Seedling DWC drooping leaves

[abelincoln23]

Hey all, this is my first grow and I'm super nervous about it, as most growers probably are with their first grow. So this little girl was growing like crazy 4 days ago. Shes now 17 days from sprouting, andshe looked pretty healthy until tonight. As for all the basics, I'm growing indoors, obviously, transplanted from soil to DWC at 7 days. I'm using CFLs, three 50W bulbs 3 inches above her. I have an oscillating fan on her about half an hour every hour. Reservoir temp is 67F, air temp is 72F. pH is 5.9-6.0 (from a cheap meter from ebay). I have her on 1/4 strength nutes @ 250 PPM (from distilled 1 PPM water). I came home from work tonight to see her DROOPING badly. She wasn't like this when I left this morning, and shes never been like this before, so it's really got me worried. I have noticed the past couple of days her growth has slowed down, so thats got me a bit worried as well, because I was under the assumption that growth would stay steady or even continue to accelerate at this point. I also noticed a white-ish spot on one of her leaves, not really sure what it is but i'll post a picture. Lastly, I spotted a very SLIGHT yellowing of the new growth (hard to see in the picture, but its a little more noticeable in real life). I hope I can get some help with this soon, as I would really hate to lose this plant. She has been so strong so far!! By the way, she is a Blackjack Feminized from BuyDutchSeeds.com

 

[bombasticson]

Hey all, this is my first grow and I'm super nervous about it, as most growers probably are with their first grow. So this little girl was growing like crazy 4 days ago. Shes now 17 days from sprouting, andshe looked pretty healthy until tonight. As for all the basics, I'm growing indoors, obviously, transplanted from soil to DWC at 7 days. I'm using CFLs, three 50W bulbs 3 inches above her. I have an oscillating fan on her about half an hour every hour. Reservoir temp is 67F, air temp is 72F. pH is 5.9-6.0 (from a cheap meter from ebay). I have her on 1/4 strength nutes @ 250 PPM (from distilled 1 PPM water). I came home from work tonight to see her DROOPING badly. She wasn't like this when I left this morning, and shes never been like this before, so it's really got me worried. I have noticed the past couple of days her growth has slowed down, so thats got me a bit worried as well, because I was under the assumption that growth would stay steady or even continue to accelerate at this point. I also noticed a white-ish spot on one of her leaves, not really sure what it is but i'll post a picture. Lastly, I spotted a very SLIGHT yellowing of the new growth (hard to see in the picture, but its a little more noticeable in real life). I hope I can get some help with this soon, as I would really hate to lose this plant. She has been so strong so far!! By the way, she is a Blackjack Feminized from BuyDutchSeeds.com

Idk but that looks like either underwatering or overwatering... how often you water, it doesn't look like any nutrient deficiency and you could put those lights closer cfls can touch the plant and do no damage I keep my 400 watt abut 4 - 6 inches away from my plants

 

[bombasticson]

That looks like either under or over watering, not a nutrient deficiency and you could also put your cfls closer to plant I put my 400watt hps 4-6 inches from my plants and cfls can touch plants and do no damage just look for heat stress. Closer the better

 

[abelincoln23]

Yeah I recently rose the lights because of the recent growth. I was under the impression it was impossible to over water in a DWC (I'm using hydroton only). I have the water a half inch below the net pot.

 

[bombasticson]

Yeah I recently rose the lights because of the recent growth. I was under the impression it was impossible to over water in a DWC (I'm using hydroton only). I have the water a half inch below the net pot.

I grow in soil so i dont know how the watering works in DWC but I know what a deficiency looks like and the looks like a watering or light problem

 

[abelincoln23]

Thanks for the help. I'll try lowering the lights a bit and lowering the water level. Basically DWC is a bucket of nutrient water and dissolved oxygen that the roots just sit in. No watering schedule, just constant water, nutrients, and oxygen.

 

[abelincoln23]

I was wondering if anyone thinks this may look like the damage of fungus gnat larvae. I spotted a couple flying around last night, so this morning I went to the store and couldn't find any mosquito dunks. I got some 3% H202 and mixed it with 4 parts water to 1 h202 and poured it over the hydroton. Well see if this helps. I will take further steps against the gnats tonight.

 

[Txchilies]

How big of an air pump do you have in your bucket feeding your plant? If there isn't enough air supply in the DWC it will appear as if you overwatered the plant. 1/4 nutes shouldn't be the problem but that is a change from where it was and the nutes might be alittle strong for it even at that rate. Give it a few more days and give it a dose of Superthrive. I transplanted from soil to DWC also but didn't give nutes for a week after I put it in the bucket, just adjusted pH to get it in the 5.8 to 6.3 range.

Happy Growing!!

 

[Hugo Phurst]

For the Gnats, get "Sticky-Sticks", and make sure you let the hydroton dry out.

White spots on the tops of leaves can mean spider mites underneath.

"I have the water a half inch below the net pot." - Not to be a smart ass here, but the roots are in the watter, right?

 

[abelincoln23]

Yes roots are in the water and the net pot and hydroton is moist from bubbles popping.

Im using a 60 gallon air pump with one of those 6ish inch long airstones for aquariums.

 

[mikmike]

because i would only suggest maybe add H202 to add more oxygen to the mix to see if they get better and if they do u need a more airstones and air pumps. or just a bigger airpump.

 

[sfttailpaul]

Hey all, this is my first grow and I'm super nervous about it, as most growers probably are with their first grow. So this little girl was growing like crazy 4 days ago. Shes now 17 days from sprouting, andshe looked pretty healthy until tonight. As for all the basics, I'm growing indoors, obviously, transplanted from soil to DWC at 7 days. I'm using CFLs, three 50W bulbs 3 inches above her. I have an oscillating fan on her about half an hour every hour. Reservoir temp is 67F, air temp is 72F. pH is 5.9-6.0 (from a cheap meter from ebay). I have her on 1/4 strength nutes @ 250 PPM (from distilled 1 PPM water). I came home from work tonight to see her DROOPING badly. She wasn't like this when I left this morning, and shes never been like this before, so it's really got me worried. I have noticed the past couple of days her growth has slowed down, so thats got me a bit worried as well, because I was under the assumption that growth would stay steady or even continue to accelerate at this point. I also noticed a white-ish spot on one of her leaves, not really sure what it is but i'll post a picture. Lastly, I spotted a very SLIGHT yellowing of the new growth (hard to see in the picture, but its a little more noticeable in real life). I hope I can get some help with this soon, as I would really hate to lose this plant. She has been so strong so far!! By the way, she is a Blackjack Feminized from BuyDutchSeeds.com

In the DWC system, the top bucket is the growing bucket; lower is the reservoir. Your roots MUST be in the lower bucket to get any amount of usable water. The flooding cycle won't make it up to new seedlings. I introduce water from the top when starting seedling out in DWC, then after a few weeks, I remove that and coast with the reservoir doing its' job. The shock from soil to Hydro could also play a part as well as the introduction to nutrients at such a sensitive time. White spot if tiny, could mean spider mites and coming from soil it is a possible reality. Otherwise, looks like you've covered all the basis and have a text book grow with the figures you posted.

 

[abelincoln23]

I had the hydroton submerged a bit until the roots popped out of the net pot. The transplant was 10 days ago and it ha a huge growth spurt since then. The nutrients were also introduced last week with no bad effects- around the same time as the growth spurt. I'm thinking it's either lack of oxygen or the gnat larvae. I read that H202 will kill the larvae on contact.

 

[abelincoln23]

And about the spot, so far I've only seen one. So I'm holding off on becoming too entirely worried about that. I'll keep an eye out though. Thanks everyone for the advice, the new growth seems to be continuing so she's not dead yet lol. I sure hope she pulls through though!

 

[abelincoln23]

Update on this little girl. I did a full reservoir change last night with some added superthrive. I also added a foil light barrier over the hydroton. Since last night the ppm has gone down, which is more than I can say for the past few days, so hopefully that's a good sign. She still looks pretty droopy, but I'll give her a week or so without messing with it, and hopefully I'll see her perk up soon.

 

[bombasticson]

hey man how are your plants doing did they pick up yet

 

[abelincoln23]

She did, but with a bit of nute burn on the lower leaves :/. What can I say, I'm like the guy that always loses at blackjack because I dont have the discipline to follow basic strategy lol. But she's back up minus the bottom two (dead) nodes. She's growing again and I've even started training her.

 

[bombasticson]

nice you gonna post some pics?

 

[abelincoln23]

I will soon. I have family over this weekend so I can't spend too much time in the closet

 

[abelincoln23]

Just wanted to finally update this thread with current pictures of this beastly plant!



First I ended up switching from DWC to ebb and flow. In my opinion E&F is far superior to DWC, because there is a lot less fuss. You find your timing and go, and you dont have to worry about near as much if you don't have ideal conditions. Anyway, I also trained her down till she took up as much room as I could handle, then I took a few clones (lost all but 3 my first go around) then let her fill back in and put her in flower. Right now shes about a 5 weeks into flower, I plan on keeping her for 9 or so weeks.




These are the 3 clones I took from her a week or two before flower. They took a while to root, but I as soon as i saw a few secondary roots I put them directly into flower, and they shot up so freaking fast its ridiculous!




Just some more bud pics. Ive counted 15 tops, 8 of which are fairly nice sized, then 4 kinda medium, and 3 kinda dinky ones. Hope you guys like the pictures!