Please help! Droopy Plants

[alwayssleepdeprived]

I can't figure out what's wrong...I thought I had the problem fixed but it only made them look better for a day if someone has experience with this setup please let me know what I'm missing

aero 9 aeroponic setup...started in organic plugs and moved into the nets with hydroton pellets daily air temp is 75 when 400w hps light sun reflector is on I have a fan blowing in an opening of foil covered cardboard around the light which is 2 feet above plants I have a picture to show you what they look like this is during the middle of their day phase so I'm assuming the leaves should be atleast looking better than this...started with brita filtered water and added 400ppm of nuts are they too small could this possibly be too much food? maybe I should just run water through the system if that's the case. the plants leaves feel kinda brittle to the touch as they felt almost leathery before some spots of yellowing have shown up but nothing major if this is running as a "TAG" is it possible I could be over feeding? over watering? someone just help me I don't want to kill em

PS the bottom leaves on most are twisted and brittle and it seems to be traveling up to the top of the plant slowly if that helps oh and the water temp is hovering at 66 I read that the water temp is supposed to be very cool in aero someone let me know if this could be it possibly need it warmer till they get older then lower or what everything I read tells me to do something else

alwayssleepdeprived Reviewed by alwayssleepdeprived on 02-25-2007. Please help! Droopy Plants I can't figure out what's wrong...I thought I had the problem fixed but it only made them look better for a day if someone has experience with this setup please let me know what I'm missing aero 9 aeroponic setup...started in organic plugs and moved into the nets with hydroton pellets daily air temp is 75 when 400w hps light sun reflector is on I have a fan blowing in an opening of foil covered cardboard around the light which is 2 feet above plants I have a picture to show you what they Rating: 5

[mackSwell]

I don't use aero, but plants is plants, so here's what I see:

Your temps sound fine.

They look overwatered. I'm not sure how that is possible in aeroponics, but there it is. However, what you say about the leaves feeling brittle contradicts this. If the leaves are all feeling dry, then they aren't getting enough water. Quite a conundrum!

I have some questions:

• It looks like maybe you had an overwatering problem, and that caused the wilt, but now the leaves are drying out in the wilted position. Is that accurate?
  
• Are all of the leaves brittle, or just the lower ones? (The oldest pair of leaves do tend to die off at about that size.) The upper leaves appear kinda soggy and wilted in the photo, but it is hard to tell without touching them.
  
• For how long have your plants been in trouble?
  
• It doesn't look like an overnute problem, but did the problem begin shortly after you began adding nutes? (If it could be a nute problem, then it is a macronutrient problem, evidenced by the worst of it being in the oldest leaves.)
  
• What is the pH?
  
• What is the humidity in your grow area?
  
• What was the ppm of your Brita water before adding nutes?
  
• When you said you thought you had the problem fixed, but it only improved temporarily, what had you done that fixed it? Perhaps this is where the over/under watering comes in? Maybe they were overwatered and you cut back too much and now they are drying out?
  
  Since I don't do aero, I don't know what a good fix is. If my DWC plants looked like this, I would get a shallow container, put pH adjusted H2O and a tsp of H2O2 in it, and set each pot in that for about 6 hours, on top of the tub under the light, and see if they improved. But I'm sure there's a better aero solution... Hopefully some aero masters will chime in and have more experienced input for you.
  
  Hang in there - They aren't dead yet!
  
  

[Weedhound]

Hey this looks VERY familiar!! Hi Mack!

[mackSwell]

Hi Weed!

Here I am, spouting possibly useless advice again! *grin*

[Weedhound]

Well I didn't find your advice useless......and I like your glasses too! :jointsmile: Looks like ASD lived up to his name....posted this thread under plant problems too.

[alwayssleepdeprived]

hey mackswell and weed hound it's nice to know people actually read this stuff rofl

first off I'm sorry bout the double post I desperately wanted a response

Mack's q's

as far as I've been informed you can not overwater aero because the pump is never supposed to be turned off...in my setup I have 20 micron misters which is basically a bit heavier than a fog that runs through the air chamber and has drainage canals to port the water away...if it is over watering the only thing I can think of is because I put them in while they were a bit too young and the roots were always soaked in the hydroton (not hanging out into the open chamber yet...I agree that it looks droopy and wilted and I thought either over water or over fert but the leaves got really dry to the point of being brittle is this what happens in the case of over watering? I've grown twice before in soil so this is my first attempt with a more complex setup Everything I read points to either heat stress or over nute when it comes to curling leaves and brittle texture but even when I had the foil around the light as long as I kept a fan on it stayed dead on at 75F is it possible that plants that are too young can get over lighted without being too warm?

The the lower the leaves the more exaggerated?sp? the brittle texture seemed to be I'm not sure because there are 2 different kinds in the tank the darker green is a stout afghani indica and the other is a cross between nl and jack so I think that's mostly sativa the indicas leaves even at the top were almost like that of a rams horns even when they seemed healthy but the nl/jack pretty much fanned straight out as far as texture I can't think of a better word than leathery...it really felt like my jacket if it was warm in the sun with some moisture sprayed on it

hmm how long...umm they seemed to be fine till the first time I added my nutes I added 1 teaspoon for 5 gallons of res and they seemed to be growing at about 1/2 to 1cm a day I added an extra tablespoon after 5 days of this and noticed yellowing and droopy leaves and curling under....I flushed the res and after a day they started coming back....added nutes again as I thought I messed something up and again they got wilted but at this point I thought maybe they were just not getting nearly enough light so I also added the foil around the aero setup...actually let me describe the current setup as detailed as I can:

the 400w hortilux hps wide spectrum bulb in a super sun reflector is 2ft above the top of the aero tank there pump stays on constantly pumping pure tap water at the moment I know the tap water is at about 190 ppm or so because I took it to a local shop to have it tested...I'm not sure what the britta ppm is but I'd assume it's lower from what I've read it should be much lower like under 50ppm

the room is in the basement so it's 50F ambient temp and in the section with the light it is 75 with the light and the space heater running...the water in the res I've heard several different takes. I was told best is 65F and with 5 gallons of solution the pump keeps it at 66F with the space heater it's up to around 75F I have no idea who or what to listen to cause every faq and help says something different

humidity is about 35 to 40 as far as the dehumidifier says

the ph has been a roller coaster and it's also pissing me off

water goes in at roughly 6 I say that cause I only have a drop test kit and the next day it's over 8.5 to 9 I lower it each day to keep it at about 6 but it's wandered pretty bad...this is possibly because I've had to change the res out several times and it hasn't had a chance to even out...a few times I've accidently made the ph really low like 4 but again changed the water pretty quickly the main problem is rising ph I flushed the res 3 times after the last feeding which I think I added too much and changed it one more time last night it went in at 6 and I checked it before bed it was over 8 I checked it again when I woke up this morning and it was way over 8 I dropped it down again to just about 6 maybe even a bit lower are the plants too tiny should they be left at about nuetral till they show significant growth? I can't imagine the change is supposed to be that fast but I have no idea what is causing it cause there are no answers in the facs only thing I can think of is stored up nutes were being pushed outta the plants and that somehow raised the ph but after 3 res changes how much could they have left to push out oh by the way if I turn the space heater and the light off the room will go down close to 50 and the res temp will drop to around 60 I'm not sure if that's bad for em...ummm what else oh when they got droopy and brittle they seemed to shrink as well not just in appearance but the leaves themselves got tiny

I thought I had the problem pegged as over nute because they seemed to look a bit better as I only put water in the res

As an update with the current setup I described they have perked up a bit and the leaves seem more fleshy I'm not sure if I know what an over watered leaf feels like so if ya could describe it would help I'm not sure how much nute to add cause of all the issues before I'm thinking about changing the res once more after the dark cycle and adding 1/4 teaspoon of maxigrow <- my nute per the 5 gallon res and keeping the space heater on to have the room and res close to 75 at all times till I can narrow down the issue I don't wanna put the foil back on till I hear someone assure me that if the temps stay low enough that you can't over light I think it produces 55k lumens probably somewhere around 45 to 50 now though as it's the third grow

ok well that's all I can think of to answer those questions...I wish I had a better explanation but it really seemed like adding 4 teaspoons to 5 gallons was too much food from the description of the symptoms unless it was heat stress somehow but I'm positive they never get over 80 I hope this gives you enough info to figure out what I'm missing or maybe for someone to point me in the right direction I'll put an updated pic up when I get a chance thanks again weed and mack ;-)

[JackdaWack]

You shouldnt be fertilizing those, your final ppm shoudl be like 300. I would say its overfert, with ph lockout = plants drying out similiar symptoms

[alwayssleepdeprived]

hmm well thanks for the advice jackdawack as I said before I think when I change the res I'm gonna only add 1/4 teaspon which should only put like 70ppm of nutes in the water I'm hoping that should avoid any possible over fert...should I worry about the res temp getting down to 60? or was the rest of it all probably fine? if I should worry about temp what would be the lowest to allow cause I'm hoping to save costs of space heating

[Weedhound]

Ok ASD, you are about to get yelled at:

You can't just get around to fixing the ph when it suits you in hydro....you MUST get control of it or your plants will die. It's that simple in hydro. It's as if trying to grow in soil and saying "well I have everything I need to grow except I'm kind of fuzzy on that water thing so I'll just gloss over that part and go with 2 out of 3. PH is ALL in hydro. If you can't achieve a stable ph between 5.6-6.2 AT THE MOST over a 24 hour period don't even bother for very long because it won't happen for you (or anyone else with that kind of ph probs)

If your water isn't working or won't stay stable then use RO or distilled water.
Dump the britta filter....speaking from experience.

If you dont have them already get good quality ph up and down. USE them as often as you need to! You will need to check your ph SEVERAL times a day until you have stablized it. A good quality ph pen is nice to have too, but not necessary as long as you can measure ph in some accurate way.

You are overnuting.....but with ph being that wacky they probably aren't uptaking the nutes anyway but I agree with Jack completely....300ppm/tops for younguns'.

So DONT be looking to be sleeping too much real soon!

Jack if you get a chance could you check out my thread on "rootbound" in this forum and give me you opinion? Thanks...

[Weedhound]

And a few pssss...

Any foil you have around.....get rid of it. If you don't have Mylar maybe some cheap white paint or anything white to help reflect.

At a month old young man (or young woman) with that kind of ph rodeo be glad they are still kicking at all! (And I mean that in a nice way )

I might even think about just giving them plain ph'd water (R0 or distilled of course) for a few days since they are a month old. I thought perhaps they were new-ish clones. I would get that advice from a wiser mind than mine tho......there are plenty around. Or perhaps Flora Kleen or ???
Just rambling really on this last one.....