Plants Slowly Dying?

Hey Guys,

1st time grower. Started with 4 healthy looking plants from bag seed, now have 3 and it looks like the rest of them may be on the way out.

Not sure what is causing this. They appear like they are dying from the bottom up. At least the bottom leaves turn yellow first and then spread to the upper leaves, curling up and drooping. Also some spots on the leaves. Some red in the branch stem coming from the stalk. They all seem to have the same symptoms.

They are 16 days old from seed(bag seed). Fox Farm sea mineral soil (or some similar name)
Watering schedule - Days 1,3,4,6,9,15(first day of watering with nutrients- Fox Farm Big Grow 1tsp/gal)
Using tap water without any meters, yet. Last two waterings were the only ones I left the tap water out over night to let some chlorine evaporate, if there is any in my tap water.

Lights are 18/6 @ 250w. Digital ballast capable of 400w, but don't use it because of heat.

My cab temperatures are averaging 85F 38% Humidity. Ranging 90F-75F 45%-30% Humidity.

177CFM 4" Vortex inline fan, blowing out a DIY duct muffler
(x2)120mm 90CFM Computer Fans on a dimmer (Intake)
(x2) 4" Intakes with light traps attached with the computer fans pulling in air, not sure how effectively
120mm 90CFM Computer fan for circulation

Plants were sitting about 15" from the sealed air cooled reflector. Moved them lower two days ago. Not much of an improvement if the problem was heat/light intensity stress, so I thought.

I've thought it could be lack of nutrients, but since watering with the nutrients the other day, I'm not seeing much of a response, certainly nothing that looks like it's improving the damage done.


Does it appear that my problem may be heat/temp. related, light intensity, air circulation? OR Something with my nutrients like a deffiecy, over/under watering. I've read that the symptoms my plants are displaying are similar to a lot of very different problems involving varying solutions. Check out the photos let me know what you can recommend as remedies or what you think/know may killing my plants.

The photos are taken over a couple days to show the progression.
First signs started on day 6 for plant "C".
This is day 14, before watering with nutrients(day 15). Plant "C"(the biggest one).

Day 15, perked up a little, but the damaged leaves seems to be worse and the yellowing seems to have spread. You can see the curling up on the leaves. Plant "C".

In this photo you can see the red color from the stem, which I've read can be cal/mag deficiencies. Also, the dying seed leaf, which is where the yellowing seems to start and then over a couple days has progressed upward to the broad leaves. Plant "C".

Overview of the general droopiness of the plants. A, B, and C.

This plant hasn't grown much and looks like it has grown deformed. However not really droopy it's lowest leaves look bad, and different from any of the others. Plant "A"

Plant "B". Probably the healthiest out of all of them, but you can see at the top of the picture, the lowest portion of leaves are turing yellow, as well the seed leaves are shriveled and yellow.

At two points in the grow I've noticed the presence of some winged little creatures quickly crawling around in my soil, I could squash them though, so not that quick. Thought they might be fungus gnats. I've read that soil has a propensity to cause fungus gnats especially when over watering/ watering too often.

I plan on getting some meters in the mail in the next coming days to hopefully dial everything in and isolate my problem(s) before it's too late.

Hopefully all these details will be helpful for some questions and possibly some answers. Thanks in advance.

This is my work in progress cab set up in case anyone was curious or if this might help me in some way.

First, it's too hot. You don't need to feed for the first 3 or 4 weeks when using FFOF

Get your temps below 80 and stop feeding them nutes, plain PH'ed water.

If anything just use a little Big Bloom.... Good luck

#1..90 degrees is way too hot for your plants.

I think I can get my temps down with bigger intakes. Get rid of my cardboard-foam-light-trap/ fan rig, for a couple 8" darkroom louver's to serve as passive intakes. The fans don't seem to help pull in that much air anyways.

TubePot - I'll make sure to stop giving them nutes for now, but why would I use a little Big Bloom if I should stop with nutes?

Any opinion about my watering schedule thus far? I felt I watered too much early on.

Thanks for the info and timely replies.

Temps and Overfeeding / Over watering. I'm growing BAG BEANS just for shits among other strains. I use FFOF soil and do not feed anything until week 3 , this soil has basic nutes to let plants start and grow. You have to monitor how much you feed plants .

Without PH your tap water source , right there from the start it will be wrong for the plants , too acidic or too alkaline you can't tell. Do a full flush , water PH only. Get meter.

No more nutes for now. Allow plant to recover , give it plenty of time . Do not water until soil looks and feels dry. Wait a few days between. Yellow Leaves will not turn green but as it recovers they will fall off on their own. Most common mistake new growers do is throw Nutes at plant without slowly conditioning plant ( starting with less around 1/4 to 1/2 strength ). Now is the time to pull plants and find more comfortable spot to recover , don't worry about direct lighting them right now , they are stunted .
Do a temp check , doing a dry run . Start to fix the heating problem while plants are out .
Bring more fans or vent heat as efficiently as you can .

For fungus gnats , use a 1 part hydrogen peroxide to 4 part water. This soil rinse will kill the gnat larvae that will eat your plants roots ! These are bad bugs.
The sizzle you see when you add to soil is normal. After a moment the hydrogen peroxide actually will oxygenate ( ok for plants ) . You can go buy a simple sticky board and lay on pot to see how bad you got them.

Good luck

Budzbuddha- Thanks for the advice, seems straight forward. Before I saw your post I ordered the appropriate meters and purchased some darkroom louvers 8"x8" for my ventilation, I think my DIY light traps are what's causing my elevated temperatures, don't think the chambers inside are wide enough restricting it to 2" instead of 4". Either way, plants will be removed until problem is fixed. I'll try out all of your other advice regarding bugs as well.

I'll keep you all updated as I get things on track. Thanks for all the help so far.

Big Bloom is mostly earthworm castings, bat guano and is organic, very low NPK, won't hurt your plants.

TubePot- Thanks for the clarification.

Status Update

The plants look worse today. I've been trying to figure out ways to cool the cab. My ambient temps with nothing running is 78F. Either way here are some photos of the plants after I took them out of the cab to stay in a cooler environment. Kept them under a 23w CFL (All I have) with a computer fan. Temps stayed about 78F, which is basically my homes resting temperature.

Not sure how long they will take to respond from the change in heat. Hopefully soon, otherwise I'm not sure what I can do or if heat truly is the cause of their stress or at least not the most important variable to get under control first. Do I need to get my temps even lower? I know ideally the temps should be 70-75F, but I can't get that without chilling air somehow, which is what I'm currently looking into.

Budzbuddha, you mentioned I should flush my plants because of the nutes. I only watered them once with nutes and that was on day 15, today is only day 17. Did you mean for me to flush right away? I am afraid to do that because I've been overwatering, OR did you mean when they need water next, I should flush them then?

Let me know what you guys think.
Plant C
Plant B
Plant A

I'd let them dry out a bit more. Looking at your prior watering schedule they look droopy from overwatering. Problem is at first you think damn I'm underwatering so you water and they get worse and then you think maybe they need nutes, then they get burned. I've done it and I've had plants that look a lot like yours. I let them dry out, transplanted to bigger pots and water pHd water. It took a while to see improvement but just look for the new growth as a indicator for the right direction. Good luck!

Kimoolos- Thanks for further explaining that to me. I'm going to hold off on flushing them until they are dried a little more like you said. I did notice new growth yesterday, in-between the stem and the branches. By the end of this weekend I plan on putting them in bigger pots. pH meter is enroute.

This morning they look worse. This is their second day out of the cab, under a 23w CFL. I'll probably open a new thread regarding the changes I make to my cab in a different section, in case anyone wants to follow. I'll post a link later today hopefully.

Plant C
Plant B

Yeah don't stress too much. These plants are hardy. Mine looked as droopy as those at one point but they bounced back, wish I had a picture. I have attached a picture when I first started a before and after. The seedling looked sickly after overwatering then I dried her out and did what I was talking about above. She bounced back albeit not perfect but still pretty well. Really hope things get better for your girls!