Hungry Plants?

Hey y’all! Thanks for reading.
Long story short- 2 waterings ago i accidentally watered with 8.0pH water (weird one off with the tap). This problem showed up immediately. They were doing fine before this, and I have 2 plants outdoors in the same mix doing great

Last watering I used 6.0pH water. Runoff was 7.0, 7.1. They seem to have perked up a bit (it’s almost lights out in pics) but are obviously still in trouble.
I also hit them with a foliar feed of Epsom salts, hoping that might help with phosphorus uptake and get more mag in the soil.

medium is FFOF/ Mother Earth CocoPeat mixed together, 50:50. Just water with plain tap water. I wasn’t pHing but now I am, trying to bring the pH closer to 6.5 in the soil.

with all these deficiencies and a better pH, I’m thinking they are hungry. I’m very wary about putting anything else into the soil, as I’ve run into plenty of problems with that before. I do have a good veg nutrient I can give it. I was thinking it’s too late for a top dress of FFOF..

Any help is much appreciated. This is my 3rd grow, and everything was going fine until that one watering. Please and thank you y’all.
much love and happy growing.

Here are the outdoor ones. Even in this crazy smoke they’re doing great. Sorry for the crap picture.

What I would do in your situation is keep watering with pH'd tap for a week or so and see what happens. If it's just the pH being off, a couple more waterings should get the soil pH back where it needs to be. If it starts looking worse then I'd think about feeding.

How long have those plants been in that pot with FFOF? I've never used it, but I understand you can go for some time without nutrients and then can usually get away with half dose or less to start with.

What are you using to buffer the PH? Even with the swings in tap water pH it shouldn't be that bad? Add some dolomite lime to your soil next time?

RadicalRoss said:

What I would do in your situation is keep watering with pH'd tap for a week or so and see what happens. If it's just the pH being off, a couple more waterings should get the soil pH back where it needs to be. If it starts looking worse then I'd think about feeding.

How long have those plants been in that pot with FFOF? I've never used it, but I understand you can go for some time without nutrients and then can usually get away with half dose or less to start with.

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Thanks you for the reply man! The plants were planted on July 8th, transplanted 2 weeks later. Theyve been in those pots like 5-6 weeks now?
pH was my first culprit, but I started doing some more investigating this morning. I looked up root rot ( in case) and went to check the pots. When I lifted them to smell the bottoms, I noticed that in my plant stands, there was a little water with critters swimming around in it. Snapped some pics with my phone and microscope.. I'm not sure what they are but I'm sure they're the issue now. I have Spinosad.. wondering if that would help.

edit: are they Springtails?!?!?!?

SpawnOfVader said:

What are you using to buffer the PH? Even with the swings in tap water pH it shouldn't be that bad? Add some dolomite lime to your soil next time?

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Theres lime in the soil, but thats it. I was thinking about adding extra on my next run. I haven't seemed to have had a huge problem with pH before though.

Those look like springtails to me. BTI will take care of them as well as root aphids/gnats/mosquito larvae.

SpawnOfVader said:

Those look like springtails to me. BTI will take care of them as well as root aphids/gnats/mosquito larvae.

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so if I do a soil drench with the spinosad (or get some mosquito dunks).. should I just do like a normal amount of water?

Here the bugs not zoomed in

Weouthere said:

so if I do a soil drench with the spinosad (or get some mosquito dunks).. should I just do like a normal amount of water?

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Yea, so I like "mosquito bits" purely because it's easier to apply. Little granules instead of a big dissolved dunk....I just sprinkle them over the top of my soil every couple weeks and water over them like normal.