Yellowing and won't grow, please help

I've encountered a devastating condition of my plants that I can't nail down the cause. They stop growing and drinking water about 1 week after exposure to my room. First the leaves droop and then all the stems turn purple and leaves yellow with purple veins. From what I can tell, the plant is not using any nitrogen. I can flower a plant that is already mature but it doesn't get any bigger during flowering. Even if I start with a healthy plant from a friend, the drooping and yellowing begin in fresh soil with a very mild dose of ferts. I use botanicare and an organic soil so I'm sure it's not over fertilization. I check the ph of the water constantly and always feed at 6.5. The strange thing is that after a couple of weeks of exposure, the ph of the soil is up to 7.4 or higher. Even when flushing with a low ph water like 3.0 after a couple of days, the ph is right back up there. I've concluded that maybe there is something growing in the water/soil, so I started purifying all my water and adding either hygrozyme or companion to combat any bacterial growth with little to no success. I've also flushed with a high concentrate of 29% hydrogen peroxide. The only other thing that I've read about is a fungal infection, but the pics I saw didn't quite look the same. Is there anything I've missed? Like something else airborne that is reinfecting the plants? I'll include some pics. The greener ones are early stage and the yellow ones are obviously later. Any help would be great!

Here is some more pics for the above thread. Also, it doesn't seem to be root rot. The roots are healthy and white and the plant will completly root a pot. I thought maybe it was pithium at first, but I don't think so. The only other info I can think to include is that when I let tap water sit (well water) for a couple of days, it raises in ph from 6.7 to 7.1-7.4, but my purified water (reverse osmosis) stays lower at 6.2-6.5. Also, I have found white slime growing attached to pumps/air stones in the resevoir. It seems kind of like algea but white. I bleached (and continue to disinfect) my resevoir and I don't use a pump or air stones anymore, still with no luck. I don't even let the water sit in there 24 hours anymore.

FLUSHING WITH 3.0 ???? WTF? ...ummmm, that's your problem. Sounds like pH swings from hell. When you flush your plants, what's your method?

I only tried flushing with that low of a ph for the first few weeks, seeing that it hasn't help lower the ph, I discontinued that and am still having the problem even with new plants.

When a plant stops uptaking moisture it is trying to tell the grower something. The most common thing the plant is trying to say is its roots are too wet.

When growing in soil the roots of weed need to totally dry out, like you are picking up a pot full of balsa wood...dry out. It is a trick used by many commercial growers of a range of crops, it keeps the plants in a constant state of thinking there is a drought on so when they do get a watering they uptake everything they can. Wet roots result in roots starved of oxygen, microorganisms in the soil are not able to fix nitrogen to the roots, roots stop uptaking nutrient, roots go rotten. Your plant then looks like its not getting any food, and the pot will remain heavy because the plant has literally switched off until the root area dries out.

On top of that, the things we do to fix that problem, cause the next level of problems, unless that action is to let the pots totally dry out. So in this case, feeding your plants water with a pH of 3.0 which is both - another watering that they do not need, and a pH of 3.0 is acid which will have nailed the lockout completely. Then feeding them hygrozyme means they get another watering, then flushing with a high concentrate of H2o2 is yet another watering they do not need, and h2o2 at that level will cook the roots and make them brittle and bleached, further shocking the plants.

Hope that helps.

...total lock out. Your ph, I'd say. I had this problem ONCE due to using chemical fertilizers in soil. Careful with the chemicals in the soil, your working with a really good buffer. Flush like there is no tomorrow. Add cal./mag. to your reverse osmosis filtered water....flush everything slowly and evenly, come back in an hour an flush again. Keep flushing until your runnoff is in around 6.5.

What method are you using to water your plants?

Jonus said:

When a plant stops uptaking moisture it is trying to tell the grower something. The most common thing the plant is trying to say is its roots are too wet.

When growing in soil the roots of weed need to totally dry out, like you are picking up a pot full of balsa wood...dry out. It is a trick used by many commercial growers of a range of crops, it keeps the plants in a constant state of thinking there is a drought on so when they do get a watering they uptake everything they can. Wet roots result in roots starved of oxygen, microorganisms in the soil are not able to fix nitrogen to the roots, roots stop uptaking nutrient, roots go rotten. Your plant then looks like its not getting any food, and the pot will remain heavy because the plant has literally switched off until the root area dries out.

On top of that, the things we do to fix that problem, cause the next level of problems, unless that action is to let the pots totally dry out. So in this case, feeding your plants water with a pH of 3.0 which is both - another watering that they do not need, and a pH of 3.0 is acid which will have nailed the lockout completely. Then feeding them hygrozyme means they get another watering, then flushing with a high concentrate of H2o2 is yet another watering they do not need, and h2o2 at that level will cook the roots and make them brittle and bleached, further shocking the plants.

Hope that helps.

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...I think you hit a dead ringer! Good info. They must dry.

Lodaki said:

Also, it doesn't seem to be root rot. The roots are healthy and white...

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The other point I guess is that all roots will look white after being bleached with h2o2 at those levels you used.

I've tried only watering half the amount of water as usual, and I switched to a soilless mix because I thought the same thing. When I brought new plants in, I was careful to not fill the mix with water and got the same result. I didn't flush everything back to back (every 3 to 4 days) except in the very beginning (3 to 4 weeks) of having this problem. This has been ongoing for 4 months now. Since then I wait for the pot to dry before I add anything else. I've been at this 6 years and I'm pretty fluent at the basics. This is unlike anything I've encountered before. Also I only flushed some plants with 3.0 a couple of times in the beginning just to see if I could get the overall ph of the soil back down to the 6.2-6.8 range. My new round of plants got the half amount of water, and soilless mix. With no luck, I just continue to water with 6.5. As far as bleaching the roots, I can tell if the roots are healthy and fuzzy not just burnt and white. Thank you for the info, but I think we need to keep trying.

Definitely need to make sure they dry out properly !

LIGHT color is a lack of food, not too much

Purple appearing looks like a phosphorus deficiency. So the roots are not working at all, dry it out first and then fix it I guess.

Personally I would repot the plants carefully into fresh soil (washing the roots off with water and light peroxide mixture) and with some more soil to grow in, for more root mass. Looks like some room to increase soil in those pots.

Peroxide dangerous ? its Water with extra oxygen. H2 - O2.. "PER OXIDE"

Not like its sulphuric acid. lol. Just use a bit in a bottle of water and try to get some oxygen in the roots immediately. Then water it in well (with nitrogen!) in the nice new dry soil, and hope for the best

PS Purple can also be the cold for most plants with indica in them.

Lodaki said:

Thank you for the info, but I think we need to keep trying.

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Well to be frank those pictures are saying soggy roots no matter what the pH meter is telling you. Plants still need to be thoroughly watered or else you will incur a salt build up due to most fertilizers being either chemical or derrived from the sea. But it is most important to let the pots go completely dry. Dry almost to the point the plant begins to wilt. Growers often just go by what their digital meters tell them, when the best indicator is a light pot, light enough to feel like its full of balsa wood.

Extended periods where the roots are soggy will result in a complete lockout of nutrient and even water uptake. The reaction most growers do is to try and identify the particular nutrient or trace element that is being locked out and try to add it to the mix.

No matter what you add, if your roots are locking out all nutrients, you will just be causing the root area to continue to be wet and further shocking the root area.

Every now an then you will get a plant that demands more of one element than others, but the usual indicator there is that only that plant is affected.

When all plants are affected then the chances that it is something the grower has done multiplies exponentially.

The most common mistake is not allowing soil to completely, and I mean, COMPLETELY dry out between watering.

The second most common is over feeding not under feeding. This causes phytotoxicity.

The third is environmental. Light leaks, continued shocks, bugs, bad water etc

The least is the plant itself becoming diseased.

The most common multiplier of problems are the things growers do to fix what they believe is the problem.

Often time the simplist method to fix a problem is to flush out the medium and let the plants go tinder dry, then begin again with the feeding regime.

This allows time for beneficial microbes in the soil to rebound and begin affixing nitrogen and other nutrients to the root zone from the air in the root area, and it allows roots to take a break from the high saline content and it allows them to breath air.

High doses of H2o2 will kill all microbes. pH down will cause a slow release of co2 in the water you feed to your plants, putting co2 into the root area instead of oxygen.

Having pH adjusters, high doses of hydrogen peroxide, nutrients and lots of water in the root area, including lots of salt from half watering instead of flush type watering can cause roots to stop functioning.

That is what my eyes are telling me I am seeing in those pictures. Plants that were uptaking normally but at some point the roots locked out the nutrient and the plants have been starving ever since.

The other point is that you need to water your plants thoroughly until water comes out the footers before letting them dry out. In this way salts are washed out of the medium. Half filling the mix with water will result in the salt being washed halfway down the pot and building up there.