starting to get discouraged...

[HighonthePrize]

...Ive planted some seeds in July. The 13th, to be exact. Once germinated, I put my seeds(Double Kush, BB, LUI) into 16 oz cups of light warrior. I had 4 2x Kush and 2 BB break ground. During these early days, they were watered with tap water that is very hard and has a ph of about 7.2. Temperatures frequently reached 90*. The plants are lit with a 4' 8bulb t5. They are in a hydro hut 2x4 exhausted by a 6in vortex.
The plants looked healthy(with the exception of 1 BB which was very small/slow)for the first three weeks, or so, when I transplanted. I put the strongest five in one gal bags of moonshine man's mix. Around this time I began using r/o water phd to 6.0-6.2. Soon after, my plants started showing signs of deficiencies(?) and got hit hard with spider mites.
I feel the need to mention that I had no access to ic for the first few months here, but this is what one looked like at about 2 months.


I eventually got rid of the mites with neem oil. Around october, I realized I had been over watering them the entire time. I have since began letting the bags dry completely between waterings.
Here is a pic from 3 months sorry about quality.


same from previous pic








They started greening up, and producing side growth again within a few weeks. I went from watering once every 3 or 4 days to every 9-10. I decided to start some new seedlings recently. They went straight into the msm mix, since i don't have any light warrior left over. I think i was over watering those because they look very burnt up. Yellow, brown, red spots on them and curled badly. But my others are starting to look bad again as well.


BB





DK1




DK2




DK3




DK 4




BB
I think I forgot to mention that I have struggled with low humidity. It likes to sneak down to the 20's. I have a humidifier in the tent, but still cannot reach 40% at the moment.
I am beginning to think I am wasting my time/money/security, and should cut my losses.
Don't know if this garden can be saved but it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and once again sorry about the pics.

 

[Guest]

Wow.......those do look pretty bad. Not sure if you can save those or not. However, in the distant past when I've had plants crap out, I did have some success making them better by transplanting them into new soil. You might try that cuz they certainly aren't happy where they're at. I don't know anything about the soil you mentioned so, I'll just say.....go down to your local home improvement store & grab a bag of some kind of good quality organic soil (E.B. Stone/Fox Farms, etc.) and then don't dick with it.....save for adding a handful of perlite. For me doing this was a lot easier than trying to figure out what deficiencies were occuring in the original soil. Wait for the dirt to be dry before trying to transplant.
Good luck.

 

[Guest]

have you been feeding them anything?

I can't see any way over watering could occur in 90 degree temps in that small of a pot watering every 3-4 days.

 

[HighonthePrize]

They are in a mix of ff ocean forest, light warrior, planting mix, worm castings coco and perlite. I have not been feeding them anything except liquid karma once in a while. my temps have not been in 90s for months. stays about 80+/-. I transplanted the fastest growing dk a week or two ago into a 2 gal bag. Not doing so well.

 

[Guest]

I'm not an expert or anything, but I'd say they're starving. transplanting won't do much to help with that, get them some fertilizers ASAP.

 

[bong_chat]

Hey man, don't get discouraged. Well, probably a little late for that, but serioulsy take a step back, take a couple breaths and don't let this setback beat you. I don't know if this one can be saved, but don't let that beat you. Honestly it sounds like you just need to fix a few things to get yourself back on track.

I'm still new to this growing thing myself, but I've learned a LOT with my first grow, which is about 2 days away from getting a chop. Trust me, it's worth the frustration in the end. But don;t take what I say as gospel, cause I'm sure I will have a couple things wrong here.

The first thing I noticed is you said you pH your RO water to 6.0 - 6.2. To me that seems a bit on the low side. I would seriously consider for your next grow to aim more for the 6.5-6.7 range. This was something I learned the hard way. My plants have really suffered because I wasn't paying as close attention to my pH levels as I should, and I ended up with a whole rash of problems. It took a while to fix, and honestly I believe my yeild will suffer for it. I also noticed you said you were using hard tap water pH'd at 7.2. If you want from a 7.2 down to a 6.2, that would be a seriously big fluccuation in pH. That is exactly what caused my problem. My girls were PISSED at me for quite some time because of it. Lockout galore. I think if you dial in the pH a little better, you will end up a happy camper.

Also, I noticed you dropped seedlings directly into moonshine mix. This is just my opinion, and people who use it more often would know better than me, but IMO MSM is a very hot soil. I really wouldn't think that seedlings would like that too much, and I could see them burning in such a hot soil. The MSM experts would know better, but I would say that could be a part of your seedling problems.

If I were you, I would make my next grow simple. What I did was plant directly into fox farms ocean forest. Transplanted up from 16 oz, to 1 gallon, to 5 gallon (only filled to 3 gallon though). Used distilled water with cal/mag plus to water. Wait till the leaves droop slightly looking for water. I vegged straight through without ever feeding them. Just water and cal/mag. When they started flower I added nutes. But only feed what they need. go light with the feed at first till you know what they want. Your plant will tell you what they need.

So basically, keep it simple. When you get the feel for what you are doing, then do what you can to dial in your grow and make it better. Dial in your pH (and if you don't have one, get a good meter. they're invaluable. Soil pH meters suck ass). Only feed what it needs. And the #1 rule is, it's a weed. A very hard to kill weed. Let it do its thing. Don't f@#k with it, and it won't f@#k with you.

But don't let yourself get beat. You're almost there, and when you get there, you'll be so happy you just may poop a little. The only way to guarantee failure is if you give up and don't try.

 

[b8man]

I see why you are getting discouraged.

My guess is that the root structure is rotten/seriously under-developed from over watering - that's why they're not absorbing nutes or water. From the pics they look barely alive.

First things first - you need to get them healthy enough to clone. They look like they haven't got enough nitrogen. Foliar feeding with a nice veg spray of almost any kind should make them a bit better. If you can get hold of Canna Rhizontonic, or a similar root stimulator, you might be able to improve their health a little bit, but really, they look like they are in trouble.

If you can get them to a stage where they are growing green tips again, then you'll be able to clone them and all should be fine. Otherwise, all I can really recommend is that you start again with ICMag from the beginning. Your next grow will be something that will restore your faith in growing.

 

[Guest]

don't give up on your plants. I've saved some before easily that looked like this:






maybe take one out of the pot and shake all the dirt off the roots to see what condition they are in? other than that, they've been in the same soil for months without feeding, which I would assume is the problem

 

[Guest]

i'm no expert as well either bro, but my guess is u need some cal-mag. if it was N it would start @ the bottom and work it's way up. the way it's yellowing and the purple is what gave it away for me.

check out the stitch's thread as well (the sticky)

 

[HighonthePrize]

Thanks for all replies. The plants new growth looks pretty good for the most part. I believe that they had lockouts from over watering, as this is a very rich soil. I haven't used any nutes. Other users of this mix swear you don't need any. The soil is the 3 part fox farm mix:Moonshine Mix.

 

[HighonthePrize]

About ph, I have been using a drip test to test ro water, and last month bought a crappy soil tester. it says about 6.8. I was thinking this looks like a magnesium def.(mostly). would some molasses help?

 

[Guest]

your ph may not be ideal, but it's close enough to what you want, that is not the problem

they are starving... they need to be fed some type of nutrient containing nitrogen, potassium, etc.

 

[gruvygreen]

Don't get discouraged HighonthePrize. I'm on my first grow too, and my plants looked about like your's a few weeks ago. I was gonna scrap my grow, and start all over too, but I'm glad I decided to try and keep them alive.

I'm by no means worth a shit at growing yet, but my plants are getting a little greener every day now.

I'm taking the route b8man suggested, and I'm getting ready to try to take some clones this weekend, and see how bad I can screw that up.(LOL)

Might want to check out a cool mist humidifier to help with humidity. There are probably a lot of other solutions, but I picked one up at a drug store for about $25, and it seems to be working for me. The RH in my closet went from about 20 percent to between 45-60 percent, and my temps dropped a couple of degrees too.

Good luck with your grow.

 

[HighonthePrize]

A week or two ago I noticed some bugs crawling around after watering. Could the symphillids be my problem the whole time? I think I killed them all in each of my pots. I just started 3 more seedlings. the first two were hit by the bugs in the first couple of days. I microwaved the soil of the third one before putting the peat puck in. This last seedling is the only decent looking plant in my garden. Can the others rebound from this long thrashing? They seem to be getting worse since i killed the bugs. Each one has a different symptom but all are looking bad. I was feeding them with alaska fish poop 5-1-1, but haven't lately because a couple are looking burnt. please help. thank you.

 

[MynameStitch]

Hey dude, remove them from the hut, those hydrohuts are known to cause problems, don't get discouraged; read this thread for more information.

THe huts are off gassing vinyal gas and is suffocating the plants not allowing them to make food from the light, it clogs the plants pores in the leaves; if you remove them from the hut they get better; but the ones you have now don't look like they will get better and may be stunted.

Even if you wash it down it won't go away so far as we know.
Some peeps are doing experiments on this...... but if you contact hydrohut they will send you a new hut/poles, or they will have you take it back to the hydroplace and get credit for it.

These huts are toxic dude and they are killing plants everywhere; some dude lost 150 plants and many more lost time and a lot of money trying to rule things out; new RO system thinking it was the water.... all kinds of stuff; so if I were you I would get them out of that damn hut pronto!

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=77070

Thinking of Buying a Hydro Hut?? bUYER bEWARE! READ ME
I bought a HydroHut Deluxe and moved 12 clones into it from a 4x4 HydroHut Mini. Since then, I have had horrible problems keeping plants alive and healthy. Here is my original post

Here is a thread that also indicates that the HydroHut series have an ill effect on plants inside it. Bottom line, the HydroHut makers cannot gaurantee a non-toxic environment in HydroHuts due to manufacturing issues in China. Here is a response I got within 30 minutes of emailing the makers of HydroHut.

 

[HighonthePrize]

that sucks.

 

[sativalicious]

Hey dude, remove them from the hut, those hydrohuts are known to cause problems, don't get discouraged; read this thread for more information.

THe huts are off gassing vinyal gas and is suffocating the plants not allowing them to make food from the light, it clogs the plants pores in the leaves; if you remove them from the hut they get better; but the ones you have now don't look like they will get better and may be stunted.

Even if you wash it down it won't go away so far as we know.
Some peeps are doing experiments on this...... but if you contact hydrohut they will send you a new hut/poles, or they will have you take it back to the hydroplace and get credit for it.

These huts are toxic dude and they are killing plants everywhere; some dude lost 150 plants and many more lost time and a lot of money trying to rule things out; new RO system thinking it was the water.... all kinds of stuff; so if I were you I would get them out of that damn hut pronto!

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=77070

Thinking of Buying a Hydro Hut?? bUYER bEWARE! READ ME
I bought a HydroHut Deluxe and moved 12 clones into it from a 4x4 HydroHut Mini. Since then, I have had horrible problems keeping plants alive and healthy. Here is my original post

Here is a thread that also indicates that the HydroHut series have an ill effect on plants inside it. Bottom line, the HydroHut makers cannot gaurantee a non-toxic environment in HydroHuts due to manufacturing issues in China. Here is a response I got within 30 minutes of emailing the makers of HydroHut.

I think it may be a gross generalization to say that the HydroHut is to blame for recent deficiencies. Perhaps there is a problem with some huts, but this is far from a confirmed majority.

I bought one last Fall and have not experienced a problem. I am satisfied with the performance of the HydroHut. Anyone that is experiencing a temp of 90 degrees (F) needs to address the ambient temps of the surrounding room, asap. My hut is never more than 7-10 degrees higher than the temp of the surrounding room.

I think that people who want to maintain a reputation of being smart and thoughtful would not loosely generalize about the Hut as being the primary root cause of a grower's problem (especially if you are not on site to diagnose the issue). The result may be counter to some heavy poster's goal, that is, for people to pay attention to you and your suggestions. For the record, the original poster mentioned several other potential issues such as too rich medium for youngsters, somewhat high temps, and over-watering.

(I am not attempting to make a diagnosis here. Just saying a positive word for HydroHut.)

So, if one wants to suggest removing the hut from consideration by conducting an experiment out of the hut with a similar medium as before, then great. To me, that would be an appropriate expression of the idea without appearing to sustain a malicious assault upon a vendor that has probably not done anything hurtful to the most recent HydroHut-Hater, or the standard equal-opportunity hater.

Peace.
Sat.

 

[sepulchre]

HighonthePrize: I believe MynameStitch is correct in telling you the stoma are
not taking in fresh air/carbon dioxide. Not a guess...Read this, and please realize that it is vital to keeping plants healthy, even if everything else is right.
Your ph shouldn't be a problem; the RO h20 is fine; the soil is too rich, but at this point, you should just leave 'em in it.
Do yourself a favor: gently blow on your plants as often as you can (not kidding!). The carbon dioxide will help them: if you can't afford a C02 Bucket
($100+), then read the directions for making one of your own out of yeast & sugar (I did this, wow, it is awesome for small areas! I got a bucket as soon as I could, & what a difference!). Good luck; you are learning the ropes; don't give up, even if you lose these.

 

[confedrate69]

its hard not to get real discouraged get the temps under controll get the nutes lined out and give it another go. take a few weeks off if u need to clear your head. mabey try starting off in 1 gal bags i had some look like that in small cups i stopped using them and now just start in 5 gal bags there heavy and hard to con the wife into moving around for me but it saves hassels of transplanting
confedrate

 

[Guest]

mynamestitch is right, my buddy has a hydrohut and his plants started looking bad and he couldnt figure it out. he brought half of them over to me and they have been doing nothing but improving ever since they have been out of the hut. so my suggestion is to do the same if you dont want to believe stitch......take half of your plants out of the hut if you can and give them a week and compare them back to the other half still in the hut. good luck!