The short answer is yes, high pH will cause this problem.

More specifically, your distilled water is not truly distilled - it has chloramine in it, just like your tap. I have the same issue. The addition of chloramine will keep your water rather basic for weeks (even in the reservoirs). However, the high phosphorus can and is likely complicating matters. Do you by chance have a water softener? If so, you'll want to get water from a source before it gets to the softener.

The best suggestion I can give is to go to the pet store (or go online) and buy a dechlorinator that removes chloramine. You'll also want to get some pH down (however, you can also use distilled white vinegar for this). You'll have to work-out how much to add to your water to get it to the correct 6.8 sweet-spot.

I'd give this a few months to see if the problem resolves.

I had a bad experience with a product called Kordon or Cordon that I got at the pet store to remove chloramine. It severely stunted my plants and a few died. The damage took months to show up. The crowns were tiny and did not grow.

I don't use distilled water on my plants. The pH and mineral tester wanted me to use distilled water to run the tests. I use aged tap water for my plants. Also no water softener here.

I too have heard bad things about the chemicals used to clean up the water in the pet stores. What about these Britta water conditioners?

Also, how do I check the pH of my water. The only pH tester I could find was for soil. Although, like I said, I did use tap water when I ran the soil pH test and it came out the same as when I used the distilled water.

6 to 8 hours of light is on the low side...

and dependent on how close the bulbs are .. are they within inches of the plants???

are they the older outer leaves ...

how about some pix????

how old is your media ... any accumulated salts on the top edge????

do you have any spare media... what does it test out at ...???

can you soil pH tester.. test water???? ... i am not sure on that???

ken

How much chlorine/chloramine remover where you using?! The amount to go into a gallon is quite literally a drop!

Anyway, If you use a Britta, you'll have to do a minimum of a double filtration (on filter that's not expired) to remove enough of the chloramine so that it's sufficiently gone. It only removes something like 90% on the first pass which isn't enough, so a second pass through the filter is required.

You'll also need to test the pH afterwards. If the filter is good, the pH should come out to about 6.5-7 and you may not need to use any pH down.

My mature plants are starting to show signs of it too, but it's the young ones about 3" across that are showing it the most. Ya, I'm not sure the soil pH tester would pickup any differences in the water either.

So where do I find water pH testers? And, if the pH is too high, how do I lower it?

Here's a picture of my Blue Mist - it's one of most faded ones.

This post was edited by vivey on Tue, Nov 4, 14 at 13:21

Having trouble posting a picture.

It's not the greatest picture, but you can see the fading and the darkish olive color. Could it be caused by too high of a pH?

Definitely a pH (or chloramine) issue!

I also get this when the pH is high and the soil has turn very acidic. If you haven't repotted recently, you may want to as well.

I prefer to get the aquarium pH testers to measure the water pH as well as the buffered water pH (water that has been first filtered through the pot that plant is in).

Will stop at Petsmart on the way home for a water tester. My plants were file for a long time. Maybe the city changed something this summer/fall. Grrrrrrrrr.......

Tax, The product name is Amquel. The amount that was instructed on the bottle was 10 drops per gallon. I did not think that Britta could remove all the ammonia. Good to know that it does work.
Viki,
The amount of chloramine does vary in various municipalities. Yes, water districts can change the chemicals in the water supply. You can get a report from your municipality, you might be able to find it on the city's or county's website.
It is also possible to use vitamin c to reduce or neutralize
chloramine, we had a thread on that recently. however, the amount needed was difficult to calculate and sounded miniscule.
Vicki, You might want to switch to spring bottled water until you determine what the problem is. If it is a water problem, you might need to repot the plants, or be prepared to wait a long while to begin to see improvements.

The damage caused by chloramine causes the edges of older leaves to turn black and wilt, it is called necrosis, I believe.

Your plants seem to have some other type of damage other than chloramine. that one you posted does not look good. Joanne

This post was edited by fortyseven on Wed, Nov 5, 14 at 13:50

Some of the edges are getting crispy on a few plants.

i would repot all the plants.. in fresh media ... and THEN make sure that water added is pH proper ...

rather than trying to change pH in existing media ...

shall we presume there are proper drain holes in your small cups ...

when i toyed around with cups.. i found the hard shell solo cups easier to work with ... drainage holes were sliced on the bottom edge with a razor ...

ken

Thanx so much for all the help you've been giving me on this! I pot my babies in condiment cups (same size as the solo cups, just shorter) and drill 2-3 holes in them, so drainage hasn't been a problem.