Is my plant overwatered - Or is there something else?

[Acid]

Hey guys,

This is my very first post. I already posted this somewhere else, but I'd like more opinions, since you guys seem to be more active.

I'm completely new to growing & I've never done this before. It's rather a test, which is why I didn't even spend 1$ at first, but 75$ for a 300W LED panel now. I built pretty much everything by myself.

My plant is 31 days into vegetation, and was looking SUPER good until yesterday. The leaves suddenly hang down, thought it might be time to water (Didn't water since a week, no perlite), so I watered it with a very small amount of normal 8-8-8 nutrients, which the plant actually liked a lot before this happened. After watering, nothing really happened. They still hang down & look pretty sad to me. Healthy, but sad. I'm really scared that it might die, since I absolutely love this plant, and cannabis in general. Funny thing is, I don't even smoke.

Strain - Unknown bag-seed
# of Plants - 1
Grow Type - Soil
Grow Stage - Vegetative
Setup - No idea. A homemade growbox. It has a pretty strong PC fan, a thermometer, and that's it at the moment. Sorry.
Light - 300W MarsHydro LED
Nutrients - Normal "edible flower" nutrients, 8-8-8 formula, worked perfectly
Medium - Normal flowersoil, come on, I ain't a professional.
PPM - No idea
PH - No idea, but the water here seems to be good, plant had absolutely no signs of wrong pH
RH - No idea
Room Temperature - About 26°-27°C, or about 80°F
Room Square Footage - Can't really say, it's about 1m x 40cm, an average cabinet
Pests - None Known

Here are some pictures:

What might have caused this:
Overwatered
Pot too small, no perlite
Too much N
pH

This is what people told me, and I really hope it's just overwatered. I can't afford much more equipment, a bigger flower pot & perlite might still be do-able. If so, how much litres should the pot have? 15l?

I'd live to see some help!

 

[Atulip]

Very dark leaves, May have too much nitrogen.

Does your pot have enough drain holes at the bottom to allow runoff of excess water? If not they may be swimming in water.

If you're just using bag soil, you probably want to add perlite or some other aeration amendment. 15 liters is fine, though bigger pot, bigger roots, bigger bud.

 

[Acid]

Very dark leaves, May have too much nitrogen.

Does your pot have enough drain holes at the bottom to allow runoff of excess water? If not they may be swimming in water.

If you're just using bag soil, you probably want to add perlite or some other aeration amendment. 15 liters is fine, though bigger pot, bigger roots, bigger bud.

It has one huge drainage hole, I don't know if that's enough, but water comes out pretty fast after watering it. Gotta get a new pot though, I feel like mine is getting pretty small now. Might even be rootbound, there are some roots already coming out of the hole.

And yes, just using normal bag soil. Should I just mix perlite into the new soil & put the plant with the normal soil in a new pot, or is there any way to add perlite into the already used soil without damaging the plant?

 

[Acid]

Alright, a small update: The plant looks even worse now, but I just put her into a new pot. While taking the plant out of the old pot, I had a huge ball of roots and earth in my hands. I don't know how this is possible & need an answer to this. I changed into the new pot just 2 weeks ago, and it was EXTREMELY root-bound already. The soil also felt extremely dry & hard, but I watered her just 2 days ago. How is this possible? Do I really need to water more often?

Can plants look like this because they were rootbound? And why was she so extremely rootbound after such a short time?

 

[fanleaf]

Alright, a small update: The plant looks even worse now, but I just put her into a new pot. While taking the plant out of the old pot, I had a huge ball of roots and earth in my hands. I don't know how this is possible & need an answer to this. I changed into the new pot just 2 weeks ago, and it was EXTREMELY root-bound already. The soil also felt extremely dry & hard, but I watered her just 2 days ago. How is this possible? Do I really need to water more often?

Can plants look like this because they were rootbound? And why was she so extremely rootbound after such a short time?

Too small of a pot. I think you are needing a 5 gallon pot. I was going to say the same as someone else did too being that shes very dark green and a few hooked leaves indicating high nitrogen. Once you put him/her in a bigger pot I wouldn't feed any fert for a while as your new soil will have plenty more than likely. It's drying out so fast probably because in such a small pot there is more roots than soil.
5 gallon pot and mix in a good amount of perlite for drainage. Shes probably going to be in shock for a few days after the new pot move.

 

[OldMedUser]

I think those other guys are right about too much N and it sounds like you're not watering it well enough. Likely a lot of the water is just running through cracks in the hard soil and pissing out the bottom not saturating the soil.

5 gal pot is prolly too big for your setup but one about twice that size and 25% perlite mixed in with the new soil should help a lot. Keep the pot in a tray so when water comes out the bottom the pot can sit in it for a half hour or so and suck up what it needs to get the rootball well soaked. Don't feed any nutes for a while until maybe some of the old, lower leaves start to yellow slightly then go easy on the food at first. Allow the pot to get pretty dry before watering again. A light plastic pot will make it easier to tell by the weight when it needs more water. Heft it when it's well watered so you can feel the difference when it's drying out. Never water just a little at a time. Soak it good then let it dry so fresh air can get into the root area then water well again. If using chlorinated tap water leave a pail of water open to the air so the chlorine can evaporate off over a couple days or more. A little air pump and stone helps to get rid of the chlorine faster and charges the water with lots of oxygen too.

L8r