What's wrong with my baby?

DCMann2

Active Member
Hi all, I have two rocklock plants growing from seed in a DWC set up, and one of the plants is looking pretty sad. They're 3 weeks old, 24/7 lights right now, I just did a flush on Friday and added water balanced to 6.3. I had added about 6 teaspoons of fertilizers a week ago, but I don't think it's nute burn because I have a 17 gallon res, and the nute bottle called for 2 tsp per gallon. Sorry for the crappy quality, but all I have is my cell phone. Thanks in advance guys!

EDIT: Sorry, I should have mentioned that I'm not running any nutes right now just in case it actually was nute burn.
 

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DCMann2

Active Member
I balanced the water a little more today down to a pH of 6.0, but the plant is still looking like that, and maybe even a little worse! What could be wrong? Nute deficiency? Burn? Please help! I don't want my babies to die!
 

om3gawave

Active Member
Your pH is fluctuating too much.

Get your pH stable and wait. DO NOT FEED YOUR PLANTS. They will probably not like that. You say it is at 6.0, and I believe you, but it could be jumping up and down.

I wouldn't feed them, as it will aggrevate this situation. I think you need to just wait and see. What kind of water you using? Tap water? Is it hard/soft? How are your temperatures...and so on :)

The first one looks a lot better than the second one.
 

DCMann2

Active Member
Yes, it's tap water from the hose out in the back. It's naturally VERY alkaline (8.1!), and it takes several teaspoons of pH down to bring it to around 6 or so. Temps in the grow box range from about 70F at night to 80F during the day, and I'm not sure about the res temperature because I don't have a waterproof thermometer yet. I haven't fed them yet and will hold off on doing so, and I'll be sure to update to see if they get any better. I sure hope they recover, as those seeds were expensive! :P

+rep, by the way!
 

om3gawave

Active Member
I think they will be okay...just be watching your pH.

Did you check the plant abuse chart in the FAQ? That is what I based my answer off of, check it out and let me know if you agree.
 

DCMann2

Active Member
I've been keeping an eye on my pH, and it seems to want to keep drifting up. Last time I balanced it I had it down to 6.0, and when I checked it again this morning it was about 6.3, which is still acceptable (I think). The bottom two leaves on the worse looking plant died and I pulled them off (they practically fell off on their own), and the second set of leaves are spotty on the edges. I removed one of the 10" airstones that I had in sequence with another, which seemed to help produce more bubbles, and strangely enough one of my 6" airstones seems to produce more bubbles than one of the 10" ones, which may prompt me to replace the other 10" with the other 6" stone I have. The long roots looked slightly discolored (a little rusty looking), but the new roots coming out of the netpots are pure white and healthy looking for now. I'll be keeping an eye on both plants, and will take some pics in a day or two to see what they look like compared to the other pics I have in this thread.
 

laserbrn

Well-Known Member
DCMann...any updates?
I hope you took the advice of not adding any more nutrients. Those leaves that are brown and spotted definitely got burned. They got burned early on and now they will slowly die off. Focus on your new growth and how it looks. The plants have enough nutrients in the seed alone to get you quite a bit further than you are currently. Not a lot...but it's hard to say now because they are stunted a bit.

No more nutrients and give them a week to respond. It's not like the problem will be fixed in a day, hopefully after a week you will have 2 or 3 more nodes and those leaves will look "old leaves" and you won't much give a shit anymore that they are jacked up. Most likely they fall off anyway and you can start adding nutes.

Now please tell me you aren't going to try to grow in DWC without a PPM or EC meter? I noticed you measured your nutes in TSP and that's not going to work.
 
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