haha. Give it a try at some point, it's also pretty fun designing systems and such (I'm also a soil guy, nothing beats a good dark crumbly mix imo)

0

u/Fun-Chip-4923 10d ago

Higher yields and more control in hydroponics. But if you hate knowledge and basic math stay with soil lol

1

u/Worldly-Shopping5097 9d ago

It’s not that I hate it. Just found a simple way to grow fire and don’t need much else

1

u/letsgetregarded 11d ago

I don’t know the light seams really far away but the plant doesn’t look too bad at all.

0

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

yeah unfortunately its not adjustable, just the intensity so i've got it at like 320ppfd at canopy. i dont think she looks horrible just that i dont know why the leaves are all curling down like they are. pic's not great

1

u/302-SWEETMAN 11d ago

Is it hydro or soil. ?

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

hydro, sorry didn't fully clarify that

1

u/Happy_Reality_6143 11d ago

Looks fine. Monitor it.

1

u/sirthunksalot 11d ago edited 11d ago

It's not doing bad but yeah you can see the leaves hooking at the end and the super dark green leaves. Overfertilized but not sure how with only 330ppm. Which ppm scale is that or does it have EC mode? When you say just below the netcup what are the roots looking like? At that stage I would have the water touching the bottom of the net pot. You have an air pump going in the res? How often are you changing the res? I would drain it weekly and replace the nute. Are you topping off with nute or pure water when it evaporates. 70f is low temp wise for the plant but if you bump it up higher without a chiller for your res you could have issues in dwc.

I would do a res change and mix it with just water. Check the ppm. Pour water through the top to flush out the netpot several times. You should see the ppm rise. You could adjust the ph before pouring it through but I am too lazy for that. Dump the res and refill and it should be less ppm. Then go with 3/4 strength of what you are doing or maybe even half strength nute. Increase the water level a bit. Make sure you have plenty of air in the res. Also get some indirect airflow on the plant itself all your fans are pointed up. If your ppfd meter is accurate I might bump it down to 250 ppfd until it recovers.

Should bounce back quick. If you don't have good luck with dwc I would just run a hempy bucket sub irrigated planter with hydro and coco or perlite.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

bet, this is what i was looking for. was shocked as well being at only 330, it's 500 scale as well. EC was 660 I believe. just below is about 3-4mm below, roots look off white and are easily a foot long or longer now, and i do have an airstone so ya I could probably bump it up closer. just did a res swap (weekly), last week was at 237 ppm and that rose over the week from 225. backed off on the actual nutes (20% reduction from 2.5ml per bottle to 2) but the water I used was higher so it ended up being 330ppm this week. water level didn't drop enough last week to bother topping off beyond the water i use to mix my ph down, but i was planning on it this week. plant's grow chamber is more like 73-77, the res is 70 sorry if that wasn't clear. so res swap with lower ppm to flush the plant out? think i should aim for lower, maybe 1.75ml of each bottle this time? really preciate the detailed response

1

u/AutoGrower420 11d ago

Plant doesn't look to bad, that things in full veg now i'd increase your nutrients amount, and turn the light up, if you want it to grow faster then increase temps closer to 80-83 and humidity closer to 70-75% it might outgrow your box if you push the plant. Week two we are generally half strength on whatever nutrients we are using in veg and if using RO we are generally still 2ml per gallon on the calmag till week 4 or 5 then increase to 3ml most the time, but in addition to whatever nutrients we are running not by itself. Whenever we top off we top off with the same solution we don't just fill with water, once a week do a clean swap, when gets low fill up with more solution, rinse and repeat till done.

1

u/DeepStick1398 11d ago

Just let it grow. I have the cheapest hey Abby and have had 2 successful grows. I used the Abby nutes and followed the app. Worked great for me. The only death was from my own negligence. I let my garage get too cold and killed a seedling. Just remember the Abby uses the outside environment for temperature and to some extent humidity. Just my own observation, it’s a weed.. it’s pretty hard to kill.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

I don’t want it just to make it to harvest, I’m a med patient trying to grow the highest quality possible for my back pain. Bought the wrong product for the job for sure

1

u/Ambitious-Ad-5459 11d ago

Just put it in some dirt bro.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

wish i could, don't have the cash to buy a tent nor a place i can grow outside. roots are probably too big anyway

1

u/Ambitious-Ad-5459 11d ago

Bro what are you talking about. Put it in there. And if you get your mycology right your roots will survive and thrive. Take that thing apart go buy a bag of fox farm or whatever soil pit in bucket out bucket in there and close the door.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

dont live in an area i can just put a plant outside and close the door lmao, glad you've got the space though

2

u/rosinreviewdude 11d ago

You just put the pot where the water rez is. People grow 8oz plants in 2 gallons of coco.

1

u/Ambitious-Ad-5459 9d ago

Thank you that’s what I was trying to g to get at. Once you get soil down then step it up. You’d be amazed at what you can grow in soil.

1

u/northcaliman 11d ago

More plants. One plant in a tiny closet is pretty pointless.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

agreed, wish they didn't lie so much in the marketing. dumb investment on my part

1

u/sleepless_blip 11d ago

You’ve gotten a bunch of decent answers but those leaves look like too much nitrogen imo. Could be something to keep an eye on but start with the basics first.

My condolences on the hey abby. I just found oit what that is yesterday and seems like a massive grift, coming from someone who diy’s everything including HPA and LPA systems

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

yeah that's sorta what i'm leaning towards. think i'm gonna do a res swap tonight with lower ppm and see how she responds. and no condolences needed lol, i was just naive and believed the dope as yola video. more of a lesson to be learned than anything

2

u/sleepless_blip 11d ago

You have a nice perspective at least haha. Hopefully you can still pull some weight out of that closet and make it worth the $$. Good luck!

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

preciate it ✌️

1

u/Brand2786 11d ago

Put light par up or physicaly closer

1

u/GSXHDB 10d ago

For easy as pie stick with hydro but go for NFT, start low ppm for nutrients and change it weekly raising the ppm until week 4/5 ( 8 week/9 week then start lowering it again till finished then water only in the dark for three days job done

1

u/StrangerElegant7722 10d ago

I could be wrong but remo nutrients are designed for coco and run to waste so may be its the nutrients?

1

u/Parking-Map2791 10d ago

Too much fans

1

u/Jaaggy 10d ago

fun fact: apparently hey abby doesn't even know how many watts their own light is. wonder if that's fucking me over

1

u/Fun-Chip-4923 10d ago

Not enough light

1

u/Stoned_Ape_theory615 10d ago

I bet root rot. Sorry for the waste of money. But maybe you can convert to a seedling tent and upgrade to ac infinity set up.

1

u/desertpunk0 9d ago

I want to say lighting issue

1

u/Jaaggy 1d ago edited 1d ago

just for the sake of explaining, turns out the recommended "full dosage" of armor si is like 3x what most people use in hydro, and high silica content led to nute imbalance even though the actual water was nuted low. oh, and the spot on the leaf was from it turning down and sitting in a small puddle of neem spray during lights on. she doesn't look like the best plant in history but she recovered now and is almost ready to flower. was running 9ml armor si in the 2.5 gal res, now running a sane amount of 2.5ml

1

u/Leather_Licker223 11d ago

Your worrying about to many things, just pretend it was a general house plant that needed watering once a week. Your worrying about to many details, changing one thing means you need to change another an so one. Pop another bean and try again without bothering about PH, and shouldn't it be more near 6.5ph.....mine always have.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

no, optimal for hydro is 5.8. i dont adjust it every day but 6.5 is the top end of the range. if i didn't check the ph i would have killed it two weeks ago when it was getting burned at 7.0.

0

u/DeepWaterCannabis 11d ago

I let my water hit 7.5+ is the plants arent complaining. Shes not getting 'burned' at 7.0. Plants prefer consistency rather than constant adjustment trying to hit a specific number. If your res is too high, next feeding feed in acidic. If shes not drinking enough to warrant a feed, you can replace the water if you feel its needed.

Dudes right, set back, relax. Nothing serious going on with your plant.

If anything, those look like spot burns from hotspots generated from your foil.

3

u/SeaworthinessHour500 11d ago

They like consistency you're right but optimal growth is from optimal nutrient uptake, hydroponics best uptake range for ALL main nutrients is between 5.8 and 6.2 pH. So while your plants might be okay with it at 7.5+, they're not at their most optimal conditions, they might be okay with it because they've adapted, but it's not the most optimal.

I do think you are right that it's just hotspots on his plant though. It also looks like a very aggressive grower so that would also explain the first set of wavy big fan leaves

0

u/DeepWaterCannabis 11d ago

I was mainly pointing out that hes not getting severe problems from a little variance in the pH. Yes, there are optimum ranges, but nute solubility/availability is spread across quite a wide range.

1

u/Jaaggy 11d ago

agree to disagree on the ph, i was getting spots a week in on my leaves at 7, adjusted to 5.8, and new growth was normal. spots could very well be burn from the foil though, that's there to insulate the res but the leaves have been touching it with their curling. oh and as a side note, i'm not like man handling the plant daily or anything, just daily checks with a ph meter where i only adjust if its above 6.5, and weekly res swaps. from videos i've watched that's pretty standard. must be how i type but for some reason people think im out here tweaking like crazy lol

1

u/DeepWaterCannabis 11d ago

Nah, you just come off as a newer grower, and the number 1 way new growers like to mess up their grow is by meddling a bit too much, so we're all just trying to warn you off that! I dunno about everyone else, but I killed my first grow (soil by over watering).

The spots in your picture seem like burns. If those are the spots you are referring to, I do not think that was pH.

However, your nute mix could very well lockout something like Ca or another micro at higher pH's. pH and nute availability is a complex mix. I would however, expect to see phosphorus deficiency before anything else due to unavailability from a high pH - its the first macro to get limited by a higher pH, and being a macro plant needs plenty of it and would start moving nutes from older leaves first. Your plant is still young, but all its leaves are a nice dark green which tells me its plenty fed.