Hmmmm What Do I Do?

[c0mrade]

I'm running into some problems. I've got my plant in a grow box I built painted it all super white inside the box.

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/Bumboclad/setup.png

Here are pictures of the plant now bare with me this is my first setup now I haven't used any nutes yet but I started germination on the 8th of May. Seeds cracked within 2 days was growing pretty good but here are some pictures.

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/Bumboclad/photo2-1.jpg
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/Bumboclad/photo-2.jpg

[SauceeMcGee]

Many questions:

1.) What kind of soil are you using

2.) Are these just bag seeds?

3.) What's your watering schedule?

4.) What kind of light are you using?

5.) What's that twine in the pictures for? Are you trying to LST?

[Italiano715]

guessing...lookin at your soil, it may be overwatering....how often u water?

[SauceeMcGee]

guessing...lookin at your soil, it may be overwatering....how often u water?

Exactly what I was trying to find out, they are wilting quite a bit

[c0mrade]

Many questions:

1.) What kind of soil are you using - Some gardening soil I picked up from Home DePOT lady told me it was good shit to grow weed lol. (Not Kidding)

2.) Are these just bag seeds? - Yeah there from a bag of weed I picked up in mexico it was good shit but I don't know I just wanna make sure I can do it before I grow good stuff.

3.) What's your watering schedule? - I havent really figured out a schedule yet because I'm always doing something so it's pretty much when the soil looks dry to me. (I think I might be over wattering though sometimes I spray it a few times a day)

4.) What kind of light are you using? - 400watt Metal Halide

5.) What's that twine in the pictures for? Are you trying to LST? - No I just didn't have enough soil at the moment to keep the plant up straight so I tied it up to a holder thingy.

---

[SauceeMcGee]

Well, IMHO, it looks like you're overwatering like italiano suggested. They are wilting quite a lot and your soil looks DAMP.

Let the plants dry out a bit and let their cells regain their rigidity. The thing about overwatering is it chokes the roots so the plant can't uptake any oxygen. I assume that this causes the plant to wilt from an absence of O2 in the cells.

Give your plant a few days without watering them and see how they're doing

Hope we all helped,

SMG

[c0mrade]

Alright Ill try that, what should I do for a water schedule? How many times a week or a day? Thanks for all the help everyone. Now will my plants grow without nutes?

[SonicHaze]

I would water like once every 3 days, until it drains out of the bottom of your pot. (assuming you have appropriate drainage)

[c0mrade]

Alright so I let the plant go the whole night under the light soil looking ALOT more dry but plant in the same state. Gotta go to work atm will be home soon any suggestions?

[Rusty Trichome]

Put a fan on 'em and don't water again till the pot feels unusually light.
Do you have adequate ventilation besides the holes in the box? If not, you are restricting the co2 levels and stressing with high humidity and possibly too warm. No nutes till you get it back on track.

Filling out the troubleshooting form takes out most of the guesswork for us though.

[c0mrade]

I've got a pc fan in 1 of the holes at the moment and the box is pretty cool where the plant is. Where I have the light there is ALOT of heat. But because this box is in my basement right by a window there is fresh air and I have co2 tanks from paintballing so I can spray some air on them.

[Rusty Trichome]

If no fan on the plant itself, you're going to need one. Venting the warm air is great, but you want a fan on the plant to aid in strengthening the stems and removing excess moisture through evaporation and transpiration.
Transpiration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration)

[c0mrade]

Yeah where the fans are placed right now there is air blowing onto the plant.

[c0mrade]

What is going on with this thing!!!!! I come down this morning at 6am and check on it all the leafs are sprung up and looking good. Now I just got home I check the plant and all the leafs are like so...

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/Bumboclad/photo-3.jpg

I havent watered it in a day because you guys said I've been over wattering what is weird is that if I turn off the light the plant springs back up to life.

It's like the plant doesn't like light. If I left it sitting in a dark room for days on end it would be fine but under the light doesn't seem to wanna live.

[Rusty Trichome]

Three more questions...
How hot does it get in the box while the lights are on?
Are you spraying with the lights still on?
Are you spraying with anything other than properly ph'd water?

[SauceeMcGee]

another question from me,

is that twine fairly tight? I wonder if you might be causing some congestion in the vascular tissue of the plant with that twine.

[cigarettes42]

if you can i would try to transplant into a smaller pot. it would dry up your muck quick and allow for easier water monitoring. if you got a pot way to big for the plant and your watering heavily the water that dont get used up by the plant ends up sitting in the bottom of the pot then root rot starts to begin. that plant being so small you should be able to get it out of there with minimal root shock.

[c0mrade]

ok to your questions I don't have a thermometer ummm... It's not very hot at the bottom of the box I can tell you that. I had it in a smaller pot and it was doing the same shit. What is really weird the light was off for 6 hours right and look this is a picutre I took 10 minutes ago before the light turned on.

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu136/Bumboclad/photo-4.jpg

The light was just turning on thats why it's kinda green inside the box :P

[SauceeMcGee]

What I'm about to type is purely hypothetical and I am simply writing this to get some ideas flowing because I don't know where to start on this one. This is a peculiar case....

ok, so the stomata of the leaves are open before the light turns on and the leaves are perky. This makes me think that they are perking up because they are gaining more rigidity from gas absorption.

The light turns on, and the leaves droop again. This makes me think that the heat from the light is sapping the water from the leaves and causing them to droop. The reason they don't withhold their rigidity when the lights go on is because it isn't absorbing enough water...

Anybody have any diagnostic suggestions? This may scream root rot but I have no idea...I would think we'd see other external symptoms on the foliage by now...

[Rusty Trichome]

Anybody have any ... suggestions? Yup. Fill-out the troubleshooting form, in your thread.

[tinytoon]

Aye no doubt, fill out the form hte best you can because atm all your gonna get is guesses because noone except you knows what they are growing in, how old, ph levels and so on and so on.

BTW .... Welcome back Rusty!!

[c0mrade]

Well today I just went and checked on the plant. 4 hours with the light on and the leafs weren't completely down they looked like they were on the way but they were still up!!! So ill go check on it in a few hours and see if they've completely gone down or they just gonna be droopy today :P

BTW thats for all the help everyone.

[c0mrade]

Good news everyone plant is back and going I modded my box a little installed some proper vents and put a big oscillating fan on the side of the box where theres a hole for a smaller fan so lots of air circulating in the box. Now I paintball quite often and I have lots of cO2 tanks would it be bad to spray the plant with a little cO2 now and then?

[Italiano715]

CO2 is beneficial for C3 plants as well as every other plant on earth. Too much can kill though. Also, with using CO2 you can actually get away with the temperature being a bit higher than need be (85F) with no significant problems. Go for it! :thumbsup:

[Rusty Trichome]

Glad to hear they're perking-up. :thumbsup:
With proper ventilation, they should be fine without supplimenting CO2. And since you are lacking a rigid schedule or a way to monitor CO2 levels...I'd say it's not worth it.
But then I've never used CO2, either.

Is the box still lightproof?

[c0mrade]

It's not 100% lightproof the top of the door and the 2 holes for the fans are the only light leaks but theres about a 1cm across the top like a 50cm wide strip 1cm thick on the door I cut it 2 short lol and then 2 12x12 spots for the fans the fans are in but still light is gonna always leak out. Im not worried about people seeing it as it's in a concrete room in my basement without any windows and theres a door to the room so...

[Rusty Trichome]

I'm not at all concerned with light geting out. I'm worried about light getting in during their dark period. Especially when you switch from veg to flowering. Causes stress, and they will likely hermie if exposed.

[c0mrade]

Well I think it's already a male but not 100% sure. Umm about light getting in wont happen. It's in a pitch black room in my basement when the lights off so don't worry about light getting in.

[Rusty Trichome]

Okey dokey. No worries. :jointsmile: