naw bro, i have grown in rockwool since the beginning.. i know how much water it holds and how to maintain it.. if it was overwatering it would have shown its head when i was watering them as clones.. i have had the same schedule since the beginning, 2 waterings while lights were on, and when i was at 18 hrs a day i was doing 3 waterings a day.
the root rot was soley contributed to the high temps while waiting for my a/c.. once i got em under control, it had already had a chance to take hold, and i didnt feel like dicking around with it for 2 months to pull off a half hearted harvest.
my leaves were heavy green because they are well fed and cared for LOL.. loaded up on N to make the long journey to harvest. all new shoots were pointing straight up, and light green as you can see in the pics.
leaves suck up the suns (or hids) energy for use in photosynthesis.. leaves will always naturally turn towards the sun. if you look at a plant that gets full sun outdoors, you will see that as the day goes on, the leaves will continue to rotate with the sun before drooping for the night.
in a vertical system, the lights are on the sides, not on the top, so naturally the leaves will angle down towards the lights to absorb the most energy.. i know it seems wierd but its true! if you look at any of my past grows they do the same thing.. i was worried when i first saw it myself, but realized that they were just following the lights.
and just for future refrence, root rot is not caused by heavy green leaves.. very dark green leaves is a sign of high amounts of nitrogen in the plant. you will know when the plant reaches its nitrogen limitations because not only will they be deep green, but the tips will just barely start to curl.
root rot is caused by one of two things.. high temps and overwatering.. however, in reality, these two things are only caused by one single thing, and that is lack of oxygen at the root zone.. too much water, and the plants use it up, suffocating and killing the roots... and with high res temps, the same is true... high temps means less dissolved oxygen in the medium, strangling the roots.. root rot thrives in these temps, and creates a slimy coating over the roots, suffocating them further, and causing them to rot.
one of the tell tale signs of root rot (without looking at the roots of course) is to look at the bottom leaves.. if they start to turn yellow from the stems outward, this is almost always rot (nitrogen def starts from the tips, to the stems)
it was a rookie mistake on my part, and i shoulda just bit the bullet and got a couple of res coolers, but i was just trying to hold off till my ac got there, and the frozen water bottles, combined with the heat wave here, just didnt help my cause..