2nd attempt at 1st grow...problems again :-(

Man I thought everything was going soo well this round, then I notice a few days ago the plants pretty much quit growing,(plus I saw a guy here on the forum growing the same strain organic in soil and his plants were 4 days younger and twice the size) so I started troubleshooting..opened up the rock wool on 1 and the roots were in a bundle in the big hole, only 1 had managed to make it to the bottom in almost 3 weeks...so I gently started pulling the rockwool away from the roots, trying to free them up so I could put them directly into the hydroton, I did this on a few of them that had a root mass in the circles(hole) on top of the 4" rockwool cubes, when I transplanted them into the rockwool from germ in perlite, apparently the roots didnt like me packing loose rockwool around the roots...perhaps too much air got onto them or not enough? All of the roots are nice and white with lots of branches of newer roots off of them, so hopefully they will adjust and start picking up speed???
I did break a few small pieces off the ends, but people prune roots without problems, right?
They don't look like they are dying, just not growing, and even at 480-520 ppm I was getting yellowing of a couple fan leafs..not enough N, I figured, so I did a res change, and bumped them up to 580 without problems, so I went up further to 620..and they just seem to be at a stand still...but the lighter green newer growth is all even green now, so they must need it, right?
I will post this in plant problems and see if I get any replies...
Happy growing and have a Happy and Safe New Years!

plant needs to establish its roots before it will grow

and another thing that has me puzzled is every flood/drain, I can be dialed in at 5.5-5.6..but after the buckets dump everything back in the res it spikes to 6.0-6.2...is this normal? I am flood/draining 3x a day, so I am having to put a capful of PH down in 3x a day, seems excessive, and I thought the GH "lucas formula" was supposed to keep PH stable?
Any help greatly appreciated!!
Happy New Year and happy growing to all~~

matthebrute said:

plant needs to establish its roots before it will grow

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So now that I have 3 with their roots directly in the hydroton should they be ok and resume, and shoot off in like a week (I did give them a dose of thrive alive for the B vits/stress)

Thanks for your reply!

Yup as long as they are close to the bottom of the net cup and the water level is high enough for them to feel for , they will shoot up was the touch the water. Do not ph ur water every time it rise it is normal to rise a lil , maybe ph it every 2 - 3 days. I blamed everything esle to on my ph fluctuations till I realized my roots are stained and everytime your cahnge your res and put in fresh solution the roots still have left over soultion from the previous feedings. So a few thing can contribute to ph fluxs..Good Luck.

Happy Growing!

First off, PICS PICS PICS... very hard to diagnose anything without pics. Next, are you starting your clones in 4" rockwool? Also, how are you flushing and soaking the rockwool before you put your plants in? Did you use a rooting enhancer? There is obviously a problem with something you are doing or not doing so lets fix it.

Your plants are not really rooted from what it sounds like (but correct me if i am wrong) so i would lower your PPM's for 1. Non-rooted clones should be around 250ppm. They dont need much until they get roots.

be careful with how much nutes you are giving your girls. there is such thing as too much and too often! if they start getting really dark green and stems turning red/purple its too much N and will cause stunted growth. Less is more sometimes. Are you flushing at all?

PH rising in your res i believe is an indication that your girls are not using the nutes (they just aren't big enough). But if someone could affirm or deny that would be great. I grow hydro, but do a top water, not flood.

also.. NO TO PRUNING ROOTS!! unless you have a major problem with something DONT TOUCH THEM. i have never heard of anyone pruning roots but i dont know everything so who knows.

The pH should def be monitored on a day to day basis. If you have the money those continuous monitors are the tits! But GH is a pretty stable line...shouldn't be posing too many problems.

i would of just started out in soil to get some grows under ya belt hydro have its good side but 1 thing fuck up then its no recovering

skinitti666 said:

i would of just started out in soil to get some grows under ya belt hydro have its good side but 1 thing fuck up then its no recovering

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Man... i completely feel like its the opposite for me anyway. I started in soil, then moved to hydro. Hydro just seems WAY easier to recover anything from. If i am having a problem (and accurately diagnose it hahaha) i will see a change in a day. but soil is definitely more forgiving.

I did try in dirt first, and managed to kill off everything by "loving" them to death, overwatering, over-nuting..etc..plus a "friend" gave me some clones but neglected to tell me his crop was i9nfested with bugs, so I treated them for everything and anything, and the roots just quit growing, they outgrew the 3" pots, then 1 quart, then moved to 3 gal pots, where they all stopped growing and the litany of strange shit started happening to the leaves, claws, nute burn, lots of clear and white bubbles on tops and bottoms of leafs, I was convinced was bugs, so I used azamax every 3 days, alt w2/ neem oil...I think ultimatl;ey the neem oil plugged the roots ability to take up water or nutes, but it's just a guess.
Knew I wanted to grow hydro, was just waiting on the cash, so when it came, I ordered the cap ebb& grow..figuring it would be more automated, less to mess up, though I DO REALIZE things can and do go downhill a LOT faster in hydro than soil...but I ended up with all the original plants dying, one slow death at a time.
OK...now these are NOT clones,frettfreak, they are seedlings that will be 3 wks old on monday.
I had them at a pretty low PPM, 200-300, was getting yellowing on new growth, so I ended up increasing it by like 50-80 every few days, no signs of over doing it, so I kept it up...
I didn't intentionally prune the roots, I germinated my seeds in perlite in solo cups, they all popped within 24-36 hrs, I waited too long perhaps, to put them into the 4" rockwool cubes, that big hole in the center that you normally put the starter/seedling plugs in, thats where the roots were kinda growing in circles, only 2 of the 7 actually had a couple roots showing on the bottom of the 4" cube when I put them in the system...a few days ago I noticed they weren't growing as quick as they had been..so I decided to break open a rock wool cube, since it was nearly falling apart it wasn't too difficult, I had squeezed them out so many times they I'm guessing,. lost their ability to hold o2..so I put my baby seedlings into that center hole, and then shredded 1 cube and used it as the croutons, just gently loosely packed it so they stood upright..so my question was mainly this, I did accidentally break a couple ends off a few roots, nothing major, and the plants aren't showing any indication that it hurt them..but what I wanted to know was will they go into overdrive now that they can freely move about in the hydroton,I will go take pics, but they aren't much bigger than when I last posted a few days ago...and the PH rising with each ebb/flow means they aren't using the nutes?
Weird, because when I increased the ppm the light green new growth got as green as the rest of the plant...they don't seem to be having any trouble, other than the roots being bound in the rockwool...some are making their way through, but as I said, I just wanted to check 1 to see what was going on with the roots, I knew it was the roots because the foliage suddenly halted growing when it had been noticeable growth every am..here are some pics...my well h20 is only about 60-70 ppm (fluctuates slightly when it rains) and in 20 gal I had put a couple teaspoons of epsom salts, which increased the ppms too.
And I PH the water before every ebb/because that is what all the info I have read says to do, to keep it in range to avoid lockout..
shit camera battery is dead, but I will post pics soon...they look just as they did when I took the last pics, slight growth is all, this was the last set of pics I took of them...
One main thing I also wanted to know is they will go and be ok with just the hydroton as a media, right? It says on some videos to plant directly into the rocks, so I guess it works,and the 3 that I took most of the rockwool off had roots about 4-5" long after they were uncircled (they were circling the hole in the center of the rockwool...this is where a few tips tore off as I was trying to surgically remove the roots from the rockwool..(I know it says not to, but my plants quit growing and I wanted to see why..)
Thank you all for your replies...I do have the meter on the wall that tells the PH, PPM and res temp..pics...
and Happy new Year!

Oh I pretreated the rockwool with PH 5.5 h20 with a slight amount of hygrozyme and clonex for a bit of food(200 ppm-40 for my well water)...soaked them 4 hrs before putting my seedlings into them (at about 1 week from popping) Then I shook/snapped them to get rid of excess h2o, then my ebb&grow system decided to be leaky at 3 grommet sites so I top watered them a week b4 putting them in the 2 gal buckets, had to wait on more $$ to finish filling the buckets with hydroton, just covered the tops 2 nights ago..

and I sterilized the room after composting the dying plants, scrubbed everything down the walls, ceiling, fixtures, etc..only bugs to survive were 3 ladybug stow-aways I found on the window screen when I removed the plastic to wash the window area...

I just looked over ther plants and did see a few changes, in one of the ice seedlings, the fan leaves on both sides have a very slight curl upwards at the very top, almost near the stem..PH problem?
It is one of the seeds I removed the rockwool from, so it could be shock, too..and on bubble number 2 I think it is, there is 1 low fan leaf with some brownish/rust colored spots, but that happened I think from spraying with super thrive and spray&grow(both have iron and zinc, 0.10% and 0.05%, respectively. 2 drops each for a quart spray bottle,which I spray with once a day, 2x with just PH'd water and I didn't turn off the lights, and it was after I had lowered the lights (My lights were originally like over 4 foot away) after reading everywhere how close they should be I started gradually moving it down to 25" or just over 2 feet.

pics 15 and 29 show the leave curl up top...anyone have a clue? would it do this from losing the end of a few roots?
And the 1 that is in soil is the lone survivor after using oregonism xl for my root problem from overwatering...it turned all the foliage a dark grey color (looked exactly like the product) this one isn't dead...yet.. but hasn't really grown much since I cloned it from a disp plant I got half dead (romulan x grapefruit)most foliage died off with the grey crap..this is all new growth this past week, so maybe it will take off now...

I don't think so, they will come back fine from the root ends, actually at that stage I usually pinch off the end part of the longest root to make then root to the side...

dude IMO try something besides rockwool. personally i will never use it again. but im sure lots would disagree

I won't use it again, it's nasty, turns green on tops, falls apart, I even found shreds of the crap in my res when I did my first res change, way to ruin my pumps!! As it is I have to water/feed by hand, literally turn it on and then back off after draining, otherwise, it would sit with the buckets full of nutes all day so I have to unplug it between feeding..long story, but the co I bought it from wants me to spend almost 300 for a new controller bucket while I send mine in to be "checked out"...sorry, I don't have that kinda money laying around..so while I keep fighting with them to send me a new one, then I'll send the defective one, I can't even really leave home for a day, gotta feed the girls, I've been doing every 6 hrs in light hours..I hear the "stg" inserts arent much better, and THEY ARE PRICEY!!! So straight hydroton for me, I guess..I just wonder if just those pebbles will support a damn thick tree (lol..should I be able to grow one)
So you don't think that curling of the fan leaves on the 1 plant would be from roots being accidentally torn a tad?
How about the rust-brown spots on the one leaf?? Any ideas?
Thanks all for any help you can lend...

reason I am being so ocd over this is I want to be able to make changes quick before any damage spreads, etc...
Thank you all for any advice at all...
Oh and I decided to try something, the 1000 watt hood/ballast I got was the "economy" model..and I am wondering if the MH conversion bulb I bought off of amazon wasn't *used*, people can be sheisters, so I put my first waste of $$ over them tonight, the T-5 HO 4' 8 bulb fleuro/running red/blue every other bulb,I KNOW for sure big time growth in veg can happen under that, the MH conversion bulb, am starting to wonder about.
My light meter goes to the max under the MH conversion bulb, but I just don't know about it..so no harm in vegging under HO fluorescence, I'll give it awhile and see how it does...I wish I wasn't so damned impatient!

I have like 75 seeds coming in the next week, some different strains, ones that may be better suited to a newb such as myself...not sure.so if I messed up, I won't cry too much, but damn wasted nutrients can get expensive, and all the talking to etc, kinda get attached to the lil buggers!!
Oh and after reading a LOT on the lucas formula, I decided to get the "grow" also, added correct ratio of that tonight too...they just had their first feeding with all 3 parts(I went 20 ml under on all 3)to keep my PPM under 600(540 w/correction for the ppm in my well h2o), in the morning I guess I will see how they liked it.
Any hydro ppl reading this: how many times a day do you ebb/flow with plants of under 3 wks old, and for how long each time??