Trouble on Day 22

[Meriwether]

What Strain is it? Sweet Seeds Dark Devil Auto
How Many Plants? 2 plants, 1 with a problem
Is it in Vegetative or Flowering Stage? Pistils are showing, but it's an Auto
Indoor or Outdoor? Indoor
If Soil... What is in your Mix? 100% Fox Farms Ocean Forest, with layers of Hydroton top and bottom
If Soil... What Size Pot? 10" pot
Size (Wattage) of Light? How Many? Mars Hydro Reflector 96x3 (LED)
Is it Air Cooled? Oscillating fan
Temperature of Room/Cabinet? 64-84F
RH of Room/Cabinet? 48-60%
PH of Medium or Reservoir? Not tested, have used only FFOF soil and purchased R/O water
Any Pests? Small ants seen wandering around occasionally
How Often are you Watering? Twice in 22 days, the most recent being 4 days ago. I watered the soil before planting for a few days to get it moist.
Type and Strength of Fertilizers used? None
Size or Square Footage of Room? 2x3x5 bathroom closet

Extra info: 18/6 light routine since planting; plants rotated 45% at the start of each light cycle. As of yesterday started LST with garden wire. After 2nd watering, when this problem started, I noticed a lot more salt-like residue in the bottom of this plant's runoff tray than the other's after evaporation.

This is my first grow. I started two Dark Devil seeds at the same time, in the same sized pots, in FFOF soil from one bag. I've only ever used R/O water purchased from a grocery store machine dispenser at $0.40/gallon. One of my plants seems to be doing very well, the other one has developed some drooping leaves which are turning yellow and starting to shrivel up alarmingly. I hoped at first it was something minor that would pass, but its starting to show up on newer fan leaves now.

The problem plant started out doing better than the other one, quickly growing taller, but it's now fallen behind the other plant in development. On to the pics:

All advice welcome! I'm currently following the "don't do anything and hope for the best" method.

 

[davidelmo]

hi there mate merry xmas, i would try flushing then only adding half the nutes wrote on the bottles. if not adding nutes i would start givin them nutes. the residue cud be your water i would try changing it for a couple weeks nd c what happens. try to find out what the ph is. i would try to nip your ant thing in the bud before it gets worse. if theres a issuse i would not just ignore it as it will only get worse. process of elimination. hope this helps

 

[Meriwether]

I just tried flushing, I sat Lewis in my shower and poured about 2 gallons of R/O water through. We'll see what happens.

 

[Meriwether]

Should I cut off the affected parts of the fan leaves?

 

[go4snypr]

looks like nute burn. is there ferts in the soil?? i am not a soil grower. but no dont cut it. Just leave it. It will never get better on those leaves but they will still be helping in plant growth

 

[cannacrazy]

It looks to me that your leaf was touching the water and caused the edge to rot, then it dried and turned brown. Using hydroton I know you have to flood it every few hours or so. Try just clipping the lower leaves so as to not come into contact with your water during the plant's rest cycle. Even if your lights are on 24/7, your plants still sleep a few hours minimum everyday. The leaves droop when this happens, so the lower ones can sometimes get stuck to your dirt/grow medium and get oversaturated with water and nutrients.

 

[Meriwether]

Thanks for the replies fellas. :icon_cool

I'm growing in soil, Fox Farms Ocean Forest (FFOF) which has a lot of nutes built-in. The leaves have never touched the soil or Hydroton as far as I know. I put about 1 1/2" of Hydroton in the bottom of each pot for drainage, and a thin layer over the top soil to prevent water from flooding in, and to retain moisture over the top layer.

I've never added nutes of any kind, and I've only used R/O water.

I've read in other people's posts that FFOF is "hot," some folks feel it's too much, and if someone can confirm that what I have going on looks like nute-burn, then I guess my experience strengthens the case that FFOF can be too hot. Strange that it only happened with one plant out of two, planted under identical conditions. Thinking back, when I put the soil into the pots, I opened the bag and started scooping it out into the pots, I didn't mix it or anything. Maybe there was an uneven distribution of the FFOF built-in nutes?

I won't cut the leaves.

 

[cannacrazy]

My plants hate fox farm ocean forest soil. My blueberry looks ill from it. Coco choir is the best way. I use b' buzz brand which is a little pricey but well worth the quality. All my clones in fox farm soil grow slow and stretch, whereas in coco they explode with growth and are much tighter and stout. Next cycle I'm switching all my plants from soil over to coco. Everyone's environment in their own grow dictates what works best for themselves though. I know my solutions wouldn't work across the board in any other grow, not all of them anyways. Don't be afraid to cut diseased or ill leaves off.
You may very well have a point about the fox farm burning. I know their liquid fertilizers all burn and the PH is erratic and takes more work to manage. I use advanced nutrients. Never any burn and much healthier. I use their whole line at half strength and it's great. I used fox farm 15 years ago and never really liked it but it's all I could buy back then. The advanced line of nutes make feeding easy. Adjust your ph between 6-7 then add all the nutes, mix and done. Other brands you have to adjust and readjust the ph. Advanced has some proprietary recipe that keeps the ph in the zone automatically (if you have good enough water). RO water is exactly what they recommend and you have that going for you.

 

[go4snypr]

I still say nute burn. and to only happen to one plant is not abnormal as every plant is different and requires different nutes. give it time, its probably just too much for a little plant and will straighten out as it gets bigger.

 

[Meriwether]

More yellowing, dying tips

The first plant I wrote about doesn't seem to have grown at all since I tried flushing it. My other plant, the "healthy" one is now showing signs of the same malaise: yellowing and drooping fan leaf tips. In both cases the problems started after watering, which I've been doing very sparingly, with only R/O water.

Should I try flushing again? It didn't seem to do much to the first plant I tried it with: while the plant is still alive, and the top parts are green, it's tiny and obviously stunted.