Please help! Droopy Plants

Hi ASD,

update? You completely lost me when you started talking about the droplet thing.....that sounds more like Jack's baliwick than mine. Did want to know how they are though.

well I've topped off the water twice and I've been keeping an eye on them and until just a few hours ago they looked great...they seem to have started drooping again and I haven't added anything even the ph has been so stable it hasn't needed up/down to fix it...is it possible that when they started growing they used the rest of the nutes in there? maybe I should just add some more food but I was hoping someone could help me out with what would happen if you just left a plant trying to grow in ph'd water with no food

I would really appreciate it if someone can pinpoint what's goin on with these stupid things cause I'm about to just kill them all and start over with soil the ph has been the same for several days now and nothing besides topping off the res has happened how can they do so well for 2 or 3 days and now look like they're gonna die?

did u try and cut back on watering?

well I was thinking about going and buying an interval timer for the setup but I don't know why the plants would have stopped looking water logged and had the leaves lift up and be fine for several days only to drop back down again now...I guess I have no other choice but to get a timer and atleast see if it can make the grow speeds quicker cause it's been in the aero tank for 2 weeks and I've had at most 3 inches of growth

Well Jack may be right about the watering thing....aero is not my thing. Here are two off the wall thoughts....one was that I had a mineral def in my plants in one of my previous grows....when I switched to blooming nutes and bent them they took a big jump and the nutrient requirements couldnt keep up...the problem ended with keeping the ppms up to a good level (in this case 1000/ppms)to avoid defs. You might try doing a res change and up your nutes a touch but you really are going to need some equipment to measure ppms etc if you stick with hydro. Too much or too little? Btw, you'd be surprised how many things a fresh res change can help.

The other is that there is discussion that large amounts of ph up/down can add too many salts to your res....I don't know much about this, only that I have heard it. I change my res more often than recommended because I like the results I see in my plants when I do. They always seem to take a growth jump when I do.

These are complete guesses on my part....the nute def I learned by trial and error. I know there are others out there who know much more than I do so hopefully they will be able to solve your prob. :(

I've checked them this morning and they seem to have perked up after adding the nutes last night maybe it's possible they had none left and just needed some food...there isn't anything that says unfed plants will droop but besides the ph going down to look a bit more orange the food was the only change...also it seems like the res ph is climbing slowly since I've added the nutes I've checked a few times today and noticed it's getting closer to yellow

I have to get a ph/ppm tester cause it would help to know if they really were just outta food...the tallest plant is a bit over 6inches now and maybe 8-10 inches wide depening on how straight the leaves are

Now I'm just gonna play the waiting game and hopefully they perk up even more I'll put up a pic at the end of the light cycle tonight for comparison

Again thanks for the advice WH and JW the ideas are always good I got a question though how fast do you guys notice them growing when conditions are ideal? should they really get an inch taller a day?

an inch is ideal, i always had mine shoot up, but i just started an indica grow so im not too sure, you would look for about atleast half an inch a day, they really grow during flower, during vegg its more likely to ask the question if its not growing up to its standard, in flower u should see them shoot up. MY vegging plants ussually just grow up to 12 inches in a month. and then flower they double in size the first month, and the last month they ussually stop growing u will see a couple inches hear and there.

The reason I think of it is that there is one mineral....I'll have to look it up (copper?) ....and that is exactly what happened to my plant....drooped and wilted within 12 hours and came back just as fast when I did a res change with full strength nutes... Give me a few min to look back through some of my posts....I listed it somewhere.

It was iron and it caused very rapid drooping throughout the entire plant.....at least I'm thinking iron beccause the symptoms fit perfectly and went away just as quick as they came.

Update when you can......