Another Noobie problem!!

Alright peoples, I didn't think I would need to use this forum, but as it turns out. I started a bag seed grow in some stealth speaker cabs. Did a whole lot of reading (tons). Out of 5 seeds two sprouted and looked good. For two weeks was looking good. I had three CFL's real close, so as two help keep them stay short. With limited space I knew I had to keep them short. My first approach to doing this just keeping the lights close that was working great. The second thing I was planning was to start flowering early, because I knew that I was working with little space and they would double in size, was the theory. So i put the two plants (Now 5-7" tall with like 10 nodes) into Hydroponic system and started flowering. Pump everything was functional like clockwork. Switched my fertilizer to Molasses I noticed I was over fertilizing them. I had to rescue them several times, by flushing and starting over with very little fertz. Ran into not enough fertilizer than to much. Couldn't find the middle ground. After 3-4 weeks of flowering in this little speaker box. I realized they need more space. They weren't getting bigger They were to close to the lights and I couldn't move the lights anymore. One of the buds was very slightly turning brown. I mean like the very tip of the hair of the bud, so I made another dresser into a cab.

Now, here is the problem. The one that held on so good in the speaker cab now keeps losing her leaves. (only fertilizer now is molasses 5 weeks flowering) (I know the pots are small, Originally I wanted to keep them in small pots to help keep them short) No money for anything now and possibly 2-3 weeks left to flower. My plants look like this. What should i do? She lost like three leaves a day. Now I have very very very light molasses pretty much none in the solution and this is all the leaves she has. She had so much potential. Now I just would like to know how I can help her?? please help me help her...

It looks like a ph problem. If the ph is to low or to high the leaves will wither and fall. If the ph is not optimal the nutrients will salt up the roots and kill the plants. Known as nute lock. Did you know you might get a quarter bag off both of those plants combine.

could be ph, but to give another viewpoint...

As plants flower they will start to ditch leaves that don't get enough light, or are holding nutrients which it could put to better use higher up on the plant.
This is what your situation looks like to me. You don't have much light, and you have tall plants. You can see easily where your only major growth is within a few inches of the CFL, and everything under is very underdeveloped and dropping. CFL's just don't penetrate enough for the setup you have. I'd suggest either way more of the CFL's wrapping around the plants, or focus on growing much shorter bushes, maybe divide the cabinet into 2 levels with plants 1/3 as tall and 4-5 times as big around...

They have been under continuous stresses since the beginning, like I didn't have any way to test the PH so was just using store bought water with half cap of 7-4-10 hydro plant solution per gallon, also after adjusting the nutrients several times because of to much nitrogen or to or not enough, over watering, not enough watering, Ph unbalanced, changing from soil to hydro back to soil and back to hydro again. I think overall they have been very good to me considering but after all that shock of changing from soil to hydro and back, I decided just to keep them in the hydro system because all my soil is used for for other plants i have going.

1/4 bag ain't so bad I guess considering. Just won't make the same mistake with these next batch. Plus I'm kinda practicing before this dank seed I got coming up.

Thanks for the reply. you've strengthened my knowledge.

Gobbly I don't know if you can see in one of those pictures you can kinda see the top of my cab. I have 150 watt 100 watt just on the tops of the two hydro plants and right next to the hydro plants is two up and coming soil plants. They have three 100 watt lights which come on at the same time right next to the hydro plants and the hydro plants get light from those lights right in the middle of them so i think theres enough light. As far as under developed I think its from being in really small pots for their whole life.

heh, you have all sorts of stuff going on... First, start simple and stick with it through a whole grow. You have so much change happening there's no way to tell what is going on... Experiments are worthless if you can't compare it to a baseline, meaning one change per crop. You're also trying to get into advanced topics without having solidified your knowledge of the basics. Things like carb loading and playing with micro-nute levels is not something you do until: A) you have done research on the subject, including the chemistry behind it; B) You have your PH and all other growing conditions dialed in.
Anyway, could still have to do with light penetration (or lack thereof), but yeah, with all the stuff you listed it could be anything, you really need more stability and a better foundation to be able to determine the root of all your issues...

I can't stress enough, start simple, make changes slowly and continue researching!

Thanks, I always research but it just so happens I ran out of money and I had to improvise. I understand the fact of consistency to make quality. The first plants basically had to be transplanted the only way I could, and now they are the ones that need rescued. The other plants i have coming up are all in soil. These plants look great and no problems at all. In fact these three are being LST trained right now and the side shoots are progressing nicely. I will post pictures of these as they progress. As far as the lighting goes, I had two 150 watt bulbs on the tops and two 100 watt bulbs in the middles of the two hydro plants while they where in the little speaker cab. The lights were touching at some points during their growth, in fact some of the pictures, looks like nutrient burn but it is in fact the lights touched on some of those spots. That is why I had to move them into their new environment I believe this 5" of space between the lights and plant will give them room to breath and grow. I plan on getting one mother plant in a separate grow chamber with constant 18 - 6 lighting and just make clones in the new Bloom chamber that I have posted here.

By the way I checked my charts and the two hydro plants still have a whole month to go . At this point the have only been flowering for 30 days, the other post is slightly wrong. Hopefully I can try to get bigger denser buds by that time. I will try to post before harvesting so you can see the progress. If the bud actually fills in between the hairs then I should get about double what is there now, but only if I can get them on the right track from here out. That is why I need some extra input.

Thanks for throwing me a line,

gobbly said:

could be ph, but to give another viewpoint...

As plants flower they will start to ditch leaves that don't get enough light, or are holding nutrients which it could put to better use higher up on the plant.
This is what your situation looks like to me. You don't have much light, and you have tall plants. You can see easily where your only major growth is within a few inches of the CFL, and everything under is very underdeveloped and dropping. CFL's just don't penetrate enough for the setup you have. I'd suggest either way more of the CFL's wrapping around the plants, or focus on growing much shorter bushes, maybe divide the cabinet into 2 levels with plants 1/3 as tall and 4-5 times as big around...

Click to expand...

You could be right but at the amount of leaves he is loosing in that short time I dought it.

This baby turned out to be a male when I flowered it for about 2.5 weeks. I was kinda pissed though cause I took a lot of time with it (LST) soil cultivation and I topped it after it had about 6 nodes, so if you look close you can see two growing on the top.