Help! First grow, lots of pictures. Possible mg, fe, N?

Ok guys, need some help here.

I am a first time grower using CFL's in a closet. I started one plant from seed 2 weeks before starting another from seed. I planned to see what could be made better in the first plant and adjust for the second. Now, approximately 3 weeks into the first plants life (just as i was getting ready to start an early flowering cycle) the plants look very unhealthy. Both started this dramatic change from healthy, happy looking plants, to spotted, yellowing, brittle leaves at the same time. This alone seemed weird to me, but there are no visible bugs, and temp and humidity have been closely monitored!!
I am using a miracle grow potting mix following the seemorebuds guide. So Gardenknowm if you read this, please give your input. The ph for this soil is very low, so i started both plants with 7.5 water for watering. Again, this is all follwing the guide. Just as i was getting ready to lower the ph to around 6.8 i noticed very tiny brown dots on the edge of one leaf on both plants. Hoping this was a ph problem, i continued as i was going to and watered with 6.5-6.8 ph water. The problem only got worse. Both plants seemed to be worsening. The 4 mostly developed leaves on the seedling all had large areas of brown and yellow. The older plant has seen all well developed leaves suffer the same fate.

Being the fanatical researcher i am, i looked up plant problems and decided this was most likely a mg deficiency. I have been using epsom salt to try to counteract this, but after 6 days the problem still gets worse everyday. I have included pictures, clear ones. so look on and please help if you can. No random guesses please, experienced growers responses would be appreciated.

This is the bigger plant. Notice how the new leaves look healthy yet old ones are clearly suffering. Oldest of new leaves have minor discoloration on some edges. Very minimal at this stage however.





Even the stem looks healthy


The leaves have become almost completely yellow with spots of grey and brown.




They are extremely brittle. This, the most affected leaf, broke during watering.


The young seedling has suffered even more intensely, though even in this one, new growth looks healthy.


One of the first real leaves, now completely destroyed

are you using tap water?

Hey bro...i jus used the Mg Soil on my Nirvana Snow White's and it f*cked them up....
My guess is nute burn!! Are you feeding them nutes as well as the nutes in the soil already?? cause mine were looking pretty similiar, had to transplant em... But im a newb...jus thought id give ya a heads up!

The link is in my sig... u'll see itys more than likely that soil. Seems some strains really get rocked by it!

yes sorry. meant to include a bit about that. I am using tap water. In my area it is fairly hard water too . I have read that adding a small amount of epsom salt to every watering will counteract the extra calcium in the water, but im not sure if thats 100% true. The problem is i am doing this as low budget as possible, so would really prefer to not have to buy a reverse osmosis filter...

i am not using anything other than the miracle grow fertilzer. The exact same formula i have seen prodcue 3 oz off a single plant in 3 months.

also, the water i am using now is the exact same i have been using all throughout the plants life. The plant was transplanted into the soil weeks before the symtoms occured too. This all seems very strange. As normally my two guesses would have been soil or water

Gageblackwood said:

i am not using anything other than the miracle grow fertilzer. The exact same formula i have seen prodcue 3 oz off a single plant in 3 months.

Click to expand...

My bet...Soil!!
I have the 2 snowwhites that i had to transplant out of it...
Then i put a randomn bag seed in the same pre-treated soil and that one is thriving in it!! Your strian may jus be too sensitive to the soil... Sucks!

yeah time release soil ferts are bad unless you are wel versed in using. Are u on city water or does your house have a well if ur on city water i would let the water sit exposed to air for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate

Well im pretty sure the plants are done for. Im guessing it was the soil. Or the ph, or a combination of both. Anyway, im keeping these going for now, but they are getting only worse. Surprisingly new bushes of leaves are growing all over the big one, and looking healthy. Once the leaves hit maturity they start to die however.

Since im not expecting these plants to be more than a learning experience at this point, i have started germing more seeds. I'm interested to mess with this soil a bit. As i have seen very good things done with it. I am trying different strains, will try different ph levels and timing. I think i simply took too long to lower the ph of the water i was using. The miracle grow is very acidic, so it is necessary to start with a higher ph water, but the timing of when to switch is clearly more important than i gave it credit.

Im thinking the strains deal may be the biggest factor. I had another plant growing of a different strain that suffered similar signs of issue early in life, but has fully recovered since. Unfortunately, that particular plant didnt have a very sturdy light fixture on it, which i found collapsed on the plant, completely destroying one half of the plant. the other half looks healthy, lol, but it too will be killed when i need the pot for new seedlings. Anyway, if anyone has the same problem, let me know what your situation was. And if you found any fix. Until then, im off to try that on my own. Ill keep this post updated

A word to the wise... get rid of the Miracle Grow soil and fertilizer. They are fine for flowers and houseplants, but they have no place in a marijuana garden. You may have seen a successful grow using Miracle Grow products, but after 10+ years of doing this, I can tell you that those positive experiences are the exception, and not the rule. You would be much better off using a soil mix like FoxFarm's Ocean Forest, which does wonders for the Cannabis plant. It is all natural, organic-based and contains fish emulsion, crab meal, earthworm castings, bat guano, and kelp. It makes for an exceptional medium right out of the bag, though you may want to add about 20% perlite to the mix to improve its drainage. For the first 2-3 weeks of use, you'll need no nutritional supplementation as all those good ingredients serve to feed the plant in its beginning days. After that, you can begin feeding it the FoxFarms liquid nutrient line (GrowBig, BigBloom, & TigerBloom). Like their soil, the FoxFarms nutrients are Cannabis-friendly and made of all natural and organic ingredients.

just a random update because i can. I definitely think you are right rolla, the soil just is too testy. i also thought i could go without the perlite, another big mistake. i will almost certainly be using foxfarm next time around. this time was pretty much just for fun. To my surprise however, the biggest plant survived. Lost almost all of its lower fan leaves, but 3 weeks into flowering the top cola (only one it has) is looking rather beautiful. So the soil can work, but i wouldnt recommend it in the future.

Please get those babies out of the "death soil" MG is junk!