Saggy Leaves

I was using hygrozyme up until the last res change 3 days ago.

Yeah I thought I remember you mentioning it.

Hmmmmmm

I was also thinking it was weird that some of the roots just stopped growing. They didn't get long enough to reach the water sitting in the bin and they still just stopped growing, and yet the plant is still doing pretty well, albeit somewhat short. Also, none of the roots have rotted off that I can tell. There are pieces of roots from my botched transplat that ended up blocking my drain, but no rotted roots at all that I have seen, and I change the res every week. In the first pic, the back right one is an example of the short roots that didn't make it to the sludge as is the middle on on the right side.

I was thinking that myself....it just shouldn' hurt the roots to sit normal nute solution with a normal ph so I'm wondering about other reasons at this point.

I have no doubt that those roots are your problem with the big question being.....why did they get that way? Whats the larger container they are in made of?

Plastic I assume. They are just Rubbermaid totes like you can get at Wal Mart, Target, etc.

We need someone like Rhizome or Stinky to look at them and tell us the problem. Rubbermaid from walmart hardly sounds toxic or root-eating. :wtf:

Why the f*ck do the roots stop growing and start to disappear?.you said pieces of roots in your water......are they breaking off or? i'm not at all familiar with how those 4 inch pots work. I'm wondering if the roots are somehow being choked off in those smaller pots.....reminds me of my Master Kush plant that became rootbound. (see photo) It also looks like your medium is just buried amongst the masses of crammed roots. You may want to think about a different medium and/or larger pots.

I'm for you grabbing another 25 gal container like your rez, take those and put together a couple of DWC setups with a few airstones or something. Less complicated and hopefully more workable. You'd need to be able to drain it or empty it fairly easily....Get a pump in there to circulate or something.

Yeah the roots in the water are just some of the outside roots that got sheared off when I put the pots back in the hole because they were too massive to fit in there.

The thing is, the guy that I got the net pots and some of my equipment from had used the exact same setup as I am for 3 years in Arizona and grew many successful crops. He even drew me up the plans for my E&F system. The only thing different from my setup and his is nutrients. He used the same nutrients through the entire grow and no supplements.

Shoot I'm up for anything at this point....but I have to say Ive been using the Botanicare for a couple years and never had root issues like those on your plants where the roots just break or rot off......mostly stuff i've wrestled with has been drainage issues and hydroton has seriously just been a hellhole for me. Maybe it's my imagination but it just seems to add to my problems. I stopped using it and went with another medium and the plants I'm growing now are great....no defs, no problems; they look wonderful. The only difference I can find is the fact that I';m not using hydroton but even in my last few grows with only a TOUCH of hydroton (about 1/5 total volume was leftover hydroton....very LITTLE amount) I was still fighing defs and issues. All seem to have gone completely with a different medium. I don't really understand it and can't explain it especially since others grow great plants with hydroton....:confused:

Well shit what did you switch to? ithe middle plant is going downhill, turning yellow from the bottom up just like the others, so I figure I have about 3 days until all the leaves have fallen off, so with that, I'm sitting at 40% which sucks.

I have noticed my hydroton comes out looking white, but idk if that is normal or not because I'm a n00bz. I really don't know what else to try, but I am having no luck with this.

Meanwhile, my clones are big, rich, green, thriving monsters! I need to fix the problems on the flowering side so my pre 4/20 harvest will be up to par, but I just don't understand what the problem could be!!!

Well i switched to higromite rocks.....but they have their own problems. And seriously, i turned around and handed the half left bag to a friend who had never grown hydro before....and proceeded to have no problems with it at all.

I like the higromite rocks (you can see them in the root photo) but they weigh the same as regular rocks so they're very heavy.....and for some reason algae REALLY loves to grow on it. I never had any algae grow on the hydroton.

I'm having much better luck with them but I seriously wonder about your choked off looking roots. Roots really just "don't stop growing" that I can think of....they just keep getting more and more. Something is happening to yours that is stopping that. What's your water temp? Could they be overwatered in some way?