Clones dying after 3 days in bubbler

[Chancer]

MY FRIENDS setup,
5' x 3' room 6.5' high (totally sealed and light-tight)
600W MH bulb with a 125mm air cooled reflecter.
rvk for air in and another rvk for air out.
two 90litre bubblers.
2 tetratec aps400 airpumps and 4 12' airstones for each bucket.(loads of air!)
temps 25c at top and 21c at base.
8 cheese clones (well rooted)
starting ph 5.7
house and garden nutes (aquaflakes A+b) at 12cf -used these before with great results-

This is a new room and buckets.
The cheese went in on wednesday,looked good
Thursday 11pm looked great,nice thick little taps coming through the pots.
Friday 4pm looked droopy as hell. After searching I concluded 'overwatering' as the problem because the netpots and underside lid of the bubbler was dripping wet.Took them out of system and placed them on the lid.Was expecting them to perk up but today they look awful and the roots are going brown.
I'm totally stuck!

is the water level lower than the pots? it should be an inch or so below the bottom of the net pots so the roots reach down with the mist that the bubbles give off and eventually reach the solution.

i'm no expert but im guessing you are drowning your plants...?

[Chancer]

Yeah,thats what i reckoned but they just dont seem to be recovering. Is is best to keep the light on? or would a spot of darkness be better? I turned the pumps off yesterday when i saw problems.

[mordgrow]

Originally Posted by Chancer

I turned the pumps off yesterday when i saw problems.

you turned off the pumps? the air pumps?

thats a bad thing, the air in the water is the only thing keeping your plants alive.

BTW, those plants look fine, maybe a little stressed out (deep purple in the stem isn't a good thing normally) just give em a few days. I've had CUTTINGS (un rooted) that are STILL green and alive with no roots for 20ish days.

these plants are amazingly resilient, they'll surprise you.


this really just looks like minor transplant shock. nothing major.


and with the roots hanging out of the bottom already you can drop the water level to an inch below the basket safely. just watch, 2 - 4 days from now those plants will start growing like crazy.

[Chancer]

Thanks Mord,thats very comforting advice.
I turned the pumps off to stop them drowning further,I thought it best to just let them sit there for a while.
I'll lower the level and turn the pumps on again.
cheers man