After One Week, Cannabis Stopped Growing
by Ed
(Exeter N.H.)
Thank you very much!
Answer: The yellowing symptoms you describe are worrisome indeed! The same symptoms can be from any number of things....too many nutrients, too few nutrients, a pH problem (causing too few nutrients to be available), temps too cold causing wilt or powdery mildew, and even light poisoning! And I'm sure this is a short list!
You already have a thermometer, and seem to have your temps in check. This is a huge help for me, trying to figure out your exact problem remotely. As long as the temps have been no lower than 58 degrees F at night and no higher than 85 or 90 degrees F in the day, the temps are not likely to be your issue. Consider yourself ahead as a grower for having this base covered!
It's extremely difficult to poison cannabis plants with too much fluorescent light. I'm crossing this one of the list without even considering it any further.
It's important to be very careful with the delicate roots of young seedlings. Pushing i.d. tags into the soil and other disturbances can do damage below ground. The result will always be some kind of damage above ground as well. Root damage can cause yellowing above ground, and worse! For now, I'm going to assume that no traumatic soil disturbances have occurred.For certain, change to the FoxFarm planting soil. Be sure to check and adjust the pH on every drop of water and nutrient solution you give to your plants. Continue to keep those temperatures in check day and night. However, I feel the key to your garden problem lies in the following clue....you say you "watered them daily with distilled water".
As soon as seedlings pop open and begin growing, or clones pop roots, it is time to get them on a feeding schedule! Immediately they can handle a feeding of 1/4 strength nutrient solution. This will depend on the kind of plants you are growing, and also a little on the strength of the light you have them under. For young cannabis plants under 40 or 50 watts/sq.ft., this will a nutrient solution strength of 400-600ppm. Once you feed them the first time, make sure you feed them once a week from then on! Always keep these habits the same so you always have an idea of how much food your plants are getting. This will help you develop some idea of what you should be expecting from your plants as they grow and flower out.
And this is the most important part: try to only water them once per week when you are feeding them the nutrient solution. Keep an eye on your garden daily. If you see any plants begin to wilt at any point in the week, go ahead and give them a few ounces of plain water....but only enough to get by until the next regularly scheduled watering! Your plant containers should be drying out considerably in between waterings, and if they are not, then plants easily become over watered. This is especially true with new seedlings. At first, there is a lot of soil and only a few small roots. I hope this helps you out Ed, and Happy Growing!
AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
