New grower, suspecting mites.

Hey hey,
Indoor + 15m in grow leds (around 50x3 watt), lemon skunk, soil.

Short background story:
The plants had an okay growing phase as young plants phase until we had a heatwave and weeks after the plant started growing really slow and all new growth is crispy af and straight up weird looking.

I started off with the wrong kind of soil (live and learn) but I just ended up watering it less frequently.
I've re-potted the plants entirely a few days ago (roots seem okay), the PH level is in the suggested range for soil, I stopped with the feeding around a few weeks ago (which wasnt extreme and mostly controlled with a pippet) but now I am pretty much confused and would like someone to weigh in on my issue!

They still smell really strong and connected hard to the stem.

Was this wrong soil hot? What were you feeding? Looks almost n related with the clawing. Have you checked for bugs? Definitely let her dry out and take it easy watering. Very funky looking. Get a loupe or magnifying glass, I've also heard of holding a piece of paper under the leaves and shaking the plant to see if any little critters end up on the paper. I'm a magnifying glass man myself. Research mites and what their damage looks like. If it is mites, you have a long road ahead...

The wrong soil got too warm for sure+black pots (very poor drainage soil), feeding was NPK 3-1-3 and if I have to bet my money on it - the 3 super warm days in a row combining with my mistake of leaving them in the direct sun is related, considering all the grow prior to the heatwave was as its meant to be and a week after the heatwave all the new growth became stunted and clawy.

No bugs were found/roots looked okay, soil was replaced and further flushed so I am hoping it recovers slowly.

Soil being "hot" has 0 to do with temp. Hot soil means it has nutes already in it.

Oh. Well.. the more you know. Embarrassing need to catch up on my growlingo.

It was hot in that case, I took a whole day reading about broad mites but I am 50-50 split on which one is it, hoping it isn't mites. Went over the plants with a mediocre macro lens, didn't see anything.

You need really good magnification. These dudes can be sooo tiny. Have you seen any webbing? Also check out pics of insects and what their damage looks like. You might see damage but not the culprit yet

No webbing, no actual damage on the "good" grow either, only the grow of the recent month or so.
Will add a good magnifying glass to my shopping list.

Canoeing of leaves indicates too much nitrogen. Buy some real lights.

even with a magnifying glass I can't see mites. I suggest getting a cheap microscope. (maybe 12 bucks) You absolutely need one if you want to know what is happening in the bug world. you should be looking at them all during every grow. I recently found I had mites but I also had a predator eating their eggs. I have been keeping my eyes on the bug action and the predator looks like an earwig but isn't even as big as a mite. . I have mite eggs in all states of destruction. some are surrounded by baby predators who are attacking the eggs, others had predators crawl inside eggs and eat them inside out. If you did enough reading about spider mites you probably read somewhere that if the mites are threatened with doom they will have some mother bugs go into a type of suspension until mite growing conditions are better..
well I actually saw this happen sort of It appears the mother mite stops and builds some type of irregular structure on top of itself and just waits. then to test the water it grows an egg from the top of the structure and sees if anybody is going to eat it.
well back to my football game have fun

holy shit that sounds like a good watch

I wouldn't worry about mites..i'd worry about that soil and get it out! The plant clearly is not getting close to enough light, and the excess nitrogen will not let it flower, or even drink much for that matter! Many issues here, but i wouldn't think mites are the main one, if any at all!

Blitz35 said:

I wouldn't worry about mites..i'd worry about that soil and get it out! The plant clearly is not getting close to enough light, and the excess nitrogen will not let it flower, or even drink much for that matter! Many issues here, but i wouldn't think mites are the main one, if any at all!

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I second this notion. Get it the hell out of that soil. Few days later after transplant, give it some more light / sun.
Maybe some neem a little down the road?

I personally think they have had a bad dry period and then been watered again and as there so small it has caused major leaf damage you will be lucky if they recover

Blitz35 said:

I wouldn't worry about mites..i'd worry about that soil and get it out! The plant clearly is not getting close to enough light, and the excess nitrogen will not let it flower, or even drink much for that matter! Many issues here, but i wouldn't think mites are the main one, if any at all!

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I got it out of the bad soil last week and one of the plants appears slightly better now, invested in more lights yesterday so will be waiting for that package.

josh5794 said:

I personally think they have had a bad dry period and then been watered again and as there so small it has caused major leaf damage you will be lucky if they recover

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I don't think they had a real dry period, if anything that old soil had such horrible drainage it was never dry enough.


I appreciate every reply/suggestion, being a new grower is no "growing mint" on my window.