It won't stop and its getting worse!

The plant has had this problem since day 1. I have flushed it multiple times and it seems to get better but then it gets worse again. I’m at the point where I’m not sure I should even take this plant to flower because the issue always seems to be 3 nodes down from the fresh growing nodes so as the plant flowers the buds themselves will likely be affected. I don’t even know what it is. My best guess based on research is nutrient lock but the suggested fixes for that aren’t working.

I only have it in a 3 gallon container, is it possible that’s part of the issue? or will that only determine how big it can get. I don’t give it anymore nutrients (and haven’t for weeks now) and the water is between 6.5 and 7.5 ph. it still drinks about 1/2 gallon a day so its not dead but its surely not looking great!

If i have to destroy this one and start over with new seeds that’s fine, I just don’t want to do that if i don’t have to but I also don’t want to spend another 30 days trying to fix a broken plant when I can just start over.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!





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Ok she don’t look bad hungry and wanting nitrogen. What is your ph in and out, and what are you growing in soil wise, what kinda water do you use? Tap/well/ro? She really don’t look bad just hungry

Looks like she needs nitrogen and calmag, but affecting the newer growth could be ph, if your roots explode in the bottom it can really affect your ph, I believe @MattyBear had this issue (sorry if it wasn’t you matty but it was someone on here)
How long have you vegged her

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Ph range should be 6.3 - 6.7 for water going in . Maybe some Cal -Mag but I would feed it first . @Sirsmokes has you on the right track . Multiple flushes will remove to much of the required nutrients .

You’ve got a Ph problem. When you say ph- is between 6.5 and 7.0, which is it? You should know exactly what the Ph is. What are you using to test your Ph? Anything over 6.8 is too high.

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Its a ph issue

Same questions as @raustin

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pH 7.5 is too high. You need to flush with pH 6.5 ish water to get your soil below 6.8. Take accurate readings of the runoff water until it drops to pH 6.8-6.5. Then feed and add cal mag. The affected leaves won’t recover, but the plant should resume healthy development.

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Good call @Drinkslinger i missed that
And good advice

Heres a good read too

Is that a cloth or plastic pot? 3 gal plastic pot is a little small.

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Looks like cloth in picture

Wasn’t me… that I’m aware of haha

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Thank you for the replies.
I haven’t had much time to do anything and I even went on a 4 day vacation and the person I asked to water only gave it 1/4 a gallon for 4 days! I thought it was dead because it took over an hour and a half for it to start looking alive again. That’s WAY longer than when I forget to water or something for a day.

Anyway, I have a piece of hardware that measures pH (along with Moisture and Light) for soil. Is that accurate enough for me to use? I did use it and it measured no lower than 7.5 and sometimes it was peaked at over 8 (yikes!!). This seems to coincide with what you guys say is the culprit though so that is good.

My question now becomes, what can I do to get that pH lowered. My tap water comes out at like 7.5 or higher so I have to add acid (pH downer) to every gallon which I do not have an “exact” measurement because its such a small amount, so I call it 20 drops from the dropper. I’ve tested this over the course of a few months and its still pretty accurate. I use a liquid testing kit for the pH of my water and with 20 drops it gets it to in between 6.0 and 6.5. I can’t tell “exactly” because its 6.0 for this color and 6.5 for this other color. and its in between those and i’m not an artist or a color expert. (lol)

That is what I use to water my plant all the time. I was also adding some liquid fertilizer (Botanicare Pure Blend Pro 3-2-4) every time I watered. I’m starting to wonder now if it was just supposed to get that only 1 time per WEEK and not every time during week 1. not sure if i’m interpreting that right but i was giving it a lot of nutrients if it was supposed to be the other way around.

My first plant, did not have any problems until the very end (the end of its flowering even) and at that same time is when this plant in the pictures was grown from seed and had the problem right out of the gate. For the first plant to have grown for 2 months in veg (with the same watering setup as now) and then 2 more months in flower (with the same water but a flowering botanicare product instead of the veg one) and not have the problem until the very end, but these other plants to start out with the problem… obviously its something I’m doing but it being the pH (which is what it appears to be) confuses me because I thought i was keeping that under control and it did great for ~3.25 months on the first plant.

What my plan is now: I have a 4 gallon water container I can use to create 4 gallons at a time of pH’d water. Question: Should I use ~6.25 pH water or should I go lower? Question: How many gallons of water do I need to run through it until I test the soil again? Question: Why did my soil get so high to begin with if I’m supposedly testing my water? Am I doing it wrong? not accurate enough? its obviously user error here, i just need to figure out where to get more strict on my habits. Question: am I supposed to let the water sit for 24 hours before flushing? if so I could only do 4 gallons per 24 hours.

I am going to start testing the pH of the water with the nutrients and make sure that wasn’t making it spike. I use a soil called Happy Frog which I think is good but the problem happened in plants that used not happy frog also so probably not the type of soil related as much as what i’m doing to create the pH imbalance.

Okay that’s enough info for now. Just need to know how much to flush before testing so i don’t waste a bunch of water when i should have tested 10 gallons ago.

Thanks guys, sorry for the long post. I’ve been thinking about it often.

EDIT: Yes the pot it is in is Cloth and it is 3 gallon size (my mistake, i just fear I’ll destroy the plant if I try to transplant now, should have never put it in a 3)

3 gallons is a bit small for photo plants, but because of the air exposure it’ll keep your plant from getting root bound. It just won’t grow as big as if it were in a larger pot.
Honestly, if you plant to continue growing marijuana get yourself a decent pH pen/meter. The drops just aren’t accurate enough. The “cheap” probes are junk. Part of your problem is probably from the inaccuracy of your measurements.I have this pen, you can buy cheaper or more expensive. It’s up to you. Amazon.com

You need to slowly run properly pH’d water through your soil. Probably 9-12 gallons. I’d pH the water to 6.5 and test the runoff after gallon 6 and gallon 9 to see where you’re at. If you’re using municiple water with chlorine it needs to sit out in an open container for at least 24hours. If your water has chloramine it will not be removed by this method.

In a pinch fresh lemon juice can be used to drop water pH.
Are you testing the water after adding the nutes, before feeding/watering?

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