Help Rapidly dying plants!

[Scribble]

Im m growing in 3 gallon pots using happy frog soil earth juice mutes and everything was fine fed them three days ago and came home from work today and found them like this and it is getting worse by the minute is it some kind of rot or mold I have low humidity and temps in the upper 70 seems to be spreading and hairs are turning red and leaves are turning brown anything I can do are my other plants at risk should I get these out of there?
Also, fill this out

How many plants? What Kind? 3 plants white widow skunk 1 and strawberry skunk
How old are they? 25 days in flower
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
How big is your area if its indoors and is it well ventilated? 15 x10 yes ventilated
What medium/soil are you using? Happy frog
Whats the size of the containers? 3 gallon
What's your lighting set up? 1000 hps
What's the temperature and humidity like at any given time? 78 a 40%
What's your ph like, both medium and nutes? Not sure cheap meter says 7.5
Any pests around? No
What is your watering schedule? Just fed 3 days ago

 

[Scribble]

Getting worse by the minute even the room smells like dying plants aww shit!

 

[iGrowX]

Try and lower ph to 6.5-7 with a good flush , cause yours might be too high by the curling of the leaves, but do not do it too much at a time as that could cause further shock to the plant, go easy; if you have a spare ventilator use it to blow on the pots to oxygenate the roots faster if possible and you have good aeration pots.

 

[cannilingus]

are they hot? too much feed? give them a good flush, with ph water 6.5-6.8. and dont water again, till they need it. i still use a meter probe. and i been doing this for 7 years. they are handy. and cheap. like 6. two biggest newbie mistakes. too much water. (too often). to much food. whatever you use for food. use half of what it says.

 

[Scribble]

No not to hot ! But I think I screwed up the ph in a bad way measures 7.5 on the probe and also when I was flushing them I remembered I saw some nats the other day mixed up dish soap and water and sprayed the soil . When i watered it sudded up Do you think that would of changed my ph that much ugh I'm bummed . Any chances of a recovery?

 

[paul keating]

Hey scribble,
I wouldn't know if the soap would of affected the PH or not, but it would be a good idea to get that PH down. I think about 6.5 is the right level, but no more than 7 ( or lower than 6). The girls look pretty good otherwise, so get that PH down and they should be fine.

 

[Scribble]

It's a mess. Never thought I would run into ph issues in soil ! They look better after the flush .... My meter reads 7.5 even in dis tiled water and in my bagged soil so not even sure if the meter is working properly. Could it be to much nutes would it take 3 days and come on rapidly like this damn it almost killed my sensi skunk! Thanks everyone for the quick response and look forward to getting this issue fixed with a little help from all of you.

 

[paul keating]

What kind of PH meter are you using?
If it's one if those probe ones you stick in the soil, i wouldn't trust it too much. I think the best way to check PH, is by the water that comes out of the bottom of the pot. Try and capture some, and measure the PH of that. I'm not sure what you are supposed to use, but i suppose one of those aquarium PH test kits would do the job. Or you could get a small, cheap digital PH meter. I got one for $50 (about $35 US dollars).

But if there is an excess of nutrients in the soil, that may affect the reading. Perhaps the water you are putting into the pot has too high a PH. When i did a hydro setup, i occasionally checked the PH of the tap water, and the readings would range from 7-7.5 (assuming the meter was correct). If your tap water has a high PH, you might have to put a bit of PH down into it before watering, but generally the nutes you feed with should drop the PH slightly.

As far as i know, most nutes lower PH. So i don't think the nutes would of caused the PH to spike up. But i could be wrong there.

I'm no expert, but in case you didn't know, the reason a PH imbalance can cause problems, is because when the PH dips too low or climbs too high, it causes certain elements, like iron, copper, magnesium. etc, to get 'locked out', which means the plant can't absorb them, so you start to have problems with either a deficiency or toxicity of a certain element, which is sort of what has happened to you.

But other than that, you're doing a good job, they look pretty good for the most part.

 

[iGrowX]

There are also liquid ph meters, you have a small tube, fill it with some water, 2 drops of the ph measuring solution, shake and you get a color to represent the ph of your water..simple and cheap, better and easier than ph paper strips.

I remembered I saw some nats

you mean after you watered ? if so, did you take a good look at them , where they white brown or black ? where they jumping or crawling ? if it is the first case those would be springants and they are a sign that your soil is healthy and usually properly watered, if you want to reduce their numbers just let your plants dry a bit more day then you usually do cause they love humidity; if it is the second or 3rd option, and if you really have gnats you won't really kill them with soap if you don't also want to completely kill your plants..don't panic, and do everything in stages, never try more solutions at once as that will surely create more problems than just solve 1 that you have ! update us if you manage to get it back on track or not

 

[Scribble]

qoute
[you mean after you watered ? if so, did you take a good look at them , where they white brown or black ? where they jumping or crawling ? if it is the first case those would be springants and they are a sign that your soil is healthy and usually properly watered, if you want to reduce their numbers just let your plants dry a bit more day then you usually do cause they love humidity; if it is the second or 3rd option, and if you really have gnats you won't really kill them with soap if you don't also want to completely kill your plants..don't panic, and do everything in stages, never try more solutions at once as that will surely create more problems than just solve 1 that you have ! update us if you manage to get it back on track or not]


Damn they where brown and flying! Healthy soil ? I messed up I think it's to much nutes I mixed up two batches a few days apart ! I believe it was 1 tbs of grow 2 tbs of bloom 1 tsp of microblast 1 tsp of catalyst ! Do I need microblast everytime I feed or could that be causing the lockup ? Could be the ph too but it's gonna be a couple days before I can get anywhere to get a meter or tester as we are in the middle of a winter stom! Now my question is should I cut off all the effected leaves or leave them as they are?

 

[Scribble]

Here are pics of the plants added one more Ice it was a beautiful plant ugh!

Sensi skunk

Strawberry skunk

White widow

And then Ice

 

[paul keating]

I'm not sure i can help much more, but I'm still trying, doing some research, and I'll throw some ideas at you.
Here's what i would do;

I would flush the crap out of the soil. Probably not a good idea if it's already wet, you don't want to end up with an over-watering problem.
But I'm thinking, that if it is a PH problem, and it's too high, that may bring down the PH to stop things getting worse.

I'm not familiar with your nutrients, but I'm thinking it could be a lockout problem. But not from the PH. I've heard somewhere, that if you load up the soil with too much of a particular nutrient, for example, copper, that other nutrients get locked out, and that may be a cause of your problems. Don't quote me on that.

I'm not sure what ferts you mean when you say 'grow' and 'bloom'. To me, they sound like they may be hydro nutes.
Hydro nutes have more of the micro nutrients in them, instead of your regular ferts, which are mostly N-P-K.
And i looked up your happy frog soil, seems to be loaded with goodies.
(I'm in australia, we don't have most of this stuff that you are using)

I'm wondering, with your high quality soil, and all your nutrients, and the fact your using grow and bloom and the microblast, that you may have too much of one nutrient, and your locking out others.

That's just a theory. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will correct me there.

Oh, and if the product you are using is 'earth juice microblast',
according to their website;
DIRECTIONS FOR USE:
Use 1-2 tsp Microblast per gallon of water, every 2 to 4 weeks.

In regards to your bug situation, i just had a quick google.
if they are little brown flying bugs, they sound like thrips.
Or if they are little black flying bugs, they could be a fungus Gnat. fungus gnats hang around wet soil laying eggs.

I just came across a product called 'yellow sticky cards' or 'sticky stakes insect trap'.
Apparently they work for both pests. Both pests are attracted to yellow light, so when they land on this card, they stick to it.
Might be a good way to slow them down, to stop any major damage.
apparently you can get them at gardening stores. Amazon have them.

I realise you're in the middle of a winter storm though, so you may not be able to get out and buy some.
But get creative. If you have some yellow paper, or something yellow, put a thin coat of honey on it. Might catch a few.

Keep the updates coming.

 

[Cultivator]

It looks like ph lock out. Don't flush soil, it causes more problems. Stop notes for a week and just give plain ph'd water @6.5.

 

[urdaddy]

you mentioned earth juice nutrients,i have had numerous problems with them.check to make sure they are not old.did you make a tea with the nutes ,or did you just feed it to the girls out of the bottle.from what I read a lot of people make tea and have decent success,but a lot of people have problems right out of the bottle.i really think it was the nutes,overwatered and over feed.you may have to change your water feed routine.more water days than feed days.and when growing in soil let the pot dry out a bit,this will allow for a natural ph curve,not to the point the plant is wilting,but right before that(something you have to learn and anticipate).anytime you use a man made organic nute ,you have more chances of something goin wrong(because of the bacteria they use to digest these organic materials, fish protein etc.)the bacteria will if let to it create its own little world,if the manufacture doesn't stop or see this,you the consumer end up with a subpar product whos actuall characteristics are not suited for growing .the ph goes crazy ,there are lockouts,and plants suffer or die.i have even ran into thi with advanced nutes iguana juice.i love organics but there is a science to it ,much more so than using chems. imo I would allow the soil to dry and start with plain water and water to the point of runoff .and wait to see if that perks her up,if it doesn't toss her ass and start over.stressed plants can attract all types of attention like powdery mildew and bud rot.goodluck

 

[Dan Ultra]

This is why pH is important.