Help identify this issue, pH or other?

JohnnyRotten840

420 Member
I am attempting my first grow and ran into what I believe is a ph issue or bad soil.

I live in a very rural area where the local town has a population of less than 400 so when I started my grow the only thing I was a little bit worried about was my soil that I had available to me it was just a general potting soil with slow-release one-month nutrients which I know I was to avoid but it was the lowest nutrients soil I could find.

I mixed the soil along with a 25% mix of perlite, I then was able to get 2 clones that were 1 week old from a friend of a friend and transplant them to a 8 inch round pot with holes in the bottom for drainage.

After I had transplanted the Clones I let them sit without watering for one day, I then watered them fairly heavily with tapwater that had sat for 26 hour to lose its chlorine.

The next day I noticed the plants were changing to a lighter colour and had red stems on some new growth. I did a quick search on what could cause this and found couple things that stuck out. 1: being over watering, my soil was not draining 20% of the water I poured in, maybe 5% at most. I felt the soil with my finger up to the first knuckle and thought it was quite moist still. I swapped the soil out for a new mix of 35% perlite to soil and transplanted both plants.

I also found yesterday that pH could be the issue so I bought a test kit and found out my pH was 7.6 which I knew was too high. I got some ph down and got my water at 6.5 and re-watered the plants with a small amount of water and notice the run off quantity was much higher.

I have a 600 watt HPS light that is being cooled in a three and a half foot by 3 & a half foot by 7 foot tall grow tent with a fresh air intake and outtakes. The temp has been a steady 78.5 during the light cycle and 71.5 during the dark cycle. The light itself is about 20" away. The humidity is at 50%.

I have included two sets of photos the first 2R when the problem started to present itself the others are from today
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I'm on my first grow too, so take this with a grain of salt. The droopiness and hints of yellow looks to me like overwatering still. What is your current watering schedule? You mentioned you didn't water it for one day, does that mean you water daily? If so, that is likely the issue. I usually water once every 4 days, 3 if they drank a lot.

Thanks for the response!
Every third day was the original intent so it only got two waterings. So far.
 
I'd give it 3-4 days before watering again, or like you were doing, go knuckle deep and see if it's damp. I made similar mistakes on my grow and I really thought it was going to die, but it bounced back after making the water/soil adjustments and just leaving it alone (which was hard for me to do as a helicopter parent of these plants).

Definitely warrants a second opinion, as it could be a combination of things that I'm not picking up on. Keep us posted on how it progresses and what you feel the issue ended up being :)
 
Looks like she could use some Nitrogen and calmag. It could also just be because you were giving the wrong pH and now that you've fixed it, it'll fix itself if there's enough nutes in the soil still. Feeds up to 1 month soil should be ok to use.
 
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