I have the strangest problem, and I challenge you all to diagnose it

pH is not your problem... checking run off is not a good way to check the pH of your medium... the reason for that is just like us plants have waste (carbohydrates) that they must excrete, some of that waste is used by microbes, the rest falls to the bottom of the pot, through gravity. Much of it will settle right at the bottom along with any salts that get rinsed down there with the repeated waterings.

So long as you check pH going in you'll be fine.


You're either over watering or there are not enough nutrients left in the medium to sustain the plant.

Plants take nutrients in the range pH 4-8

this happened i with a few of my friends plants back a while ago before i got into growing. we couldnt diagnose it either, and it only happened to a small percentage of his plants (like 2 out of 36, all the same genetics). not saying that anything anyone here has suggested wont help, but in our case, nothing did. he referred to them as 'runts' and just pulled em after 2 months of no growth.