Droopy Leaves on Auto

Hi guys so, I started this AK auto plant a little while ago it just passed week 6. Its doing well I guess, seems to be growing a little slower than the others I’ve done but overall pretty well. I watered the other day (the 21st) and it looked really happy the next day (22nd) but then today (23rd) it looks sad again! The soil is still wet about 2/3rds of the pot and its still heavy when picked up. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, I’ve got nice RO water that I give it and feed it nutes with and have been on a steady water schedule, here’s a pic of the info I’ve got the past few days along with some pictures of the plant from today. Any suggestions are appreciated!

How often? How much?

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I was giving it around 64 oz’s of water but it seemed to drink that up really fast this last time and it wasn’t getting very much runoff. Today I just watered because it looked really sad and after sticking a chopstick in the soil I saw it was really dry as well so I gave it 96oz, 3/4 of a gallon, of just straight RO, and that got around 10% runoff so we will see how it likes that.

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So update, just checked it and it looks about a million times worse so I have no idea what could be wrong. I don’t understand what I could be doing wrong.

When they go through the shock of dry, then really wet, is when they just look sad for awhile until they can recover.
When you get a chance take an updated pic.

So I waited a few days to see if there was any improvement but sadly it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better :frowning: Here are two pictures from today, the picture of it near the window sill was from yesterday. I woke up yesterday morning and checked my plants and my heater didn’t work that night and it got real cold in the tent and since the AK soil was real saturated I think it made the roots upset but yeah unforturnately over all nothings improved :confused: Annoying because it should be booming with growth right now being an autoflower that’s on week 7.

So it’s been four days today since I watered 96oz of straight RO. The soil seems pretty dry except for about the last inch or so. Should I water today you think? I don’t want to let it get too dry like last time. Think ill give it around 72 oz’s this time to try and not overwhelm it

I would recommend to water until you see water come out of the bottom. Don’t pay attention to the amount going in.

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So I winded up watering around 80oz of water until there was run off. I got around 5% I would say, around like 4 oz’s max. ppms in were around 100-110 and then ppms out were around 1053 which I know is low for flower planning on feeding next time. But it is still super droopy :confused: Its been cooler here at night but doesnt dip below 63 in my tent at night so I don’t think it would make it droopy this hard. It seems like it’s kinda stopped growing, maybe it has nute lock? I find that kind of hard though because the ppms are so low. It still seems to be drinking water at a pretty steady pace. Really stumped on this one

At that temperature you will see slower growth. I assure you I’ve been growing in a cold garage and have seen anything but fast growth.

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Okay well that’s a little reassuring. I mean I guess besides the drooping it still looks healthy overall so just keep it steady on the watering and keep an eye out. Also just tested the runoff of my other plant a Candy Kush auto, pH came out around 8 yikes! I added 3 tbsp of dolomite lime to my 3 gallon pot and mixed it in well before I transplanted the CK into the 3 so that’s why it’s so high, wasn’t expecting it to be that effective. Any tips on how to lower it, I was planning to just flush with some more acidic water when the pot dries out next because its just going into flower anyways so I can switch to flower nutes as well

You did the right thing. Keeping ph in line goes with proper watering practices, so regular watering helps too.

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So I checked on it today and its really not looking good the leaves on the top sights are just flopped right over. I was thinking maybe its possibly rootbound? or maybe the pots too small for how big the plants gotten? What do you think about possibly up-potting it?

Also after 3 days the pots is actually still really wet so I’m starting to think that its soaking up the water a lot slower too so idk what that really means. I can’t seem to find any info on what causes slow water uptake besides like nutrient lock, maybe I should try flushing next time it dries out. I never flushed before it moved into flower

Here’s some updated pictures from today

Transplanting to a larger container wouldn’t hurt a thing.
Are there drain holes in that container? Just thought I would ask.

Yea there’s some like 4 big ones on the bottom and then I drilled some smaller ones myself so there’s like 7-8 holes total. I’ve been thinking of maybe switching to fabric pots but I’m just worried I’d have watering issues with that. Used some peat pots for my seedlings once and they dried all unevenly and weird because of how porous they were. I live in NM so it’s very dry here all year round.

That makes sense. Drying out faster can be challenging.
I picked up some regular plastic pots because they were affordable. So you’re not the only one still using plastic. Seems to work just fine. Just have to have holes in the bottom for sure.

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Yeah right on ha but yeah I’ll probably move the AK into a 5 gallon and see how it enjoys that, I’ll come back to this forum post in a few days with hopefully a more positive update

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Just thought of something, what if I lined the bottom inch or 2 of the bigger pot ill transplant to with some Hydroton to help the bottom drainage from becoming clogged? What’s your opinion on hydroton?