Got stranded out of town...

And my reservoir ran dry. Luckily the pump didn't burn out, but the fluctuations in water levels seems to have caused the nutrient solution to become much more concentrated as the plants absorbed the water. As a result, I've got some pretty extensive nutrient burn. A few plants are showing it on around half the leaves, while the rest only have a few spots here and there. I've refilled the reservoir with plain water, adjusted the pH and haven't added nutrients yet.

My question is, how long should I keep the plain water in the system? I was thinking of going up to a low strength solution tomorrow, and then back to full strength the day after, but it seems like I may be playing it a bit too safe. The plants looked like hell when I got home, but getting that clean water pumping perked them up in a hurry.

I'm growing White Widow and Big Bud (the WW has the worst nutrient burn by far). The plants are 17 days old from the day I planted the seeds, and the tallest are around 9" tall with most being about 7". Using aeroponics and Sensi Grow 2 part. This is my first grow, and so far everything has been going great aside from a pH problem I had a week ago. I don't have a camera to post any pictures, sorry.

i'd give them at least 4 or 5 days of plain water.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give them a few more days of plain water and keep an eye on them. If I can snag a friend's camera I'll post some pictures.

That is why i gave over with the hydro way of growing to many things can go wrong a simple thing like a tank running dry could result in the pump burning out and be the cause of a fire.The yeild is not that differant any how has long has you give the plant plenty of good root space the plants always produce for me.By growing in soil you can even go away for a week has long has you leave the plants nice and wet through and in a try with a bit of water in the bottom.I'm not saying that hydro is no good i sometimes flip over to it myself but people think that by growing hydro there yeilds will be 10 times what you will get in soil rubbish has long has soil grows are done right.If you know that you are going away then do a soil grow so you will not have to worry while you are away.And do what i do keep the hydr grows for when you are at home every night.

Ok, so I've been flushing for three days. I absolutely have to leave town tomorrow and won't be back until Sunday, but I have somebody staying at my place to take care of the plants. The plants are looking much better, and I've been watching them closely and there doesn't seem to be any new damage for the last couple days. Because I'm having to leave again and because they've recovered so much in the 3 days, I've gone ahead and put 1/3 strength nutrients in (PPM is around 600, the PPM of my water is ~150).

Tomorrow I'll probably go up to half strength if the plants respond favorably to the nutrients, and leave instructions to go back to full strength on the 31st with the person who will be watching my plants.

I got a camera and here are some pictures of the plants so you can see the damage done. It's a mix of White Widow and Big Bud (7 and 5 respectively). They're mixed up pretty good because I was rotating them to get evenly lit for the first week or so of vegetative growth. My reflector was throwing much more light in the middle than the edges, so the edge plants were stretching and bending a lot. The closeups are of the WWs, since the BB didn't show much damage and seem to be perfectly fine.

The two in the back right I know are BB, and the one second from the left in the back I don't think is WW or BB. The leaves look different close up, and until recently it looked very, very different than all of them.

Any advice is greatly appreciated (yes, I know I need to put mylar on the walls, my order got messed up and it didn't come in in time).

i'd keep the at half dose for a few more days. they seem to be recovering very nicely.

Got back into town yesterday, and my ladies are doing beautifully. My biggest plant was putting on about 2 inches of growth a day, and I put them into 12/12 as soon as I got back. Here are some updated pictures, the plants are 26 days from seed.

There's a pretty big difference in height. I've got 3 White Widow that are 18-20 inches each, then the shorter ones are around 12-13 inches (these are largely the Big Bud).

I've also got what appears to be a mutant. Its branches are growing in strange random patterns, are very thin and flexible (even the fairly old branches), and its leaves have looked strange for weeks. Until recently it was very wispy looking and it's grown very unevenly. The person I had watching my plants nicknamed it Special Fred. Going to be interesting to see what it does.

they look very nice.

So, now I have a new problem. I have 3 monstrous White Widows. I mean, they're twice as tall as the smallest plants. I love how vigorously they're growing, but the adjacent plants are not. My plants are spaced 6" on center, which I decided on assuming that they'd grow at about the same rate. Unfortunately, a couple the plants immediately adjacent to my biggest ones are getting shaded by the dense foliage. This is further stunting their growth it seems, and the leaves are all small and underdeveloped while the stems are thin and weak. Is there anything I can do to save these two plants? The canopy of the large WWs are almost completely covering these little ones, so I can't just tie a couple bits back to get the light in there. I don't want to prune my nice healthy plants, because there's so much foliage covering the small ones that such pruning would undoubtedly be devastating to the large healthy ones. Some of the lower branches are actually growing through the small plants and coming out the other side to shade it even more.

Should I just write off my two small plants? I've got 10 more going, 5 of which are feminized, all of which are healthy and growing rapidly.

As a side note, a couple of my rockwool cubes have patches of very dark green mold, almost black. I've covered them with opaque paper to try to kill it off, but I don't know if the mold itself is dangerous to the plants. Anything to worry about here?

BlueFish said:

So, now I have a new problem. I have 3 monstrous White Widows. I mean, they're twice as tall as the smallest plants. I love how vigorously they're growing, but the adjacent plants are not. My plants are spaced 6" on center, which I decided on assuming that they'd grow at about the same rate. Unfortunately, a couple the plants immediately adjacent to my biggest ones are getting shaded by the dense foliage. This is further stunting their growth it seems, and the leaves are all small and underdeveloped while the stems are thin and weak. Is there anything I can do to save these two plants? The canopy of the large WWs are almost completely covering these little ones, so I can't just tie a couple bits back to get the light in there. I don't want to prune my nice healthy plants, because there's so much foliage covering the small ones that such pruning would undoubtedly be devastating to the large healthy ones. Some of the lower branches are actually growing through the small plants and coming out the other side to shade it even more.

Should I just write off my two small plants? I've got 10 more going, 5 of which are feminized, all of which are healthy and growing rapidly.

As a side note, a couple of my rockwool cubes have patches of very dark green mold, almost black. I've covered them with opaque paper to try to kill it off, but I don't know if the mold itself is dangerous to the plants. Anything to worry about here?

Click to expand...

If u are sure they are weak plants or if u only have one grow room, just shitcan them.
They may be good plants that just got shaded out tho. In that case (u need to have a veg room and a flower room for this) I would cut the lanky growth off by taking some clones. Then cut ithe plant almost down to nothing, leaving a couple small leaves and short shoots on a bottom branch or 2. Root the clones and keep the plants to grow alongside the clones next grow. Flower the widows right away.

Already got flowering started, but unfortunately I only have the one box. I was planning to build a second box in a few weeks when I'm not quite so broke.

the mold can definitely be a problem... It can transfer to the stem of your plant. I would try to get a nice look at the stem and see if this is already happening. I hope not. Try to get that mold under control asap..

I was really happy to see the updated pics and that the plants had come back for you!!!

I grow white rhino, so I completely understand the problem you're having with the large canopy of it's mother, white widow... But like you, I LOVE the vigorous growth of this type of strain. And if you've never smoked white widow or rhino, be prepared to get your socks knocked off!! Two VERY powerful strains.

good job on the grow!

+rep

-S

I'll see what I can do about the mold, then. Thanks for tipping me off. It's only a couple small patches on the cubes so far, nothing on the stems.

And yeah, I've never smoked white widow before, so I'm really looking forward to harvest time. Pretty much all I can find where I am is low quality, so having a good supply of my own high quality weed is going to be awesome.

Any time your plants begin to burn, stop feeding and stick with watering until they start to show that they need to be fed.

Sorry your plants got messed up dude, that sucks

Looking at them today you'd never know they had been damaged so badly. My tallest White Widow is now 30" tall, and exactly one month old from seed. The rest of the White Widow are around 26" tall. They're actually threatening to get too tall for the box. Seems like pretty good results for a first time grower who suffered a catastrophic failure.