First grow, Promix HP under an HLG 350R in a closet

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formerly_chucks

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1 gallon pots with Promix HP and Perlite mixed 1:1
2x4x8 closet with an HLG 350R dimmed to half strength, sitting at 27" from canopy.
Dynagro FP + Protekt
3x Hashberry, 4x Maple Leaf Indica, 1x California Dream

5 weeks into veg currently, plants are currently recovering from underfeeding/underwatering issues. All plants have been topped twice, and the tallest plants have been supercropped to keep height under control. I plan on continuing veg until these plants are looking better and they're around 24 inches. They'll also likely be repotted into 3 gallon pots in the next week or two.

All of the plants are looking OK now, with the exception of the California Dream(second picture). It's showing leaf twist, clawing, and tip burn. I defoliated the bottom third of the plant to remove the more severely damaged leaves. I'm guessing this is a nute lockout or excess salt issue, because I've just let the runoff sit in the trays and soak back up after feeding for the past 3 weeks.

I was feeding half strength FP at every watering prior, but after I noticed the leaf clawing on this plant, I flushed all my plants with plain water. That was two days ago, and I'll be giving them plain water until I see some yellowing show up, because I don't want to burn them again. Runoff will obviously be drained after watering from this point forward, didn't realize Promix gets treated like hydro and should drain to waste.

Any feedback on what's going on with the tip burn and clawing, was it from not draining the runoff? Could it be heat stress as well? I've seen tip burn on the other plants, but only the California Dream has that leaf twisting and clawing.
 
First grow promix hp under an hlg 350r in a closet
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Yes always remove runoff or it soaks back up all the excess salts. Someone with more knowledge will probably tell you how to correct.
 
jguit

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I'd transplant them now and get a handle on how to water correctly. I personally wouldn't add perlite either.

Maybe try eliminating the Protekt and just run FP until you get a handle on things. FP shouldn't burn your plants at 1/2 strength.

I dont know your lighting, check what the manufacturer recommends for veg.

Get your ambient temps up around 82F.

You're probably having problems from incorrect watering, feed amount and lighting. Flushing probably did more harm than good as well.
 
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formerly_chucks

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I'd transplant them now and get a handle on how to water correctly. I personally wouldn't add perlite either.

Maybe try eliminating the Protekt and just run FP until you get a handle on things. FP shouldn't burn your plants at 1/2 strength.

I dont know your lighting, check what the manufacturer recommends for veg.

Get your ambient temps up around 82F.

You're probably having problems from incorrect watering, feed amount and lighting. Flushing probably did more harm than good as well.

Sounds right to me. Potted the plants up into 3 gallon pots, watered them, and tossed a male plant. Some of the plants did have brown looking roots towards the bottom of the pot, so that looks like I did overwater them at some point.

Fed them half strength FP, no Protekt, and I'm just gonna let them dry out properly over the next few days and reassess.
 
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jguit

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Not sure what your temps are but try to get up into the low 80s when the lights are on.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Not sure what your temps are but try to get up into the low 80s when the lights are on.
Cranked my light all the way up and put it at 30" to get the temps up, no room for a heater in there. I average in the mid 80s when the lights are on.

I noticed what looks like might be insect damage on the leaves of one plant. The second and third photos are a closeup(as best this camera can manage) of the leaf, and a zoomed out shot showing the damage. There's what looks like brownish red specks towards the base of the leaf, and the base of the leaf itself looks kind of chewed and ragged, for lack of a better word.
 
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jguit

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They definitely look better than they did! I don't have much experience with pests, so hopefully someone will give some advice. Do you have a scope or loupe so that you can inspect the leaves for pests? I'd imagine that would be a first step.
 
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formerly_chucks

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They definitely look better than they did! I don't have much experience with pests, so hopefully someone will give some advice. Do you have a scope or loupe so that you can inspect the leaves for pests? I'd imagine that would be a first step.
It was really difficult to get this scope to focus, so I couldn't capture much of anything. This is the clearest shot I got, and I can't tell if those reddish specks are mites or just part of the leaf. I sprayed the plants down with 50/50 alcohol + water with a few drops of castille soap.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Conditions currently:

Lights dimmed to 50%, set at 24 inches.
Average temps high 70s to low 80s, humidity 65-85%.
Feeding 1/4 tsp of Foliage Pro every 4 days.

Plants aren't looking quite as vigorous coming up on week 8 of veg. The leaves have started to go yellow-green, and the California Dream(third right plant front row) is looking pretty sick right now. Second picture is showing the damage in more detail. The plant has always been sick even when it was small, but all the new growth now has that spindly, crispy and thin look, and I'm wondering if it's even worth keeping it at this point. I flushed it with 3 gallons of water yesterday because the deformed leaves look nute burned, but it could also be chronic root problems from incorrect watering.

I'm not sure if I'm over or under watering, but I'm leaning towards overwatering. I was under the impression that a 50/50 mixture of Promix HP and perlite would dry incredibly fast, but these pots don't start to feel very light until day 4 at least, sometimes 5 days. I've also dimmed the light down to half, because I wasn't sure if I was burning the plants or not.

Should I keep these in veg for another week or two to let them recover before I bother to flip the lights?
 
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formerly_chucks

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Managed to drop the humidity to low 70s by setting my fan to cycle on for 5 minutes, then off for 5. It's the only way I can control humidity currently, don't have the room for a dehumidifier.

Humidity seems to climb very easily into the mid 80s once all the plants are transpiring, so next time I'll probably grow 3 plants instead of 6 to let me squeeze a dehumidifier in there.
 
jguit

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you'll have an uphill battle flowering in that type of humidity. What happens when you run the fan constantly? You really need to figure out how to dehumidify that space. In a smaller space you can run a dehumidifier outside of the grow space.
 
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formerly_chucks

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you'll have an uphill battle flowering in that type of humidity. What happens when you run the fan constantly? You really need to figure out how to dehumidify that space. In a smaller space you can run a dehumidifier outside of the grow space.
With the fan constantly running, it's sitting at 58% humidity. I'll have to take a look later tonight and tomorrow morning to see if it stays steady or keeps dropping.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Temps and humidity have stabilized around 81F and 55% RH. Yellowing and twisting has gotten a little worse on the most overwatered plants, but I expect to see that stabilize over the next week. My two smallest plants are actually looking the healthiest, but I've also given them significantly much less water than the other plants due to their size.

I interpreted the leaf clawing that I was seeing as nute burn, but I believe now it's mostly an issue of too much water being given too often, and high RH keeping rate of evaporation low. It's been compounded by the fact that the most unhealthy plants are drinking far less, so the pots stay wet much longer than the rest

Tomorrow will be my 8th week of veg, but I'm going to veg for at least another week, maybe even two, because I don't want to flip to flower with the plants this stressed out. I'm picking up a dehumidifier for the room next week to help knock the RH down in my closet to 50%.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Flipped to flower 2 days ago because my plants bounced back quickly, with the exception of California Dream, which I had to chop. She was sick enough that it didn't seem worth flowering her; I'd rather just try that strain again next time I grow.

All the preflowers look female and they've shown a big burst in growth in the past two days. The Maple Leaf Indica in the front right stretched so much that I had to supercrop some of the lankiest branches.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Over 4 weeks into flower now, the Hashberry plants didn't stretch at all and stayed very stout, but the buds are looking very dense and starting to swell. Both the Maple Leaf Indicas got huge, and I pulled the fattest looking one out of the closet to get a better shot of it. All the plants were lollipopped and heavily defoliated about 2 weeks into flower.

Dehumidifier is keeping humidity in the high 50s to low 60s, but my daytime temperatures have broken 90 degrees a handful of times. I had to dial the light back down to half to keep temps from going above 90, and I average 84-88 when the lights are on.
 
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formerly_chucks

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Some bad news, had to pull both Hashberry plants on day 59 of flower. Had to trash about half of the colas because they were too badly molded. Everything in this bowl was discarded, you can see the white webbing on the buds. Everything else looked ok, and I'm hoping once it dries, there isn't mold hidden inside of the buds that I can't see. The plants both had freakishly dense colas, which probably contributed to the problem. All my Maple Leaf Indica plants look OK, I gave them all a careful lookover to make sure, and they'll be getting chopped in another 2 weeks or so.

I stopped running my dehumidifier about 5 weeks into flowering because the plants were drinking less, and humidity was staying about 55% on average. I guess I had a spike into the high 60s humidity wise, but I'm not sure how often it happened because my thermometer doesn't have logging, just the min/max temp + humidity. Next run I do, I'll probably buy a thermometer with logging capabilities so I can watch for any temp or humidity spikes.
 
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chuck88

chuck88

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Sorry to hear that, sigh...

I don't see a circulating fan in your pictures ?

That AND an exhaust fan will help with the humidity...

Cheers
 
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formerly_chucks

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Sorry to hear that, sigh...

I don't see a circulating fan in your pictures ?

That AND an exhaust fan will help with the humidity...

Cheers
The circulating fan is actually hung all the way up at the top of the closet, so it's not visible in the photo. I turned it off the past few weeks, which may have been the cause of the mold issues. Since I pulled the Hashberry plants due to the mold, I've had it running 24/7 on medium.
 
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