Thanks in advance guys! What type of medium; soil or hydro? Soil What brand and type of soil? Fox Farms Ocean Forest Indoors or outdoors? Indoors What strain? Afgan Kush Ryder and Himalaya Blue Diesel autoflowers How old are the plants? 5 weeks and 4 days (39 days old from breaking over soil) What type of lights and how many watts? Sun System 2- 250w HPS How far from the lights? Pretty far at about 7"-10" to get them to stretch. (They're VERY small) What is your watering frequency and source of water? Until yesterday, my water soure is tap water thats very hard at about pH of 8.2. I let it sit out for 3-7 days at a time before use. Now I have a $30 Brita faucet filter system, no chlorine smell or taste so thats a good sign. What, how much and when was it fed? NPK? I fed 4ml of Grow it Green, and 8ml of Flower Power by Blue Mountain Organics, on July 31st. Few days after that they started looking bad. What is the medium/runoff pH and PPM if in hydro? I flushed with 4.5-5 gallons each plant with sat out tap water, run off of the HBD was 6.6, and the AKR around 6.3-6.4, Im using 2 kinds of pH indicator drops and with nutes/runoff it gets tough to read. Looking into an electronic meter within the next month. What are the temps and humidity in the room? Temps good, under 80 always besides once it hit 84. Hanging around 75-78 degrees somewhat easily right now. Humidity is horrible and has been since the beginning. Started at around 25% RH and added cups of water and sponges to the passive intakes and got it up to 45% RH. Thats the max, its usually at 33-39% RH in the dresser and 45-60% RH in the room. What size pots? Grow bags were originally 3 gallons, but I folded them down to about 1.8-2.2 gallons between the 2 of 3. (AKR.HBD, and a Short Stuff Onyx that just popped above soil 4 days ago.) Any bugs? Look real close. As far as I can see, nada. No bugs. Killed 2 flys or similar small gnats maybe when they were about 2.5-3 weeks old. but haven't seen one since. Any other pertinent info? The transplant was hard on them, (I know I should have started in the 2 gal grow bags instead of a small container, but I wasn't thinking whatsoever at the time) The recent flush, 3 days ago, was also hard on them. They are very short and grew weird in the beginning under soil with a few curves in the stem so the auto plants are both mini. They are so short that the water from the flush kept drowning the bottom leaves. and on top of that, it may have gotten a lot of the bottom budding area wet. Its my first grow, dont know whats wrong with them! Help is greatly appreciated! They both have similar looking lockouts or deficiencies or something. Started off with very dark leaves that were tacoing/clawing downwards. Then the Mg looking deficiency came on the bottom of the HBD. and Now theres browning yellowing, light greening spreading out from the center of leafs, and brown little circles and also it looks like there will be holes in the leaves soon when looking from underneath leaves with a flash light above. They haven't had nutes in a while, but I think the pH of the soils good atleast on the HBD, so when it dries feed her or what? They started throwing pistils out on July18th and 20th. Were germed on the 3rd, popped above soil on the 5-6th. My first grow thread with a lot of pics from bad to getting way worse. Wouldnt let me post anymore because I already uploaded : /
Bro, you said how long you let your water sit but you didn't say how long between waterings, pretty important at this stage - looks like maybe a mag or calcium lockout or deficiency, but there are a lot of stress signs, if you are watering more than every 4 or 5 days its too much.
Sounds to me like you flushed out the nutes in the soil by running 4-5 gallons through each. I'm no expert but you may want to give a feeding again next time you water.
I water when the bags feeling light. Its got 5-6 holes on the sides 2 inches above the bottom, so i stick my fingers in there and check for moisture or dry soil. I dont water every certain amount of days, I wait for soil to dry. Probably every 3.5-4.5 days max.
Ok so the past couple days my rooms smelled like crap. Smells like mold/mildew or similar. I don't know the difference or the smell difference. Thought it was the air conditioner or the drainage from the AC coming forward into the windowsill, but nothing smells over there as far as I know of. Up close to the plants they smell normal, when smelling the soil thats still wet it smells nasty. The AKR used to have that strong killer smell, no it smells like what my whole room smells like. Question, what do I do?
I took the top inch or so of soil out like I read on a Google search to do in case it is root rot or mold. I took a paper clip and poked holes down into the soil to help drain better, because it feels and seems like the bottom of half of the grow bags are hard and stuffed. I then made a gallon of 5ml Grow it Green, and 10 ml Flower Power, and 1 tablespoon of Epsom salt. Even though the soil was still wet, maybe 30% max was dried even though the flush was on Wednesday, I believe, last week! I also watered the Onyx with only 6.6 pHed water, first watering since she popped (shes already like 3-4 inches tall). Oh, and the AKR I might have dug up too much soil because she doesn't stand straight up anymore, shes off the side even though I tried straightening her and pushing the bottom circle stalk looking thing hard into the soil. Anybody ever had a foul smelling plant/soil? That made your grow room area stink like mold-ish mildew-ish garbage? My room doesn't really smell now, but Ive got a fan blowing into a bowl of some strong smelling general all-use cleaner.
No I did not, but can I still do it? I have some hydrogen peroxide I believe, but its 2 months past the use by date. I may have more some where. Last night I cut the bottom of the grow bag out where I put 2 layers of paper towels down before the soil to prevent a mess, not thinking it would cause problems. I then placed in a new grow bag. Basically a transplant plus I cut the tangled nasty looking area off. I have pictures I will post soon. Thanks Phil!
Flush!! Flush!! Flush!! Even if it's 2 months past due, use it, bro! Even better, if you have a hydro store near, get some mad farmers 35% (or equivalent) mix at 1.25ml per gallon of water and flush at 4 to 1 ratio (4 gals to 1 gal soil). And water slowly, too. No more paper towels, bro!
Also, although I don't use grow bags, I am only watering every 6-7 days, maybe 4-5 on the thirstier plants. Try and give them an extra day, if you can. What has worked for me in the past is to keep an extra container of soil in the room, to check for weight. Sometimes they feel light, but they are almost dry enough to water, just almost, still a little wet. better to be a little long every once in a while than be too soon all the time. Watering is probably the trickiest part of growing good pot.
Hey Phil. Thanks dude for the info! The AKR and HBD have hermied on me. Found some ball sacks with pistils shooting out this morning. Will still grow them out I think but definitely wont treat em too good. Im disappointed in myself, knew I've been to noob-ish and harsh on them but it is what it is. Im worried about the 9 day old Onyx thats in there though, can the hermies hermie others or turn the girl into a male?
I think I see the issue with why you got root rot. You stated you had drain holes 2 inches above the bottom of the bag, but did you have any holes in the bottom of them? If not, you had 2 inches of water building up and sitting in the bottom of them. For future use with grow bags, make sure there is plenty of drainage in the bottom of the bag to prevent water from sitting. It doesn't take long for soaked soil to grow mold.
They have 4 holes on the bottom, I added 2 more extra on the bottom. Then theres holes along each side 2 inches above the botoom. Thanks man
It may be also helpful to add more perlite to your soil mix in the future. I use FFOF as well, but add in at least one cup of perlite per gallon of soil. It may cause your soil to dry out faster, but if your having issues with mold that really is only a good thing.
As far as the hermie problem, they won't affect other plants. Its because they stressed from the overwatering, thats all. Your onyx should be fine. Some plants will hermie at the slightest stress, some will never ever hermie, some will only hermie from light, etc. The paper towels you put in the bottom acted as a filter but also made the bag into a percolater, the water barely dripped thru that and as a direct result the soil stayed too moist and you got root rot. the bottom holes were rendered ineffective is all. Put a paper plate under your bags next time you fill, then you just dump the plate back in your soil with the leftovers. easy peasy!
I guess they didn't hermie and were just calyxes.. I am such an idiot. Should have asked before touching them and pulling about 6-8 off. I for sure thought they had hermied because I haven't been treating them too great, I mean I try to treat them good but I'm just a rookie. Kind of a relief. Thanks PHIL!
Bro, we were all newbs once. The biggest lesson I've learned is to have patience, bro. Don't get in a hurry, ever, don't rush anything (especially harvest and watering - dealing with a stubborn purple passion bx1, she's looked done for the last 3 weeks, just found out she's a 9-11 week strain, this ones definitely the 11 weeker, took a small branch over 2 weeks ago to sample thinking it was done, shit!!!) so we all learn new stuff all the time, nobody knows everything, but at a place like this hopefully we can all come together and figure it out! Watering is the hardest step to get across, because you don't want to overdo it but you don't want to under do it either, they produce best when at a happy medium. YOu'll get it. I still say, when you are new to soil growing, that keeping an extra bag in the room with just soil, water when you water everything else, then use it to judge the others by, is the best way to go, keeps you from getting happy with the watering can (and can end up saving substantially on nutes, too). Later bro!
Whats that look like to you guys? Aftermath of Mg deficiency? Calcium or manganese maybe starting? Havent been keeping up with them due to personal issues, and they just look sad today.