Tomato leaves 'coiled up'?

[widespreadpanic]

I have several plants in my hydroponic ebb and flow system that have older leaves curling slightly upwards, and new growth rolling or spiraling together.

New growth spiraling/coiled up.



Leaves curling upwards, but no sign of yellowing or spots:



Plant seems stocky:



I am obviously worried that this is a disease/virus. I'm growing heirloom tomatoes such as Cherokee purple, Green Zebra, Brandywine, Black Krim, although pictured is a Better Boy hybrid.

Could it be that my watering schedule of every 2 hours during the day is too much?

Details:
My E.C. is 2.0, my P.h. stays around a 6, my nutrient solution is kept refrigerated at a constant 67 deg

[joe.jr317]

I don't believe you have a disease issue here. I think it is too much nutrient. I don't think your watering schedule is too often. Particularly if you reduce how much nutrient you have in the system.

Don't panic. Your tomatoes look great. Reduce the grow portion of your nutrient solution. Transition them to bloom. When I change my nutrient solution, I usually put the water in without nutes first. Then I run it for a few cycles. Then I check the EC. If the EC is high due to the amount of nutes left in the medium and lines, I replace the water. If it isn't too bad (less than .4) then I just add my nutes. That helps to avoid salt build up and stress. Also, if your EC is high after the "flush" with just water, that might indicate you have too high of nutrient concentration in the first place. Depends on how often you change nutrient solution, too.

[willard3]

Add nothing but water for a couple of weeks and the over fertilization problems will stop.

[veggiemuffin]

Mine used to do exactly that. I read about tomato leaf curl being cause by too much watering I thought WTF? My plant is growing in water so what do I do? But then I realized that too much water keeps the roots from getting oxygen so I tried putting an airstone in my nutrient solution. After about a week or so the leaves were completely normal and I hadn't done anything else. So in my case that was what fixed it. Hope you got your problem fixed by now.

Good luck.

[widespreadpanic]

Thanks for your tip Veggiemuffin!

I read online that ebb and flow systems using hydroton filled buckets didn't need an airstone b/c air is sucked back through the root area when the nutrient drains?

I switched the nutrients today and plan on letting it run 24 hours on rainwater only, before adding nutrients back in.

Question: Did your plants "uncoil" or did the coiling simply stop on new growth?

Thanks for your help.

[veggiemuffin]

They completely uncoiled. I really was surprised to see that happen since it was just a crackbrained idea that I tried out of desperation. It's possible that wasn't what caused the uncoiling but I didn't do anything else different so I don't know what else it might be. I'm a total newbie by the way. This is my first hydroponics grow. I really am growing tomatoes.

[widespreadpanic]

Where your leaves, especially the older ones, curled up as well?
If so, did the airstone fix that problem too?
Thanks for your input.

[veggiemuffin]

Oh yeah. Old leaves were the worst. I was really worried and searching all over forums to find what to do. Although the plant seemed healthy otherwise so I wasn't sure how big a problem it was. Anyway, after putting in the airstone all leaves and stems straightened out (some stems had even curled around like ram's horns). I now have tomatoes all over the place - still green though. I just grew yellow pear tomatoes and Italian plum tomatoes this time.