Lower leaves dying/yellowing ...help?!?!

[Preacherman]

I think I'm killing these little guys

I'm new to growing with HPS and my past experience is limited to a couple of semi-successful 1 plant grows in an old stereo speaker. My new set up is a closet grow 6'x2.5'x3' with a 400w HPS. I'm yet to install the extractor fan which I'll be doing this weekend so the plants are getting fresh air by leaving the door on the closet open with a 6" oscilating fan blowing across the plants. The light is currently about 12 inches from the tops of the plants.

I've got 7 plants, all about 1 month old grown from seed. 5 are 'Purple No.1' and the other 2 are Blue Mystic. They are all showing signs of serious yellowing on the lowest leaves, some of which are dying and crumbling up. The plants haven't looked good for a week or so, with most of the leaves either drooping or curling inwards (as if they are trying to avoid the light - see pics). But they've never looked as good as most of the grow journal ones I've seen on here

Temps in the grow room are 78f in the shade, 90f with the probe under the lights (not sure which is the reading I should use?) and humidity varies from 45%-55%.

I started adding veg nutes 8 days ago, at first going with the 100% solution the bottle recomended - Bio Bizz Bio Grow NPK 8-2-6. Its also been getting a product called Hygrozyme. Even after reading the label I'm not sure what it is or what it does, but the guy at the shop swore by it so I got some and have been adding a little less than the recomended dose to the water. After reading on here that plants need to be eased into nutes I watered the remaining bucket of nute water down to 50% solution. That was 5 days ago and since then the plants have only been getting half the recomended dose of nutes with every watering.

I got the suspicion my plants might be root-bound so I transplanted 3 up to bigger pots yesterday (from the original 5" pots to 10" pots) and changed the soil to a much lighter mix (and better quality) with about 25% perlite. The original soil had become very compact, almost like dried mud I've got a horrible suspicion I've been over watering.

I'm going to transplant the others tomorrow as the 3 I have already done seemed to have perked up a little in 24hrs. I'm not convinced this is the main problem though...

4 possible cause (that I cant think of anyway)

1. Overwatering - I think I've made for the classic noob error of watering too much. The plants have been getting at least a full saucer (about 150-200ml) of water every day because the top soil always looked dry and the plant seemed to be sucking it all up. I didn't read about the 'lifting it up and feeling the weight' method until a couple of days ago.
2. Temps/Humidity - I've struggled to keep the temps down (have got up to 93f with the probe under the lights) as security has been an issue. The door has been left with only a small gap at times and its got pretty warm at times. Some of the lower leaves (see pics) have dried up and flake off which makes me think the heat might be a problem. This will hopefully be solved when I get the extractor fan installed and vents cu in the doors this weekend.
3. Nute burn - I did go with the recomended bottle dosage and the plants were about 3 weeks old when nutes started so I thought things would be okay. And it says its okay to use EVERY watering. Yet I've now read on threads on here that you should ease them in with a 25% solution and only every other watering? If thats true maybe I've nutre burned em
4. Light proximity - I've varied the height at times as I thought they might be getting too much light. But I read in a book that even HPS lights can be placed within a few inches of the plants and that for every inch further away it decreases its effectiveness. So for most of the month the light has only been about 12" from the tops of the plants (always with the fan blowing over them though)

Pics:
BM01.jpg - One of the Blue Mystic plants with the yellow/brown/dying leaf. The otehr lower leaves are yellow and all leaves are droopy
BM02.jpg - Another shot of same leaf
BM03.jpg - Shot of other Blue Mystic in closet with same problem
BM04.jpg - Close up shot of bad Blue Mystic leaf
The rest of the shots are mostly of the Purple no.1's with the curled in leaves. As you can see they are looking quite weedy now the leaves are closed in.


I'll let the pictures do the talking now as I've rambled on long enough ... thanks for being patient if you read it all any thoughts are greatfully appreciated

[Preacherman]

Thought I better add, the lights have been on 24/0 since start but have been on a 20/4 cycle for 2 days now to see if I can cool the grow room down and give them a break from the lights. I want to switch to 12/12 ASAP so I can weed out the males and use the most of my growspace. But I don't want to do that until they are 12" tall and looking healthy.

[Ganja Guerrilla]

can you post some pics with the regular lites & not the hps, I need to see the color patterns of the leaves

they are looking like they have been overwatered for some time & maybe the source of your issues aswell as the heat stress, but youve posted no info on the PH of your tap water or the soil runoff PH

watch the streaming PH & Flushing video on my site (see link below)

complete a soil runoff PH test.......
with PH corrected water (6.5-6.8PH ) pour enough water in the pots so the water runs out the bottom of the pot ...collect & test the PH of this runoff water....

post the PH of your water going in and the runoff PH

[Preacherman]

The top two pics are in my kitchen away from the HPS. I've got a really crappy camera which is why its hard to see. I'm borrowing a better one tomorrow so I shoud be able to post some better hi-res pics hopefully.

My ph seems to be fine. The tap water is 6.8 and the soil has been a constant 6.7 since I began measuring it.... but I'll do a run off test as you suggest to make sure.

Over watering does seem likely though ... what can I do to start correcting this? For the last few days they've only been getting very small amounts of tap water. Should I give them nothing for a few days?

[Ganja Guerrilla]

let them dry out till the soil begins to shrink away from the pot or the plant begins to wilt

water till the water runs out the bottom and dont awter again till the soil shrinks away from the pot again, get used to the weight of it dry and watered

more air movement is crucial for the heat stress and to help with air exchange, and your working on that

what brand of ferts and whats the dosage & frequency

& when you post more pics we can take it from there

[Preacherman]

Sounds good .... thanks for the help so far

Edit - ferts are Bio Bizz's Bio-Grow 8-2-6 which i started using at 100% strength 8 days ago, then went down to 50% after 2 daysuntil the water ran out. They were getting it every water as the bottle suggested, but for the last 2 days they've been back on tap water.

[Preacherman]

Okay...

PH run off is 6.8 same as whats been going in from the tap water and nute water. Everything seems good with that. I've transplanted all plants now into the bigger pots. The 3 I had already transplanted 3 days ago seem to be getting some green back into the yellow leaves

All the plants still look a litt worse for wear though. There is still extensive inward curling on the leaves and there is still a lot of yellow on the bottom fan leaves. I've got some better pictures with the HPS off so you might be able to recognise the problem?

[Ganja Guerrilla]

classic magnesium defeciency,

1 teaspoon of epsom salts(mgso4 magnesium sulphate) to 1 gallon of water, water each plant 1/2 a quart of this solution

since it is pretty severe def I would also take 1/2 a teaspon of epsom salts to a litre of water and foliar feed the plants ,turn the lights of as not to burn the plants & spray both sides of the leaves well

you should see some results within 24-48 hrs

dont water for a while the plants have been thru alot

[Preacherman]

Cool Sounds like I have a plan of action. I'll get some epsom salts tomorrow and post some more pics in a couple of days ...hopefully they'll be on the up by then.

How much more development should I be looking for before I switch to 12/12 and flower? I know you can pretty much flower at any time but I'm looking to try and get 1oz of each female and don't want to switch too soon and miss out. The tallest 2 plants are just over 12" now while the shortest are more like 7". i was going to wait until the shortest are 12" at least, but the range in height is now just getting wider even with topping the tallest ones.

I figure they need at least a week or so to recover from the punishment I've been giving them...

[Ganja Guerrilla]

every strain is different, & ofcourse the plants must be healthy

but something to gauge from:

Im on a 6-7 week cycle working from 12" clones .....to 5 gallon buckets.......6-7 weeks veg........6-7 weeks flower

I consistently get 4oz - 5oz per plant

the plants are generally 4 1/2 - 5 ft tall.... IN thier buckets

[Preacherman]

After a few days I've got some general improvement on most of my plants, but one of the Blue Mystic's looks terrible and the yellowing is spreading further up the plant. They had the epsom mixed in with their water as suggested, and every day since I've been foliar feeding with it as well. Like I say, most have recovered well, but that damn Blue Mystic just won't perk up!


Ok, some update pics

The 1st one is the Blue Mystic
The 2nd is of 3 of the Purple no.1 's
The 3rd is of the best Purple no.1 in the grow area

Is that Blue Mystic a gonner or can it be saved?
Also, is it usual to have that much variation between plants with the Purple no.1 's? They are all from the same pack of seeds, yet the big two are 16inches tall, while the smallest is 8.5inches.

I want to get started with flowering as time is a bit of an issue. Am I there yet?

[urgr8estfear]

Looks like the Blue Mystic is overnuted.
The claw look on the leaves appear to be from Nitro toxicity.
Since it doesn't look like it's gonna keel over any time soon, just stop feeding it until it's begging for more food.

[Ganja Guerrilla]

Looks like the Blue Mystic is overnuted.
The claw look on the leaves appear to be from Nitro toxicity.
Since it doesn't look like it's gonna keel over any time soon, just stop feeding it until it's begging for more food.

Yep, and I think its still locked out, remove all the damaged leaves, so we can really tell if its still locked or not

edit: glad to see the others are recovery well
you can bud soon as you feel they are back in good health

[Preacherman]

Damn it!!!

Wathed your video again on PH and flushing last night GG....I got to admit the first time around I skipped a few bits and was pretty stoned. Anyway wathced it in full propperly last night and it really made me mistrust my PH reader. Its a couple of years old and is probably past it....pretty cheap as well if I recall.

Got myself a chemical kit as I can't afford one of those thruncheons. My tap water PH has been at 7.2 all along. I don't know if thats particularly high, but its obviously out of the optimum range. I've done a full flush again on all the plants, even the healthy ones. Got the water corrected at 6.8 and the run off is good now after a couple of hours.

Damn...thats been screwing things up all along. That and my overwatering and overnuting. I've really given them some punishment, but they got chance to bounce back now.

I'll post some more pics in a few days when they've had chance to recover....I'm going to pretty much leave them alone until saturday.

[Ganja Guerrilla]

good to hear preacherman,

that video was a fortunate mistake, the meter going freaky in the middle of the filming

no better example of backups needed, especially the chemy test kits

remember everything going in the pots needs to be corrected to 6.5 - 6.8PH