Dying plants, roots cant support canopy? What do I do?

Pretty new to hydro. 18 gallon Rubbermaid 4-site DWC setup with net pots and hydroton pellets. Plants range from around a foot tall and not very wide to around 2 feet wide. The plants were rooted and established, but then had some serious neglect and algae. Now I have them and I am trying to nurse them back to health. All of them lost most of their roots to the algae. The Cindy 99 has been pouring out new white roots like crazy, however the plant still is very wilted. The other 3 plants are poking out new white roots, however not on as fast of a pace.

The problem I fear, is that these other 3 plants are too big for their root structure, cant support the foliage they have, and the stress theyve had (transportation, etc) is slowing them down from recovering. I pulled the light farther away (400 watt HPS) to ease up on the intensity, but they all are still seriously wilting.

The water is PH'ed at 5.6-5.7, the rez has a new fill of tap water that started at about 275ppm, and about 600ppm of GH Flora Grow. Then about 30ppm of H2O2. About 900 in the end. The water unfortunetly hovers around 74 F until I can get a few more bottles frozen for the rotation (this keeps my other res at about 68 F). The temp should be stabilized under 72 F tomorrow. No new signs of algae.

The big questions. What do I do to help bring them back? What water level should I have? Since there are barely any roots, do I want the water to sit very very close to the net pots? Or a few inches away? Should I lower the nute level? They were on 600ppm of nutes before I got them. Should I foliar spray with anything? Should I periodically run water through the hydroton to help keep it moist? I only have 3 airstones in the tub, adding a few more tomorrow so that should help keep them moist?

They are on their night cycle right now, so Ill see how they look in the morning. Hopefully nothing dies. :confused:

PS. They are much more wilted then in those pictures. Those were taken this morning and by the end of the day they were much more wilted. Temp is around 80-85 degrees.

First, clean off all dead leaves, and all or most of the dead roots. Then look at what you have left as far as a plant is concerned. I am assuming they are in vegging state.....

You now have the duty of matching the roots to the canopy of GOOD leaves. If there is too much green for the roots, cut more green off to give the roots a chance to be able to handle the stuff up above the water level.. You are now basically doing the same thing as when you are cloning. When you clone you cut the leaves back on the little branch so that roots will develop. The principle is the same.

SN

Man they took a hard hit, sounds like. Algae wont kill roots, and my experience with root rot, {pythieum} has thankfull been limited to two times. Once i caused it on purpose as an experiment by reusing the same rockwool for four crops.

Next time was in dwc buckets with too warm water {75} I managed to save both crops with lots of tlc but the pythieum is a systematic disease. Which means that a plant that is badly infected will always have the disease. It cant be "cured", and i've found that even tho plants can recover enough to stay alive and flower, and go on to become mamas and clones, they are always smaller and weaker plants when compared to non infected plants. The potency is lower, taste is worse, and they generally are an inferior plant compared side by side to a healthy plant. Just my 2.

Hmm thats not very encouraging Slow, but it doesnt suprise me. They actually just went into 12/12 because the only room I have large enough to put the res in, is my flower room.

So, the Alaskan Thunderfuck is my biggest concern because it is the largest. Should I try trimming back a few fan leaves? Im confused because I am unclear whether it is more important to A) have more fan leaves to convert light into energy to produce roots or B) cut some fan leaves off so the roots dont need to support so much. I am going to try B and see if that helps.

The other DWC with 2 plants (trainwreck and G13 cross) is doing GREAT after a week of recovering, but they definitely did not have the problem as bad.

So you guys think the algae will continue in a clone? Because I was going to reveg these after budding to keep them going because Ive been wanting some Cindy 99, MK Ultra, and Alaskan for awhile. However, I wanted to eventually make those strains into mothers and clone large amounts for the future. But I dont want to do that if they are going to carry the disease.

Well no big improvements. I decided to do some manicuring and took away some of the larger leaves. Dont know if that specifically helped, but atleast the tips are look healthy. Larger leaves are still wilted but still looks like hope. I installed an extra air pump and 3 new airstones into the res so its really bubbling in there. I expect considerable root growth tomorrow.

In general they do not look as wilted as yesterday, so I am going to say they are recovering. I did lose the main cola branch on the Alaskan Thunderfuck. I had patched it one real quick but it didnt really take. I just cut it off and I am cloning it. Seems to be doing good so far.

Will take some pictures tomorrow. Water is still a little warm. I dont quite have enough ice bottles to keep in a constant cycle.

Anything I could buy? Would Superthrive help? Foliar spray it?

Try some hydrogen-peroxide, mix to 1% of your water. It will curing algae and adding more oxygen to the water.

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Originally Posted by zetathix

Try some hydrogen-peroxide, mix to 1% of your water. It will curing algae and adding more oxygen to the water.

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Yeah Ive been doing H2O2 along with the nutes. I went out of town for 2 days. Came back and my Trainwreck is already budding! 2 days it looked like new leafs, now there are hairs and buds developing. The G13 has expanded as well.

The 4 sicklies are doing...better then I expected. The Alaskan was the perkiest I have seen it ever. The other plants looked about the same, but a little perkier and there was noticeably more white roots coming out. Hopefully its not stressing them to hard to be thrown into flowering WHILE recovering their roots.

I came home right after my lights out, so I flipped them on to water my soil ladies and throw some ice bottles into the res, so I didnt take much time and fully inspect everything. Bigger update and pictures tomorrow, and probably more pictures.

Alright. So all the plants actually look fairly perky (leaves mostly straight out). The roots are not developing as fast as Id hoped and I think atleast one has actual root rot. Sigh. It isnt dying and there are white roots coming out, so well see what happens. That would be the Cindy 99. It seems like they are on the road to recovery.