My plants seem unhappy

[Ez Rider]

My current crop seems somewhat unhappy, and I'm unsure what's wrong. I'm growing in a 4x8 sunhut silver, 2k HPS, using bio-bizz lightmix cut with perlite, feeding with House and garden per the soil A/B chart. My tent has good ventilation, and my temps are pretty good; high 70's lights on, mid 60's lights off. I'm at about week 3 of veg(18/6). The plants just seem a little "limp", not the nice perkiness one would expect from happy plants. I gave them a slight cal/mag deficiency early on(forgot to add cal/mag for the first few waterings), but that's been corrected. I transplanted from 1 to 5 gal containers this tuesday. At the time the plants were a little dry(before transplant), but the rootballs appeared to be vigorous and healthy. Now the plants just continue to look limp. Here's a few pics of the situation...

 

[MynameStitch]

how often were you watering and how much. 3 things wrong here...... one they were just transplanted and they can show stress like this after transplant if the roots were stressed.

2 these plants are in way too big of a pot, you got your hands full now, because your watering cannot water where there is run off, if you do that your roots will sit in wet soil. until the plant roots grow in the area your going to have to watch how much water you give them.

were they droopy before you transplanted them? I know they needed transplanting but the jump is not good for a few reasons, one if you let them root the pot slightly then transplant after they get there boost they get bigger, because cannabis will grow better in the right size pot, they dont get there growth boost until around 75% of the pot has been rooted, then you see a huge boost in growth, when you have them in bigger pots it takes longer for them to grow and its harder to manage sometimes.....

whats important now is I need to know if they looked like this before transplanting for few reasons.

1 they were getting bigger for there 1 gallon size pots and needed watering more often is one senario

2 transplanting stress
3 cause because of overwatering.
if they were dry when you transplanted them did you water them after putting them into there new pot?

they look like it's a mixture of the 2, do the limppy leaves feel dry or moist, if the leaves feel dry feeling by just barely pinching or moving the leaf, then it's underwatered, if the leaves feel moist then it's overwatered. alot of times you can tell just by looking, but with you just transplanting them and the pots being dry before transplanting them and there size with what pot they came in before it's confusing which one it is.... so thats why I asked all the questions. but from the pictures it looks like overwatering stress mixed with transplanting.

 

[Ez Rider]

how often were you watering and how much. 3 things wrong here...... one they were just transplanted and they can show stress like this after transplant if the roots were stressed.

2 these plants are in way too big of a pot, you got your hands full now, because your watering cannot water where there is run off, if you do that your roots will sit in wet soil. until the plant roots grow in the area your going to have to watch how much water you give them.

were they droopy before you transplanted them? I know they needed transplanting but the jump is not good for a few reasons, one if you let them root the pot slightly then transplant after they get there boost they get bigger, because cannabis will grow better in the right size pot, they dont get there growth boost until around 75% of the pot has been rooted, then you see a huge boost in growth, when you have them in bigger pots it takes longer for them to grow and its harder to manage sometimes.....

whats important now is I need to know if they looked like this before transplanting for few reasons.

1 they were getting bigger for there 1 gallon size pots and needed watering more often is one senario

2 transplanting stress
3 cause because of overwatering.
if they were dry when you transplanted them did you water them after putting them into there new pot?

they look like it's a mixture of the 2, do the limppy leaves feel dry or moist, if the leaves feel dry feeling by just barely pinching or moving the leaf, then it's underwatered, if the leaves feel moist then it's overwatered. alot of times you can tell just by looking, but with you just transplanting them and the pots being dry before transplanting them and there size with what pot they came in before it's confusing which one it is.... so thats why I asked all the questions. but from the pictures it looks like overwatering stress mixed with transplanting.

Thanks for the reply. I've been a little busy, but I did read your reply. Based on your leaf test(mine were moist) I determined the plants were overwatered(pots were also very heavy). The plants were droopy before I transplanted...I let them get too dry. I then watered the plants heavily when I transplanted. I've done 2 light waterings since I took the last pics(5 days ago), and the plants have improved . Gave them about 40oz. of feed water each time. The pots now seem fairly light. Any advice on how to proceed?

If 5 gal is way too big...what size pot would you recommend? I'm finding 9 plants per light, flowered at around 24-30" to work best for my space. I was going to use 3 gal pots...they just looked SMALL. I have to admit, I've had problems with the 5 gals being too wet before, especially early on.

On a side note: The plants are now 15-18" tall, about 3 weeks into veg. What would a reasonable ppm on my nutes be? I'm using house and garden, along with beneficials.

Here's how they look tonight...

Not 100% happy yet, but way closer too it

 

[noyd666]

look a lot lot better, ya wouldnt want to take em out again and into 3 would you? maybe perservere if its going ahead.

 

[Granger2]

Yeah, looks like they are improving. Keep going easy on the watering till they root more. Use Roots Excelurator. Endeavor to persevere. Good luck. -granger

 

[Ez Rider]

Things are headed south again. Seems like every time I water, it pisses them off. I had let them get pretty dry over this week. I last watered on tuesday(40oz per plant), with less than outstanding results, but the plants looked OK. Last night(friday) the plants were very dry. On the advice of my garden store, I tried a worm tea mixture on them. As the plants were dry, I feed about 1/2 gallon per 5 gallon pot, and had a little bit of runoff. The pots were still fairly light after watering, and didn't have a water-logged feel to them. Could I still be overwatering?

The worm tea is made by the hydro store, I mixed 2gal of tea with 8 gal RO water+ cal/mag. They advised me not to ph it as this would harm the microbes. When I got up this morning they all looked like crap. The first two pics are from after I watered tuesday, the last 4 from today. What's going wrong here?

What's so frustrating is that for the last few years, I've had several pretty good runs, with no major problems. Now I seem to be having nothing but problems. I had to pull the plug on my last run, and now this one seems in danger.

The plants are now 20-22" tall and I'm in danger of outgrowing my vertical space before the ladies are happy enough to flower. I may have to top them again, which is something I'd like to avoid.

 

[Granger2]

EZ,
I understand how you feel, but if that were my crop, looking like that, if wouldn't even occur to me to abort the crop. Hang in, and keep trying to figure it out. You'll learn from it. So will the rest of us.

Right now they are not as green as you would hope for, but otherwise they actually look pretty good. Are you using a chelated micronutrient supplement? Try hitting them w/1tsp/gal of something like EJ Microblast or SaferGro Biomin Starter.

EWC ACT is a great thing, but make your own, rather than buying it from a hydro store. All you need is a 5 gal. bucket w/lid, Air pump like this Air 8000
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3742976&f=PAD/psNotAvailInUS/No
tubing, and 4 big air stones http://www.greners.com/i/hydroponics/components/air-diffusers/ecoplus-round-air-stone.html

You'll need EWC and Molasses. You can add nutes if you wish. Use all four stones w/ the pump running at max. Good luck and keep us up to date. -granger

 

[Ez Rider]

EZ,
I understand how you feel, but if that were my crop, looking like that, if wouldn't even occur to me to abort the crop. Hang in, and keep trying to figure it out. You'll learn from it. So will the rest of us.

Right now they are not as green as you would hope for, but otherwise they actually look pretty good. Are you using a chelated micronutrient supplement? Try hitting them w/1tsp/gal of something like EJ Microblast or SaferGro Biomin Starter.

EWC ACT is a great thing, but make your own, rather than buying it from a hydro store. All you need is a 5 gal. bucket w/lid, Air pump like this Air 8000
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3742976&f=PAD/psNotAvailInUS/No
tubing, and 4 big air stones http://www.greners.com/i/hydroponics/components/air-diffusers/ecoplus-round-air-stone.html

You'll need EWC and Molasses. You can add nutes if you wish. Use all four stones w/ the pump running at max. Good luck and keep us up to date. -granger

Don't worry, I'm not considering an abort, just worried about having a subpar crop.

I'm using the complete H&G line, along with a few supplements. Theoretically, H&G should have everything. I believe the light green is related to the leaf curl though.

I don't buy the tea, my store brews it every monday and friday, BYOB and it's free.

On to the plants...
Last night(when the lights came back on) they were looking pretty good, and I gave them a foliar of Magic Green. They were looking perkier, but still with that annoying leaf curl. The pots were light, but the surface soil was still a little moist, so I held off with watering.. I applied the foliar feed, and went out for the night. This morning(a few hours prior to lights out), I woke up to plants that were slightly wilted, and pots that were very dry for the most part. I applied 1/2 gallon to each plant, and I'll have to wait till this evening to see the results. I'm pretty curious, as it seems to piss them off every time I water. This followed by recovery, and then another pisser with the next watering. My buddy is having similar problems(mostly the leaf curl), using the same clones and soil, and following the lucas method. He says that his are very green, but he's been feeding plain water in an attempt to correct the leaf curl. He feels the curl is from overfeeding(1100ppm for him). I've never been more than 700ppm so I'm not so sure.

One thing I did notice while watering, was that a couple of the plants seemed to be weakly rooted. While handling the pots, these two plants seemed about to fall over(I staked them up). The majority of the plants seemed firmly rooted.

I'm considering a few waterings with just cal/mag and roots exceluator, and see what happens.

Heres a few pics from last night. On a side note, why are my pics uploading sideways?

 

[noyd666]

lol bastard when that happens im neck bent lol looking at your plants. sounds like a weird problem, likes a drink '''' does not like a drink real bitch. maybe they need many short waterings than a great big flood of water, keep em in the happy spot. if your mates the same, same problem, short feeds.

 

[noyd666]

place a tray under one with water= food and let it bottom feed itself, might regulate it self.

 

[hereigrow]

I've had some strains droop after a good watering; especially when i would let my medium dry almost totaly. They look a little hungry what's your ppm/ec? Otherwise they look healthy live ams learn in the ganji farm biz.

 

[noyd666]

i wonder how the unhappy plants are going?

 

[Crooked8]

Order this product. Its called sos from a company called strata. You WILL have to special order it. Its 19 super strains of microbes. I thought it was bs but the stuff is amazing. Sea of green the sos i just mentioned or a nice dose of thrive alive(green) will perk stuff up garunteed. Best of luck.

 

[SpicySativa]

You are using two contradictory methods here, which may be contributing to your issues. You're House and Garden nutrients have likely killed off all your "beneficials", especially if you are adjusting the pH with chemicals. And, you poured a compost tea into a medium with nothing to feed all the beneficial bacteria, fungi, protazoa, etc. (meaning it died off shortly after you poured it in your medium).

You've gotta pick a method (organic or chemical) and stick with it. In true organics, you use composts and other humic substances to foster an environment that supports a whole population of micro life. This micro life doesn't like to live in an environment where it is bombarded with salts (chemical nutrients) on a routine basis.

Long story short, you'll have better luck if you pick a method and go at it 100%, rather than piecing together random things you buy at the hydro store.

I hope that helps in some way.

 

[Sat X RB]

if yr growing medium drains freely (and assuming the plants are getting enuf light) it should be almost impossible to overwater cannabis.

how long does it take for water added to the top ... to come out the bottom? this should happen quickly. like a minute or two!

SpicySativa's post above makes lots of sense to me regarding yr nute schedule. organic and chemical don't mix unless you really know what yr doing.

 

[Ez Rider]

Sorry it's been awhile...work and the flu have been killing me. On the bright side, I've found the problem, addressed it, and now the plants are thriving. It would seem that I've been running the ph too high for the medium I'm using this run.

In the past I've used FFOF with H&G Soil A&B ph'ed to ~6.3 with good to great results. This run I'm using LightMix by Biobizz, as FFOF wasn't available. A friend pointed out that the LightMix is actually more of a soiless medium, rather than soil, and should be watered at around ~5.8.

I lowered the ph, switched to Aqua Flakes A&B and they perked right up. It's the simple things most of the time.

 

[noyd666]

right good to hear.