First Time Grower, first real issue

[Jerkface]

I started growing my plant about 6 weeks ago after finding a seed in some product and seeing if I could sprout it. It sprouted, so I bought some Miracle Grow Moisture Control potting soil from Home Depot, potted it, and stuck it under a UV light in my garage. Very low tech, very bare bones set up. Despite this, the plant seemed to have been growing rather nicely. I decided to upgrade my setup to include a grow tent, ventilation and a better light about 48 hours ago. The first 24 hours were great, however in the past 12-18 the plant seems to be in distress and drooping pretty significantly. The soil is still damp from its previous watering, I am very careful not to overwater. Temperature has been a steady 75 degrees. I turned down the light intensity because that was my first thought, but would appreciate any other thoughts or observations.

 

[Jerkface]

Additional Info, I currently leave the light on a 16 hours timer. The new light I just purchased along with the grow tent is a VIVOSUN VS1000 LED Grow Light which is hanging about 12 inches over the plant. Until this morning the light was set at 100%, but after a little reading it sounded like this was too close, and since I cant raise it currently I dropped it down to 50% one the dimmer, and plan to get a larger tent. Temp has been consistently at 73 degrees with about 52% humidity. I have not been adding anything besides water. I know I probably should be, but since up until this point things have appeared fine, I have been working under the "if its not broke, don't fix it" approach.

 

[seaofgreen18]

Howdy, it needs a haircut and it looks over watered to me and you might want to raise the light and or maybe dim it to 50% or 60%. Other than getting rid of the miracle grow "DIRT" it looks and sounds like your on the right track! Happy frog or root organics is ok soil ALOT BETTER than that miracle grow CRAP!

 

[seaofgreen18]

18 hrs of light in vegitive growth is what most of us do

 

[Jerkface]

Howdy, it needs a haircut and it looks over watered to me and you might want to raise the light and or maybe dim it to 50% or 60%. Other than getting rid of the miracle grow "DIRT" it looks and sounds like your on the right track! Happy frog or root organics is ok soil ALOT BETTER than that miracle grow CRAP!

Thanks for the tips. I am ordering a new tent so I can raise the lights for sure, in the meantime I dropped the dim to 25%. Should I be clipping those big fan leaves, I wasnt sure how to approach pruning, and didnt want to overdo it.
I have also heard that the soil is garbage haha, so I will definitely try to rectify that. Do you think I should be transplanting it to a new pot with the new soil asap or wait until it bounces back a little bit from what its dealing with right now?

 

[seaofgreen18]

Yes ,take off the big fans . But Yeah, give it a few days maybe let it dry out a bit and see where it is health wise and up pot ,you probably could do it anytime the plant isn't in that bad of shape

 

[BeccaBuds]

I've amended Miracle Gro potting soil to make it useable. Add 33% by volume perlite or better yet, lava rock, and dolomite or gardeners lime (1 cup lime/2cu.ft. soil). It has to "cook" for a couple months. Also add things like earthworm castings (a fav), guano, feather meal, alfalfa meal, bone meal, blood meal, etc, etc, etc. to boost your available N-P-K. Toss in some Biochar.
Or just buy a bag of Root Organics and trash the Scotts product...

 

[Jerkface]

One month out from this post and have definitely seen some dramatic improvement based on the tips I received. New soil, started a nutrient schedule, new tent and new light. Started the 12/12 light cycle a week or so ago, so we will see how it goes