Plant Doctor Needed! I Can't Diagnose My Problem...

Hey Guys i hope you can help me diagnose whats wrong with my plants;

Just started a new grow a few weeks back, its a small soil closet grow; i'm growing Critcal Jack, Short Rider, Vanilla Kush and an Auto Assassin.

Given the growing space, temperature was an issue so i'm currently growing with one 6700k 250W CFL and a dual spectrum 250W CFL (i plan on getting a 2700k spectrum 250w CFL for flowering too). I don't know the exact temperature, but it's not overly hot in there, definitely not too hot. The humidity is usually around 30% which is probably a tad too low, but i plan on light/smell proofing my cupboard this week, which i would assume would help retain humidity better.

ANYWAY, stupidly i forgot to note the date the plants sprouted, but an intelligent guess would be that they're between 2 and 3 weeks old.

I have been using pH'd water, aiming for 6.5, but it seems to fluctuate a lot, but it hasn't been above 7.0.

I've added a few supplements to my water mix, a few drops of Hydrogen peroxide per gallon, a couple of ml's of Biobizz Root Juice and BioGrow, very dilute doses, but the water is noticeably light brown coloured. I watered the plants with this last week, probably slightly too early, and i filled up some spray-misters with this solution too and have sprayed the leaves every other day.

My first problem was the Short Rider plant, which developed some yellow almost burn like spots on the lower fan leaves, which have now developed into yellowy tips and some rust like spots which is even spreading to the newer growth. This can be seen in the first 2 pictures. edit; Actually since typing this, this Short Rider somehow toppled over and half the leaves were in direct contact with a 250w CFL i had vertical at the back of the cupboard, so pretty much all the leaves on one side have burnt to a crisp... really not helping things, i hope it survives...

My second problem is with my Critical Jack plant, which grew astoundingly fast initially has now shown some symptoms of what i reckon is a possible Nitrogen, Magnesium, or Sulphate deficiency, but it seems odd that my plant would be lacking or really needing those nutrients so soon... but i really have no idea. It could be pH levels locking out nutrients, over/under watering, over feeding, too many nutrients too early, too hot, i'm not sure, i'm hoping some one here can help. The Critical Jack is 2nd two pictures, you can see the pallid fan leaves turning bright yellow, and the general structure of the plant seems to be very confused, the leaves are canoeing upwards, and generally twisting and turning, it doesn't look entirely healthy.

Let me know what you think, sorry for the massive post.

Thanks duderinos

 

Um Bump?

This is killing me! I lightly watered the plants today with pH 6.5 water, 1ml of BioHeaven and a 1ml of Root Juice and finally a drop of Superthrive, i'm hoping to see some good results, but as far as i know, i could be making everything worse. I'm thinking about transplanting to bigger pots, which will allow me to refresh the soil, which may help in the long run.

The leaves of Critical Jack are still growing, they're pretty massive fan leaves already, but i can see them turning even paler green, slowly yellowing, along with some rust spots... man, that's sadness.

Hope someone can help.

 

Hey guys thanks for your help, however I still haven't sorted this problem... In fact it seems to be getting worse on some plants, particularly the Critical Jack whose lower leaves are turning almost White/very pale yellow. Looks rather I'll, I tell thee. I don't think I helped anything by topping it, along with a couple of others just as it was beginning to show symptoms of whatever it's suffering from.

I've since transplanted them to bigger pots, hoping fresh pHd soil and better root space and drainage might help. However I'm thinking transplanting already sickly plants might just stress them too much. I'll upload pictures later.

What's confusing me is that all symptoms are generally applicable to so many different problems, from what I can tell, it could be a nute (N, P K in particular) deficiency, or the complete opposite - over feeding. Overwatering could be a problem, especially after I flushed the plants a little bit when i transplanted. Overwatering with too alkaline tap water water could also result in pH lock along with too high a temperature preventing nute uptake... Thanks for those suggestions they make sense BUT I had been meticulously adjusting the pH to 6.5-6.7 with each watering for the past few weeks, before any symptoms were present...

One thing I notice is that after adjusting water with pH down, the next day I retest the pH level of the left over water i mixed and never used, and it always seems to rise again to around 7. Is it possible that the pH down is crystallising in the soil or something and the pH of the water is being changed further upon draining through the soil? Perhaps pH down crystals are making the soil way too acidic?

Man this is driving me nuts, I have about 5 different theories, and i have a feeling the final 3 seeds I'm trying to germinate wont make it... It's a bloody disaster!

Maybe the fact that the growth is stunted is important, given they've barely grown in over a week, could this be due to the transplant? the fimming? Nute burn/deficiency? Heat stress? pH lock?

Any more help would be awesome. I'll post pics tomorrow, Thanks guys.

 

Thanks dude, i've been lowering the pH even lower in recent days, my pH meter is definitely accurate and has been over the past few weeks, so i guess the pH just rises every few days, so i'm leaving it to settle on a pH of 6.5 for a few days before watering.

I'm not sure about nutes yet though, if they have enough in the soil or if they're deficient or just right. I think i'll leave the soil to dry out more than i usually would between each watering now to prevent overwatering.

The issues i mentioned in previous posts have kind of stopped getting worse, the yellowing of the leaves seems to have subsided but the damaged leaves still remain on a few plants.

What do you think of these pictures? They're taken earlier today, over a week since last time pictures were taken, and there has been a serious lack of growth in most of the plants, and some weird mutated looking leaves... check it out... i don't know what to think...

I apologise for the crappy quality;

First 3 pictures are from my Autoflowering Short Rider - it's really small and bushy, but many of the leaves seem stunted or just plain freaky, like deformed. Half the plant got burnt off on a CFL, which sucked, but it's made a seemingly alright recovery, during which i topped it, which was probably a mistake. As you can see in the pictures the new growth is pretty weak, there are some weird shaped leaves and it just doesn't seem to be growing at all. All those burn marks on the leaves are heat burn from the lamp...


The next 3 pictures are of an Autoflowering Auto Assassin, similar problem, except no heat stress. Some growth appears deformed, particularly after where i topped it, there appear to be 4 main stems growing from where i fimmed it, but all are very underdeveloped and haven't grown in over a week.

The next 2 images are from the Critical Jack, which is doing better than the previous 2 plants, you can see the yellowing edges from whatever reason, probably pH, it may be getting slightly worse, does anyone recognise this problem in the leaf? The other picture is just of some smaller growth at the bottom of the plant that just appears very stunted and a little deformed. Basically this plant hasn't grown obviously in over a week either.

Finally, these 2 pictures are from my Vanilla Kush, which is probably the healthiest of my plants, but that isn't saying much... This plant HAS been growing, every day the leaves reach up to the lights causing a few tips to get burnt before i manage to raise the light again, however, check out the weird ways the leaves are growing, curving off at the end, that's been happening a lot, i'd guess it's to do with pH, which is worrying as i thought i corrected that. It could be to do with heat or something though, check out the leaves 'canoeing' in the final image, thats happening a lot too.

Y'know this is all probably nothing that won't sort itself out in the end, although i can't be too sure, and especially with the deformed autoflowering plants. Call me a plant hypochondriac... but i just want to make sure there's nothing TOO serious happening... I apologise if it seems needy asking for help, it's just i can't figure it out on my own and i'm hoping a fellow grower with some more experience may recognise any of these symptoms, any help will be appreciated! Thanks guys.