Can These Plants Be Saved? Pix

Hi all, so this is going to read like Al B. Fuct's "How not to grow marijuana" thread, but . . . .

I started these plants around new years day in generic potting soil with a little perlite. Basement grow using a total of 200 (actual) Watts of cool white CFLs. Germed in paper towels stuck em in 4 inch pots. Watered the fuck out of em until they started to wilt. So I decided to give em Fox Farm grow big. They turned yellow. Got 600W HPS and baked em 24/7 for a while. They stopped growing completely. Oh yea, I never checked pH or knew anything about my water. Did I mention my unheated basement in the Northern plains was averaging around 50 F during this bastard winter we're having? They got sadder and sadder, droopy and brown and brittle at the leaf tips. Got to three tiny nodes with no stem growth at all. Water in the pots would never get drunk, and never evaporate just stagnate. So I'm reading on here and figure for me soil in the basement sucks. Let's go hydro! Get bubbleponics setup two weeks later (plants are on little respirators now). Also get ph and ppm meter, learn my tap water is 330 ppm and pH around 7.8. Dig up my 15 or so little patients, wash their roots off in light H202 solution, stick em in netpots with hydroton and fill my tanks with tap water ph'ed with distilled vinegar to 5.6 PH and sit back. next am my ph is 7.8 again. YOU CAN"T GROW IN HARD WATER!!!!! 1/4 strength nutes. 48 hours later, my res is cloudy and foamy bubbles are forming. Plants lbut when didn't they? Poor bastards! (Cont'd)

So I figure it's not enough oxygen in the water. Buy two more air pumps, 4 more airstones. Change the water, pH with distilled vinegar to 5.6. Bang, next morning it's back to 7.8 and the day after that it's cloudy and frothy and smelling a little bad. Plants aresort of unchaged, but droopier than ever! Finally I go out and buy 16 gallons of spring water. Pouring the last one in when I notice the fine print on the jug that says "naturally contains over 500 ppm) GAHHHH!. Go to store, buy 5 gallon containers and buy RO water from the supermarket. test it at home it's 17 ppm. AHHHH. btw, another store sells culligan water which I tested as having 46 ppm. So shop for water with you meter along! Broke down my whole setup, washed with peroxide, Took the plants out of the hygroton and the roots are totally slimed and brown. Cut away most of the nasty stuff, washed and disinfected the net pots, hygroton, stuck the plants back in, filled the tubs with 17 ppm water, pH of 6.75 and away we go (again). Added Grow Big in 1/2 strength, water is now 800 ppm and 6.24 pH. There have been no fluctuations in pH since. res temp is 64.5, temp at plant is 82.

So that's my story. What opinions are out there? Dunces and experts welcome.

Do you have any pictures of the roots? If it's root rott, you are in for a mighty struggle.

I have a plant that looked like your plants in flower now, and it's doing nicely after I stunted it's growth... good luck, you are obviously persistant.

Your first problem is trying to use vinegar to lower the pH.
That is why your rez is nasty.

Won't work.

Keep truckin on down to the hydro store,
and get some pH down.

And you are going to have a bad time with Mg lock,
trying to use water that hard,
for any type of growing,
dirt or hydro.

You will need to buy pH down by the gallon.
This will cause other problems also,
from using a lot of Phosporic acid.

So you better get some battery acid,
and use it 1/2 the time.

Don't mix them together,
before you put them in the rez.

.

Using RO is great.

.

Hey Earl, thanks for commenting. I don't think you read my second post though. I'm using RO water now and 1/2 strength nutes was enough to get the pH to 6.25 where it's now staying without my messing with it. I've read alot of your posts and have found alot of excellent information there especially about pH. The reason I was using vinegar was it was handy, and the guys I ordered my gear from left out the pH control package including pH up/down so I was improvising. Nearest hydro store to me is 2 hours away. Anyway, I hope you keep reading and tell me if you think I should start new seeds or keep on with these (emotionally attached, we've been through a lot lol)

Earl said:

Your first problem is trying to use vinegar to lower the pH.
That is why your rez is nasty.

Won't work.

Keep truckin on down to the hydro store,
and get some pH down.

And you are going to have a bad time with Mg lock,
trying to use water that hard,
for any type of growing,
dirt or hydro.

You will need to buy pH down by the gallon.
This will cause other problems also,
from using a lot of Phosporic acid.

So you better get some battery acid,
and use it 1/2 the time.

Don't mix them together,
before you put them in the rez.

.

Click to expand...

I didn't take pix of the roots when I was washing them. They were slimey and brown in parts but there was still a fair amount of healthy white stuff and I washed them in Hydrogen Peroxide, as well as tanks and netpots and . . . .Everything. It's hard to take a break with the camera when you are trying to get the job done!

YaK said:

Do you have any pictures of the roots? If it's root rott, you are in for a mighty struggle.

I have a plant that looked like your plants in flower now, and it's doing nicely after I stunted it's growth... good luck, you are obviously persistant.

Click to expand...

Now that you have RO,
You should get some pH up, and pH down.
This way you can buffer the solution without extra calcium.

With RO, you will control the buffers.
There are three chemicals
that will allow you to get a stablized nute solution
without causing any nutrient lockout.

First you need to get some AN Barricade
which is Potassium Silicate.

You should also get some Potassium Carbonate,
and Potassium Hydroxide.

I buy these two chemicals premixed
in the powdered form from GH,
and then add RO to make a solution,
which I use to increase the pH with my eye dropper.

So here is the drill.

Add any additives you are using,
Then add the nutes,
and then measure the pH.
(do not add Barricade until the pH falls below 5.6)

Most of the time the ph will be around 5.6
right after you add the nutes.

In a few hours check the pH
and it will be down as the original buffer is overcome.
(I let it go down until 5.2-5.4
and then add Barricade to bring the pH up to 5.6).

Add one drop of barricade per gl,
and then check the pH.
( you need an eyedropper)

Keep using Barricade to bring the pH back to 5.6
until you have reached the max dose of .5ml/gl
(5 drops/gl of barricade max)

After you have maxed out the barricade,
then the next time the pH falls,
start using the GH Potassium Carbonate/Hydroxide powder,
that you made into solution with some RO,
to bring the pH back up to 5.6,
and after a couple of days,
the pH will stop moving.

You will have the solution buffered,
with these three potassium molecules,
and have reached a perfectly stable equilibrium.

After 7-10 days,
you should dump the rez,
and start the whole process over again.

.

You know, I've read this in other posts of yours and the pH rule and while I understand it (mostly) it's in doing (and erring) that I really learn or it becomes real to me. That's why I'm not giving up on these plants yet (although they better stop idling soon, or they will be replaced!), because I can still learn from them. I'm not on fire to complete a grow as soon as possible, I just want to get it right.

shnkrmn said:

I didn't take pix of the roots when I was washing them. They were slimey and brown in parts but there was still a fair amount of healthy white stuff and I washed them in Hydrogen Peroxide, as well as tanks and netpots and . . . .Everything. It's hard to take a break with the camera when you are trying to get the job done!

Click to expand...

Yeah... I hear you on that one... however, when I was doing it, I stopped to take pictures to document how disgusting it was.

Did they look like this?



or... maybe they looked like this...?



got a little bit of THIS on the roots?





I learned the hard way too.

Oh man, that's disgusting!!!! My roots looked a little like your first pic but more like they had a blob of light brown slime on otherwise normal roots, not completely covered in/transformed into goo. I'm not even gonna comment on your other pix; like going to the morgue! Right now everything's cool in my res. I think Earl was right that it was the vinegar and hard water that was killing my plants. I'm giving 'em 5 days to either A) start looking like they mean business or B) they go code blue on me again and then I pull the plug and start over. Either way, it's cool; I've learned alot.

YaK said:

Yeah... I hear you on that one... however, when I was doing it, I stopped to take pictures to document how disgusting it was.

Did they look like this?

Click to expand...

Oh and Yak, your pix should be added to the plant abuse section of the growFAQ. There are no illustrations of root rot in there. Just finished reading your grow journal; very nice.

YaK said:

Yeah... I hear you on that one... however, when I was doing it, I stopped to take pictures to document how disgusting it was.

Did they look like this?

or... maybe they looked like this...?

Click to expand...

holy sheeeit. not to sound snobbish, but I've never had that happen. what in the name of Hades is that?? Looks like phlegm wrapped around roots. bah.

That, my friend, is root rot; don't let it get between your toes!

alexdunaba said:

holy sheeeit. not to sound snobbish, but I've never had that happen. what in the name of Hades is that?? Looks like phlegm wrapped around roots. bah.

Click to expand...

damn i think im going to be sick,

shnkrmn said:

That, my friend, is root rot; don't let it get between your toes!

Click to expand...

it was NOT fun. I had my hands in that filth too.

They went from clean roots to that in about 24 hours. I washed them 3 times and tried to fix what the problem was before I finally gave up and threw them in the trash.

This was before the last time I cleaned them:


I spent ten minutes washing the roots like it was a homeless womans dreds... then I took the net pot off, and I picked away as much rockwool as I could till it was just the plant and roots, me and the air. THEN

I put them in a coffee cup filled with 3% H202 from the store (cant find a link to buy horticulture grade yet)....


it was quite an ordeal... one that I hope no one ever has to cope with!


Best of luck to you with your plants Sknkrmn ... stay on top of it and hopefully all will be well.

eeeesh. It's like snuff porn.

I pulled the plug. Now I'm sterilizing everything, breaking down every single part of my system. Any comments on what's the best method for disinfecting tubs, pumps, hoses, netpots, hydroton, etc?

run deluted bleach water in the system for 20min, them clean water for 20min