Plant quickly becoming ill, urgently need help!

Hello all,

Longtime lurker first time poster here. I recently when to check on my plants and noticed that one of the three has started to develop light colored soft patches with no detail in them, the veins appear to be completely missing. On top of this several of the affected leaves are beginning to look twisted and droopy. It seems it is affecting the older leaves the worst, but some relatively new growth is also being affected (~2 week old growth). I had previously checked the plants about six hours ago and they all looked completely healthy. The only change I made earlier today was a res top off and added nutes, ppm was about 300 after the top off and I raised it back to 700ish where I have been keeping it.

Pics of problem





The plant is growing in a 3 bucket rdwc with plenty of air being pumped in. Nutes are GH flora duo series and pH is kept between ~5.7-6.0. Water temps are maintained at 66 degrees with a chiller. Lights are t5ho kept about 2" about the tops, with fans circulating the air in the tent. All three plants were started from seed just over four weeks ago and are all at the 7-8th node. Below is a pic of the plants from earlier today, roughly six hours ago. Affected plant is on the end.



Any help is greatly appreciated!

Maybe frying them with that aluminum over the dirt?

Bugeye said:

Maybe frying them with that aluminum over the dirt?

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I suppose its possible, but I have never had a problem with it before. I insulate all my buckets with mylar to mange the temps better. The air temps at the canopy are around 78 degrees, and the mylar is very smooth so there isn't any hot spots to potentially burn holes.

I would assume zinc

Maybe mn?I get confused with zink and mn but either way micronutrient deficiency pointing to a high ph swing I believe.

your feeding schedule is whacked. follow directions, topping off is your culprit.

Lol, it looks like wind burn from that fan

Alienwidow said:

Lol, it looks like wind burn from that fan

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Yeah it could be a drying out of leaves as well...the rest of the plants look pretty healthy.

Uberknot said:

Yeah it could be a drying out of leaves as well...the rest of the plants look pretty healthy.

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Could be. Environment is tricky. But you can see the flattening of the fan leaf in that healthier plant in the rear. And the plants are showing pretty full of salts I think with the heavy ribbing and droop.

Just a thought.

if the damage can be traced back to wind from the fan, that's probably the problem. It is a unique problem. I've never seen it before, but then I've never seen anyone put a fan in that place, so close and pointing up into the leaves. I'm guessing that's the issue. interesting that there were a lot of guesses that nutrients was the issue.

Thats not a nutritional issue. Thats from some sort of physical damage.

Yeah. I agree. Move the fan first. I honestly didn't see it at first. Good call everyone.

I got two plant spots right in front of a fan, no drying leaves though. This morning I moved the plants even closer to see if my leaves would distort and dry like that.
One plant was already touching the fan now for about 40, but I smashed it up against the grill this time, just to see because I never saw air from a fan elongate/twist/distort leaves like that.
Hope you get to the bottom of it.

Thank you all for the replies. I agree I do not think this is a nutrient issue, but just to play it safe I have brought my ppm down to around 500 and will leave it there for a few days. I disagree that the feeding schedule is bad, as I have always topped off with pH'd plain water between giving nutes and haven't experienced any issues, and from what I gather, many hydro growers do the same thing. The pH is very well monitored and is strictly kept between 5.7 and 6.0/6.1. When topping off I use pH'd water as well to prevent rapid swings.

The fan is something I didn't think about, but I just moved it to a new location to see if that was causing the problem. I normally keep them pointing up at the light to help disperse the heat from the T5 at the canopy. Upon checking on them a few minutes ago it appears that all the new growth still looks pretty healthy, but the old affected leaves have become slightly worse, and at this point the light patches are completely dry and crispy. The patches feel like they would crumble if i lightly squished them. Pics below from today



Hoping its something as simple as moving a fan, but I am open to more ideas as always.

Try the fan like this maybe. I hope it helps.