Curling leaves (downward tips) / yellow spots

Ahoy all! I have been reading these forums quite frequently for the last 4 weeks or so, but am a first-time poster/grower =). I apologize that I do not have any photos to share.

I have read multiple posts regarding the curling of leaves at the tips/yellow spots, and am trying different approaches. I am currently 2-3 weeks into growing, and the leaves started curling (noticeably) yesterday. The spots started to appear about 4 days ago, and spread a little bit amongst the other leaves, but has not spread for the last 2 days (has not gotten better either).

My setup:

-Miracle gro pot mix
-2x 26w CFL's (for the one plant)
-Tap water
-Miracle-gro 24-8-16 fert
-small fan

-The plant sits inside of a walk-in closet with plenty of space, although the ventilation suffers slightly while the door is closed.


I checked the PH of my soil, and the PH of the fert, both of which come out to an even 7.0. Should I focus on lowering the PH to let's say, 6.0-6.5? The yellow spots have not worsened, but could that be partially due to the fact that I have stopped fertilizing for now? As far as the curling leaves... I have started opening the door to the closet during the day for ventilation. Could this potentially help?

Lastly, I think that I (admittedly) have been watering the plant too much (watered once a day + misting 2x a day). I did not water the plant yesterday, giving it some time to dry the soil a little. How often should I water the plant, and mist?


Any help would be appreciated!

Stop misting your plant, unnecessary.

If you have been watering every day then yes that is more than likely to much, let your soil dry out and then water it really good until you have water coming out the bottom drain holes.

Also tips pointing down (looks like a claw) means to much N. Yellow tips means over fert (nute burn). Flush your soil out with three times the amount of soil. (1 gal container = 3 gal flush of water). GL

agree with bakedude, but you might also want to replace the top couple of inches of soil, as this is usually where the nitrogen lock out occurs, due to build up of salts.
good luck.

If the plant is suffering from overwatering, would flushing be a good idea right now?

Tempestormer said:

If the plant is suffering from overwatering, would flushing be a good idea right now?

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You need to flush it to get the excess salts out. Letting it dry out with excess salts is gonna make the plant absorb those excess salts and your gonna have mroe and more spotting. Flush ASAP and then dont tuch the damn thing for a few days.

edit: Flush with pH'd water!!!!!!

i dont know what size container ur using, but if its nitrogen locked allready, u might want to consider a bigger pot.

backdoorgrower said:

i dont know what size container ur using, but if its nitrogen locked allready, u might want to consider a bigger pot.

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I have some bigger pots ready, but the pots I bought should be big enough for now since the plant is still young. I went ahead and flushed the plant as bakeddude suggested, but if these issues continue, I'll move it to the bigger pot.

Be patient now....and the leaves that are already affected the worse, dont expect them to come back and be uniformly green and pretty.

If things don't look better in 3 - 4 days I would transplant into some Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and that way you don't have to worry about nutes or pH for at least a month. Start with good soil...and you will be so surprised how easy it is to grow a plant.

bakeddude said:

Be patient now....and the leaves that are already affected the worse, dont expect them to come back and be uniformly green and pretty.

If things don't look better in 3 - 4 days I would transplant into some Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and that way you don't have to worry about nutes or pH for at least a month. Start with good soil...and you will be so surprised how easy it is to grow a plant.

Click to expand...

I actually looked for the Fox Farm soil at Lowes and Wal-Mart but they did not carry it. Where would be a good place to buy it?