New grow problem all information and pics included

[scorlan]

So as you are about to tell I am a new grower. Here is the story and the results so far please any advice is greatly appreciated.

Ok trying to get all the info in here:
Space = roughly 3.5'x3.5'x6' contained room with 600 watt MH vented with 200cfm~ fan on lights 2 small 6" clip fans blowing on plants 6" inlet fan from basement roughly matches the light outlet fan.
Inlet air tem 57-59 degrees
Room temp thermostat controlled 71-77 degrees
Drip system central res. 3 ea 2GPH drip heads
water 70-71 degrees ph 5.8-6.2
Nutes GH mix based on there website for mild growth- minus 20%
ppm is 700 .5 scale
Medium is clay pellets
light is roughly 4.5 away at this point. plan to lower this as temp isnt an issue however i didnt want to stress them any more than they already are. see below.

So i got clones from a friend helping me out. Grape Ape and he is established grower but its a friend of a friend thing so not much help. Anyway I expected small new clones and have an aero cloners bucket set up. However when I received the plants they were about 2.5 weeks old in soil. Crap I though I am not set up for this. ( the grower didnt ask me and assumed i was going soil grrr) I did some research and said screw it I can change them and use the aero cloner to get through the next few days. So i did very careful removed soil with distilled water. Put in areo cloner with distilled ph'd water at 5.9 ph no nutes under a cfl. They did great the first day a little dry( spray head clogged and they were underwatered on top of the stress. I fixed that and they perked right up. I gave them a few more days to make sure no issues. They showed little growth but look great. So 2 days ago I transplanted them to the set up described above. Boy they didnt seem to like it. I mean the larger leaves are drooping pretty bad, with some yellowing at the tips. I had my drip system running 24/7 but I have 3 ea - 2GPH drip heads in each pot. I have given them some time to dry out and they didnt respond at all. So back to constant drip we are. So here are my conclusions:

I know: the plant is stressed from the move it should be atleast. I know the plant is probably in mild shock going to nutes from clean water, however I think its strong enough to handle it.

I am curious if i over watered or underwatered. I know over watering with drip heads and hydroton is pretty hard. I tried to dry them out a bit with no response. Then I got to thinking maybe they are underwatered I mean the larger leaves are drooped all the way down almost and they feel kinda dry after turning off the drip. So I started it back up... time will tell.

So i know I should have never tried to change them to hydro but its already done. I know the plants are somewhat stressed and a couple days of some drooping and a little yellow on large leaves would be common. However should I be proactive and try to diagnose this more. Or just let it alone because i am over thinking it, its normal give them a couple days? I am kinda determined to succeed this grow so starting over is not an option till everything is dead. This is a learning experience and a hobby. Please criticize all you like but advice is more welcome. I hope to be an active part of the community going forward. Thanks for the help in advance

Current horrible state

Another in horrible condition

where they were just 2 days ago in an aerocloner looking great

 

[Brettjh1994]

Hey don't worry I am 2

 

[Lurch Farmer]

Dude give them 10 days at least till roots adjust to the medium change could take longer

 

[scorlan]

ok sweet, I adjusted back on watering to 30mins every 2.5 hours and took them out from directly under that 600watt. I hope thats the safe and yet correct moves. i thinking im just freakin alittle, being a newb. Thanks for the advice as that is what i also want to believe.

 

[scorlan]

ok so this morning 2 looked alittle better? maybe just no worse and look like they might pull through. The third looks on its last leg. I am separating it from the system and manually watering it with just ph'd water to see if I can save her too.

any thoughts people?

 

[Jimmycricket]

Ok so clarify this for me before I give advice.

Did the clones have roots when you pulled them from the soil or was it basically just a stem?

Do they have roots in aero cloner before you transplanted?

Also how big of roots are they?

 

[scorlan]

Ok so clarify this for me before I give advice.

Did the clones have roots when you pulled them from the soil or was it basically just a stem? they had nice roots roughly 2-3 inches long but thin.

Did they have roots in aero cloner before you transplanted? yes they grew in the 5 days they were in there. Half again in size both thickness and length.

Also how big of roots are they?

3-4 inches long thicker than they were but nothing to brag about by any means.

 

[Jimmycricket]

Well first, for a drip system I would think that hydroton would not be optimal. Because it would drip almost straight down and you would have a lot of clay pellets that never really get any water.

I know people use them for an ebb n flow, DWC, or aero medium. But I never heard of it for a drip personally. I would think that if you wanted to have a drip like hydro system you should put little sprayers on so that all the hydroton is getting wet. The way you have it there are many dry areas.

Honestly what I would do for now is this:

hand water drench the entire medium every 1-2 hours. This way you know the entire medium gets wet. Keep the drippers on from anything between 30 minutes to 60 minutes.

Eventually you wont need to hand water like that. But I am concerned that the roots arnt able to spread out due to dryness right now.

Also just to double check your res does have air stones in it right?

 

[GreatLife4All]

In a nutshell...

A plant will grow different roots depending on the medium that it is in. To gather nutrients from soil, requires lots of very thin, fine roots. You also have the big roots - but most of the nutrients are taken up by very small roots. In a hydro solution, most of the roots are bigger. It would seem that the plant doesn't need those very fine roots to get nutrients.... so it doesn't grow them.

Going from soil to hydro is arguably easier. You have, essentially, ripped off all the little roots that were used to gather nutrients. You still have the bigger roots - but they are not yet equipped to gather nutrients from the water. This process will take some time.

You should have probably left them in the aero cloner for a while longer (IMO, at least a week)... but you can't change history. Just re-interpret it Sorry, getting off on a tangent.

I agree with the earlier poster - you should leave them alone at this point and see if they can make it. If it is truly the fact that the roots are damaged and rebuilding, you can help the plants out by spraying the leaves with a very fine mist of water. If the leaves are yellowing, you could even include some very weak nutrient solution (I use half strength Clonex for this purpose - it works very well for me) to try and save them. If you do this and the plants perk up quickly, then start doing it twice a day till the plants look better. Just don't do it right before lights out - you could pick up mold problems.... which you really don't need right now.

I hope that you get things straightened out.

 

[scorlan]

Well first, for a drip system I would think that hydroton would not be optimal. Because it would drip almost straight down and you would have a lot of clay pellets that never really get any water.

I know people use them for an ebb n flow, DWC, or aero medium. But I never heard of it for a drip personally. I would think that if you wanted to have a drip like hydro system you should put little sprayers on so that all the hydroton is getting wet. The way you have it there are many dry areas.

Honestly what I would do for now is this:

hand water drench the entire medium every 1-2 hours. This way you know the entire medium gets wet. Keep the drippers on from anything between 30 minutes to 60 minutes.

Eventually you wont need to hand water like that. But I am concerned that the roots arnt able to spread out due to dryness right now.

Also just to double check your res does have air stones in it right?

yes i have airstones in the res. I changed the water in it also with very light nutes and popped the drippers off to make sure they get plenty of water. I was so concerned about overwatering maybe i was causing the problem. Time will tell

thanks

 

[Jimmycricket]

just keep in mind what i said about how you arnt wetting all the hydroton. That would be my largest concern in your grow from what I have seen.

 

[scorlan]

update

1 dead 1 almost dead last still holding on about the same might make it.

I did however figure out the problem. When the clones were still in the cloner the spray head kept getting clogged from remnants of soil. I just tool it off and the water was splashed against the top of the lid creating a similar effect to the spray head. However what I didnt bank on was the water running along the lid getting inside the neoprene collars. gave them all stem rot. I am hoping adding some H2O2 will allow atleast the last one to survive.

 

[Mono]

be very careful with h202...

 

[Jimmycricket]

be very careful with h202...

Careful of what?

 

[Mono]

Careful of what?

h202 is hydrogen peroxide if I am correct. It will kill all the bacteria good and bad. Not sure how it would fix his problem..

 

[scorlan]

h202 is hydrogen peroxide if I am correct. It will kill all the bacteria good and bad. Not sure how it would fix his problem..

h202 is perfectly safe for plants mixed in the right concentration. Yes it does kill both good and bad bacteria. However since the bad is killing my plants i am using this to try and save them. Many experienced growers use h202 throughout the whole grow including cloning to keep roots healthy. This is a most arguable path however for my situation it was the cheapest, safest and easiest fix for my problem. I dont know if it will work as if the rot is too bad i am fighting a losing battle. However if the h202 works i will add good bacteria back. The best thing about h202 is it is unstable in water and breaks down very quickly.

 

[Mono]

h202 is perfectly safe for plants mixed in the right concentration. Yes it does kill both good and bad bacteria. However since the bad is killing my plants i am using this to try and save them. Many experienced growers use h202 throughout the whole grow including cloning to keep roots healthy. This is a most arguable path however for my situation it was the cheapest, safest and easiest fix for my problem. I dont know if it will work as if the rot is too bad i am fighting a losing battle. However if the h202 works i will add good bacteria back. The best thing about h202 is it is unstable in water and breaks down very quickly.

Thank you, makes a lot more sense to me now

 

[GreatLife4All]

Maybe a new suggestion.

You stated that you have a cloning bucket. So why not make some cuttings before the plant dies?

To see if I could find a solution, I consulted my Encyclopedia of Plants. It indicates that plants rarely survive root rot - regardless of effort. But it also has the caveat that the correct path, if you want to save the plant, it to make a cutting and propagate if possible. Also, and I didn't know this, root rot is caused by a fungus - not bacteria. So your choice of solutions probably won't work.

This might be a better path than continuing to fight a losing battle and end up with nothing.