PLEASE HELP! My plant stopped growing!

Hi all, this is my first grow so as to be expected, I've run into problems....

First, here's my info:

Strain: Dutch Passion Feminized Durban Poison
Light: 400w Ceramic Metal Halide (currently 18" from top)
Nutes: Lucas Formula (started off at 0-5-10, now at 0-8-16)
Medium: Rockwool
Age: Sproted from seed almost 4 weeks ago

At first my lady was growing like mad but now I have not seen any new growth in over 1 week. I've been experiencing heat issues from the beginning and that is why I have the light at 18" from the top... temps now stay below 80... I tried moving the light closer slowly, day by day, but at 12" from the top I could not get the temps below 85!! I had no choice but to move the light back up.

I am sure the plant has suffered some heat damage... but if you look at my pictures, the top of the plant seems healthy but the bottom leaves look like crap.... is the yellowing due to over-fertilizing? I am using the Lucas Formula (started at 0-5-10, now at 0-8-16).

The top of the plant has what looks like the beginning of some new leaves but it has been like that for over 1 week and nothing is happening.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

kronik1

Nutes: Lucas Formula (started off at 0-5-10, now at 0-8-16)

i believe the 1-1-1 shit is called NPK or some thing like that. if you have 0-8-16 your not giving the plant nitrogen or what ever the N stands for.... i use a 4 part formula so i dont got by the NPK i will when i change my nutes

hands down your missing a core energy for the plant..... 18" from the plant should be ok i woulnt go any closer if u using HID lighting not only do you have to worry about temp but if your PAR ratin is to high u can burn ur plant no matter how cool u keep the plants

oh and as of heat stress i dont see any its a deficiensy, cause your getting the yellowing from bottom to top. damage from heat will be at top and/or all over the plant

Roullette - thank you very much for your replies. Wouldn't a nutrient deficiency cause the yellowing all over the plant?

I chose the Lucas formula because it is supposed to be simple - he specifically says NOT to add anything else - the General Hydroponics Flora Micro and Flora Bloom are supposed to be all you need.

HOWEVER, the bottles specifically say to NOT mix them together right away or nutrient lockout can occur... I wonder if that is what happened. I did wait a couple of hours between adding the two but maybe it wasn't enough.

i had a deficiency and it looks just like yours it was a magnisium deficiency and yellowing starts at the bottom and works its way up. most deficenys will start from bottom to top... and deficiency is same as a lock out basicly.
E.G if theres lack of magnesium it will show the same as if the ph is to low or high which is a lock out for magnisium(and almost every other energy for the plant).. both will result in yellowing of leaves

but if the directions said to wait to add the other shit.. it could have spiked up/or down the ph causing a lock out a nute which will cause a defiency.. i know what u mean by addin to early. my shit says to always add one formula first dont know why but i dont wanna find out.

what is PAR rating?

how often do you water? the lower leaves look like you had some early problems but the new growth looks good,,you might be overwatering a bit and that will stunt growth

u should check ur root
u seem to use rock wool 4inch cube
that aint enough for ur plant
i had same problem
i might think this will help u

I think your plant is stressing....I agree...change to soil now.

kronik1 said:

Roullette - thank you very much for your replies. Wouldn't a nutrient deficiency cause the yellowing all over the plant?

I chose the Lucas formula because it is supposed to be simple - he specifically says NOT to add anything else - the General Hydroponics Flora Micro and Flora Bloom are supposed to be all you need.

HOWEVER, the bottles specifically say to NOT mix them together right away or nutrient lockout can occur... I wonder if that is what happened. I did wait a couple of hours between adding the two but maybe it wasn't enough.

Click to expand...

With GH nutes, first add the micro into your water and then the other(s). No need to wait. Just don't mix nutrients before adding to water.

I believe you may have nutrient lockout due to improper pH.

thats exactly what my plants started doing... but because i didnt want to give them unbalanced water, i think they suffered a bit more. i didnt realize how essential pH is...

First of all, the 0-5-10 notation for the lucas formula doesn't represent NPK ratio. It represents the ml/gal of grow-micro-bloom to use with GH nutes. The micro and bloom nutes have more than enough nitrogen to support a plant through veg.

I'm not sure if you're checking PH or not, but that is essential to healthy plant growth.

Hi all, first a big thanks for the replies - they are greatly appreciated!!

Let me provide some more background info which may help diagnose the problem...I apologize for the length - I just don't want to miss anything that might help provide a clue.

Ok, I started with 5 sprouts and only 1 survived - I used a humidity dome during germination and when they sprouted, I turned on a T5 light which was right over the humidity dome (since I read that T5s need to be only a few inches from the tops). Big mistake - I woke up the next morning and all my sprouts were fried (temps hit 92f). They were all wilted and the stems were dark purple (I assumed this meant heat stress).

I thought they were all dead so I turned off the light and thought I'd just try again with a new batch of seeds. After about 3 days, I looked in my closet and lo and behold one sprout had come back to life (now standing upright and the purple was disappearing from the stem). I had used grodan starter plugs and the taproot was sticking out the bottom so I quickly soaked a 4x4x4 rockwool cube in 5.5 ph water overnight and then inserted the starter cube. I also abandoned the T5 for my 400w CMH (which I started at 18" from the top which I read was a good distance).

I was worried the couple of days without light might have done some damage but the plant took off like mad! It was practically growing by the hour!

I waited 3 days before watering. I have an ebb and flow system but I don't want to put the single cube in it yet as I am waiting on some more seeds. I figured I would manually water this one until my soon to be other plants got going.

I wait until the cube starts to dry out a little (around 3 days) then I dunk the cube in a resevoir for around 10 seconds or so which seems to thoroughly drench the cube. I figured this is the same way the ebb and flow system would water it (as the bottom of the cube would sit in the flooded tray).

Ok, so that's the story... now to address some of the very good theories that have been presented....

PH Problems - I don't think so - for the first week I used PH 5.5 water, then the second week I used the weaker Lucas formual 0-5-10 which brought the PH down to about 5.9 by itself, and now I am using the full 0-8-10 formula which brings the PH down right to 5.5 by itself!! I am using a good, calibrated HANNA PH meter.

Root Bound - I chose the 4x4x4 cube because my ebb and flow system can fit 8 5.5" cubes (too tight for the hugo blocks so I went with the next biggest). The plant can't be root bound yet as the roots have not even penetrated the cube.

Over/Under fertilizing - I chose the Lucas formula because it is supposed to be simple. He is very adamant about NOT adding anything else to the mix. Tons of growers report success with his formula so I don't see how that could be the problem unless something is getting locked out. My TDS is at 1100ppm, .5 conversion scale.

Over/Under watering - I admit, I am pretty lost here.... I wait til the cube starts to dry out a little before watering, but then I think to myself - all the instructions I have read regarding ebb and flow watering schedules say to water for around 15 min every 2-4 hours... that seems like a hell of a lot!! That would mean the cube would always be soaked!

Again, all feedback is greatly appreciated!!

No matter what your nutes say, veg plants need nitrogen, that 0 at the first means no nitrogen. You want a good build up of nitrogen, so when you switch to bloom formula, you will not need much or any. The bloom period will reguire tons of phosphorous, which is te second number in your nute break down. Remember this young sky walker.

I am new to growing and have killed and injured many plants and I would say that providing the problem isn't worsening, you should just be patient and let plant recover from whatever trauma its suffered and it will start to grow again when it has. I think that if you start reacting and trying all kinds of remedies and get it wrong, it might end up compounding the problem by stressing plants further.

I have some plants that have horribly withered and discoloured lower leaves due to early excessive fertilizing but when new growth did come in, it was all ok. The foliage on the tops of your plants still looks really green and healthy which is a good sign so providing the damage remains confined to the bottom node, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Maybe just stick to plain water for waterings for a while until you are sure all is ok.

This is just based on my experiences of fucking up, and I am definitely no expert so feel free to disregard.

wsz594 said:

No matter what your nutes say, veg plants need nitrogen, that 0 at the first means no nitrogen. You want a good build up of nitrogen, so when you switch to bloom formula, you will not need much or any. The bloom period will reguire tons of phosphorous, which is te second number in your nute break down. Remember this young sky walker.

Click to expand...

Recommended Profile Target
Where the 100N-100P-200K-60Mg target profile relates to General Hydroponics Flora Series 3 part liquid fertilizer products, the same profile can be mixed without using any of the GH Grow component. If one carefully reads the labels, he'll find the Micro component actually contains more N than the Grow, and the Grow component contains nothing else that isn't already contained in the Micro and Bloom components. Substituting a little more of the Micro component to make up for the missing Grow precludes the use of the Grow component altogether.

CannaStats - Nutrient Profiles for Cannabis

^ Old Jedi link trick

Celestial said:

I am new to growing and have killed and injured many plants and I would say that providing the problem isn't worsening, you should just be patient and let plant recover from whatever trauma its suffered and it will start to grow again when it has. I think that if you start reacting and trying all kinds of remedies and get it wrong, it might end up compounding the problem by stressing plants further.

I have some plants that have horribly withered and discoloured lower leaves due to early excessive fertilizing but when new growth did come in, it was all ok. The foliage on the tops of your plants still looks really green and healthy which is a good sign so providing the damage remains confined to the bottom node, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Maybe just stick to plain water for waterings for a while until you are sure all is ok.

This is just based on my experiences of fucking up, and I am definitely no expert so feel free to disregard.

Click to expand...

hey man i feel you. im new to hydro and didnt realize i was messin up the pH so bad. I read 7.0 and said "oh thats what it was last time i grew!"(in soil)

My plant suffered for a while but just like you say, it takes a little patience... Two days from me fixing the problem there are 6 new signs of new leaves... COOL!!

whats the best method to germinate your seeds?