Under watering?

I'm baffled. For the last 4 days or so I have been trying to figure out why the leaves are drooping. The weather outside is starting to get lower but I have been carefully watching the children. The temps never get lower then 65 at night and during the day no higher then 85. I added a timer for my fogger which was set to 15 on and 15 off. I took it back off 2 days ago. The misters were set to about 30 off and 1 minute on when this problem started so I backed it off to about 1 minute one and 5 off. I have been playing around with it some too like increasing the time to 2 minutes on and 3 off, that sort of thing. I cant figure out whether they want more water, more time between waterings or less of either/both. At night my timer goes to a 10 second on 7 minutes off for the misters and the fogger still stays on 24 hours. The plants get slightly healthier looking during the night then by the morning they perk up nice and healthy. 3/4 through the day they start to look bad again. This can be 4 or more hours from lights out.

PPM's are at about 225 or so and it's been a week since I last changed the water. I am building a new system, hoping to be done in next day or two so I was holding off water change till then. PH creeps up to about 6.3 at most, then I bring it back to 5.8.

I'm just amazed at how finicky these things can be. I watch them nearly 24 hours a day and I never have a clue what the hell happened when they go to shit on me.

Hey Prodaytrader,

Not sure on the fog portion.. but I'll fill you in on a couple of my lessons when I switched to Aeroponics. I put a couple of pics of my systems in your other thread about spacing on the plant sites. What I tried to do was copy the 1/2 baked article that appeared in HT a few months ago about growing a lb every 3 weeks.. The systems I built use Aeroflow 3" net pots, that I fill using rooted clones.

On my first run in the vegetation system, after advice from the dude at the hydro store, I was putting some hydroton pellets into the bottom of the net pot, putting the rooted clones in next, and finish by filling the net pot to the top with the hydroton pellets. To make a long story short, this was totally wrong, completely slowing root growth and retarding plant growth. The reason I bring it up, is in the picture, yours are full to the brim with pellets.

My other trip ups, were constantly fretting and worrying over pH, using H2O2 out of the gate, and mixing the nutes way too hot.. I had some plants that looked similar to yours and ended up having to trash the lot.. Way too stressed for recovery.

After a bit of research, when I had new clones rooted and was ready for round 2, I started doing the following:

1. Dangle the roots through the openings in the bottom of the net pot.
2. Add just enough pellets to keep the base of the stem from moving around.
3. Use a neoprene collar to stabilize the top of the clone.
4. Put it in the system.
5. Place a black plastic cover over the top to prevent any light penetration or spray on to the leaves. I make them from black heavy duty trash bags.

The idea is to maximize the root exposure to spray in the system. I run my veg sys at 1 min on, 4 min off and it work's great (flower 1/5). I even put in clones with very minimal roots and let them finish developing in veg, which is 3-4 weeks for the size I like to move into flower.

As far as your temps, you're running on the high side. It's key to keep your reservoir at 68 degrees or below. If your lights on temps are hitting 85, your reservoir is probably getting to at least the mid 70's. This can lead to pythium, aka root rot in a hurry.

For nute strengths and ph, I use:

Veg 500-700 ppm
Flower 600-800 ppm
ph 5.5 - 5.7

I set it once, on a fresh reservoir, and swap them every 4-5 days..

I also add 1/2 oz of B52 (vitamin b from AN) to 10 gallons when moving plants between systems: clone-veg-flower. Seems to alleviate stress.. I also use grow nutrients for the first few days when moving plants into flower. My logic is to minimize the stress and let them settle into the HPS lighting.

If you get root rot, 35% H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) can help, but be careful because it's very caustic! I hear 1 TBSP per gallon of water for bad cases, though I've had nothing but trouble with adding that much. Plants going limp!! Now, I use between 3/4 and 1 oz for 10 gallons of water and back the nutes down to the 400-500 range. This method helped me limp through August. Next year, chillers!!

For your immediate problems, if your roots are nicely exposed, you may want to start with a new reservoir at about 400 ppm with your base veg nuts. Run it for a day and change it again and see how things perk up.

Stay with it, with a few tweaks you'll have things going well..

Peace,

Farmer Rich

I'm no pro with aero/fogoponics, but the ppm's at 225 seem awfully low. I would throw an educated guess out there and say they look hungry to me. I would also tell you to turn it up a few notches, but again I haven't used fog.

Here's to bumpin your thread and hoping someone with some fog knowledge can help you out.

I started again with the research and discovered several things tonight. First my plants arent growing very well at all and this is not even speaking of the drooping right now. These things should be growing 1/2 inch per day and I am lucky if 1 inch comes a week. I very well may be low on the nutes after just reading something about how one guys had very similar complaints about his system and he ended up boosting ppm's to nearly 800 before he started to see results.

I am stuck right now waiting for the glue to dry on my new system. I apparently choose the wrong glue, twice and still cant no put my new system into use. I was hoping to put it into use and plant 5 new sprouts today.

The new system will incorporate the free root idea for sure. I have neoprene collars and will put those into netcups and then a cup collar on top of that. Depending on how that feels I will add little to no hydroton if I am lucky. I once again thought this would be an upgrade not realizing that not doing this is probably why my plants look so retarded.

I learned a lot through trial and error, mostly because I couldn't find a lot of detailed information on aeroponics.. there is some out there, you just have to dig.

Good luck on your new system.. for glue on mine, standard pvc plumbing primer/adhesive, with silicone to seal the end caps on the channels (made from 5" vinly fence posts). Everything can be fully disassembled for maintenance. Did you figure out the spacing of your plant sites?

Peace,

Farmer Rich

i dont know shit about aero but your spray times are waaayyyyy to far apart. normally with out the fog it should be 1 min on 4 min off.it looks like under watering to me.do a test,pull the net puts and put them in a tub with oxygen rich water and nutes.your ppm if not doing fog should be around 300-350 by now.any ways let them sit in the tub with oxygen stones.if they perk up in a hour or 2 then u got your answer my friend.

Oh Lord, now I gone and done it! I removed the hydroton which was suprisingly easy. The plants didn't need to be pulled or anything but a few roots were damaged as to be expected. I did that about 24 hours ago and within 3 hours the plants were looking really good. I had a ruler out and measured the leaves as they climbed. They were at least vertically flat before I went to bed. Today they look like this. At some point in the night they decided to take a shit on me. Go figure. I raised nute levels to about 300 after I saw what they looked like. I am still waiting to see if they pick back up again but thus far nothing.

It did get a little colder last night but certainly not below 65 or so. With the lights on it's usually around 70 to 75.

They're likely a bit stressed now.. give them a bit of time to recover. you may want to add some form of hydro vitamin b to your mix too. I like 1/2 oz of of b52 for 10 gallons of nutrient solution, maybe even a little weaker..

Hopefully you're working on some new clones too, just to be safe.

Farmer Rich

2 days later and they seem to be doing pretty good. I'm not sure which of the things I adjusted worked, which is a shame, but all is well now. The watering timer is pretty much set to 24h misters and 24h fog. I need to start lowering the watering schedule and see if I can find the sweet spot where the leaves start to droop again, then I will edge it back up and know where I need to be. The ppm's are at 325 right now. I will hold this level for a while and see how they do. I'm not sure when I should think about increasing it again. Before then I will be in the new system and will want to put some new sprouts in. I will probably just give them water for a few days once I start the new system and then see about adding nutes again. I hope this works out. Also, I removed the hydroton as mentioned in last post, so this might have a factor on why they are thriving again. The new sprouts will not get any hydroton at all. I was thinking about starting a fog grow log once I get my new system on line. Hopefully this weekend.

forgot the pic:

looking a lot better!:thumbsup: My guess is if u follow the scientific method, small one step changes, u will be able to get these ladies to optimal growth.
It seems that hydroton doesnt work with aero until the roots clear the rocks. Reason being once the solution hits the rocks, its no longer in its micro form, completely rendering the system useless, and if ur water periodically it may not be enough for the roots, Hydroton is really tricky. The fog probably cant even penetrate the rocks. I think ur well on ur way now and have most of the hard stuff under ur belt.

I usually have droopy leaves from over watering in the first couple weeks of veg, and literally over night around the 3rd week they pick up and never droop again. So it's kinda an art form getting the feedings right, but with hydro over watering isnt to big of a deal because the roots usually get enough oxygen anyway, it seems to me that with these systems over watering is far better then under watering as long as the roots get oxygen.