4 ft Plant Suddenly Goes Limp. Immediate help needed

I'm using 5 gallon DWC buckets and I was just about to clone this 4 ft tall girl (mother plant still in veg), then I came home from work 8 hrs later and all the leaves are completely limp and lifeless. A few days before this I noticed quite a few leaves near the bottom were starting to yellow and brown even though I had done a rez change 3 days earlier. I kept checking the ph and itstayed constant at 5.8 every day. I do a weekly rez change and keep the nutes at 1.5. I switch between topping off with nutes or watering every day. The temperatures have been 74 which is high, but they have always endured at this temp. The rest of the plants around her are doing fine and in the same conditions using the same nutes. Room is sealed, temp is 76, humidity is 66. Roots smell like potatoes and are still relatively white.

What i've done so far is changed out the nutes, but i still left it at 1.5. I gave it plenty of light for 24 hrs and added ice bottles to keep the rez temps down and it still looks limp and lifeless. Using a 6" airstone that works perfect and the pump is commercial and generating more than enough bubbles. I also added a little superthrive to see if it would jump start the plant. This is a first and honestly I just can't figure out what is going on. This may seem like a stupid question, but is it possible to save it with hydrozyme or could i try to take a ton of wilting clones and hope they survive? Any help is greatly appreciated. Looks way worse in person.

It needs water

Did something get shut off?

its in water and i top off with water every other day. nothing got shut off. airtubing was still attached. shouldn't be from lack of oxygen either since there are huge roots and the water level is below the rockwool.

Somehow, the water is NOT getting to the plant. Double check for appropriate water level, kinks in tubing or a faulty pump.

It IS in water. I'm in DWC. I have already debunked the tubing, pump, and airstone as I already mentioned in my first couple posts. Need some REAL help here please.

wow, some people just have absolutely no clue. dwc means the roots are submerged in water guys, a little common sense should apply here. to tell you the truth, that is weird. with the other plants doing fine you know its not environment, it has to be a root issue. something is not letting it get the water or something contaminated the water.

Are the roots healthy looking? No brown slime? No critters?

My DWC skills are weak (two failed grows and switched to coco) but those look like my plants did with severe root rot. You must have some sort of contaminant in there that damaged the roots or you have some damage that you can't see yet. Do you have drops or a spare pen to double check the PH?

superstoner1 said:

wow, some people just have absolutely no clue. dwc means the roots are submerged in water guys, a little common sense should apply here. to tell you the truth, that is weird. with the other plants doing fine you know its not environment, it has to be a root issue. something is not letting it get the water or something contaminated the water.

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No shit, but it's obvious the plant isn't getting water.

billybob420 said:

No shit, but it's obvious the plant isn't getting water.

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Or it's so damn waterlogged it's shutting down, limp as a dish rag as we say down here.

OP, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? I think you should!

thanks for everyone chiming in. i'm gonna try some hygrozyme when i get off work to see if that does anything, but its looking REALLY bad. I also think it may be contamination, but I don't see how I could have harmed it. Roots are healthy, smell like potatoes, and not slimy at all. Does anybody think its a good idea to try to take clippings? They look bad, but this is my only purple wreck mother plant and there are tons of clones on it that i could take. Wonder if they'll survive. Is it worth a shot?

plantcity said:

Or it's so damn waterlogged it's shutting down, limp as a dish rag as we say down here.

OP, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? I think you should!

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another idiot. plants dont "waterlog" in dwc.

go ahead and take a few cuttings of the stongest branches and get them in water and see what happens.

superstoner1 said:

another idiot. plants dont "waterlog" in dwc.

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They do if the air pump stops working!

OP, have you taken out your air stones and stuff? Maybe they need some CLR and a scrub brush?

so i got home and the plant still looks like crap. perhaps even worse. its such a shame. . . vegging that plant to 4 ft tall took forever, and now its going in the garbage. I'm not even contemplating taking clones off of it. They would certainly not survive. I searched all over the internet and found a few posts that were somewhat similar to mine, but the posts always ended without a definitive answer. So if you come across this post and your plant is showing the same symptoms - sudden soggy looking shrunken leaves dangling off the branches in dwc - here's your answer: scrap the plant. you would invest more time and money in nutes trying to revive it rather than starting from scratch. the environmental conditions seemed close to ideal and all the plants around it were not affected. i'm blaming this one on an act of God.

Sounds like a faulty pump, those plants had no O2. Why dont you give flood and drain a go its more forgiving than DWC?

i'm blaming this one on an act of God

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Why ? it was your fault .

Plants aren't getting enough oxygen therefore roots drowning it does look similar to under watering but the leaves still look healthy just droopy like over watering.
The bigger the plant the more care it needs,i use soil and my plants went from needing water every 2-4 days to everyday.Just get a better air pump.
Same thing happened when i bought that cheap ass DWC from home depot

dont scrap it. you should be able to throw it in soil maybe? idk how its attached in the dwc but you could empty that and fill the 5 gal bucket with soil? Then soak it once and hope it takes?

May be a dumb idea im just trying to save your hard work

Again, I was a DWC failure, but I did have some very large plants with huge root balls. I can't imagine the root structure that develops in DWC would transition very well to soil for such a large plant.