Is stagnant water killing my plants?

My plants are showing some signs of severe stress this last week or so. A lot of blotchy and yellowing leaves, stunted growth, low yield, a few individual branches severely wilted etc. Looks like ph stress to me from what I could gather through a little online reading today. I tested the runoff ph of a couple of the worst looking plants and one of the best. The runoff varied from the lowest being 5.5, and the highest being 6.4. A little acidic, but not enough that I think it would be the sole cause of my problems. The healthiest plants did have the highest ph at 6.4 though.

I'm using supersoil in 3 gallon pots, about 50-50 with base soil. I know this is a tried and true recipe for success, so obviously I'm doing something wrong here, and I think it may be my water.

I keep my water stored in a large plastic garbage can, and I hand water from that. When it runs low, I top it up - which usually is about once per month. Could this water be stagnant? And if it is, could that be causing these types of problems?

Also, I always let my water sit out overnight to evaporate the chlorine so it doesn't kill off any of the beneficials. I checked my local water source today, and it contains 2-3ppm of chlorine, ph 6.8-7.1, and 45ppm overall total dissolved solids. That doesn't seem like a whole lot of chlorine to me, is it necessary to leave my water sit overnight? It would be a lot easier if I didn't.

Thanks for any tips

"I'm using supersoil in 3 gallon pots, about 50-50 with base soil. I know this is a tried and true recipe for success, so..........."

some strains do not like hitting that hot stuff too soon. sativas mostly, imo. try 1/4 SS at bottom, and feed lightly/side dress as needed.

your ph seems pretty good, i think its just the fact that its sitting there and losing oxegen. and yes becoming stangnant. try throwing an airstone in there. or just fill up a few gallon jugs so they dont sit for so long.

and what this african said lol^ im not into supersoil so i cant help there.

Papuan, mon!!!
New Guinea..........not Africa
*sound of blow-dart*

haha my bad...and to the op i think ph of 5.8-6.8 is where you want to be. so maybe 5.5 is a little low? just an afterthought.

I think 3 gallon pots are too small for SS.

The roots get to the hot part too quick and deplete it even faster. For me...week1 of flower I was deficient and feeding nutes until the chop.

Kinda defeated the whole purpose of the SS.

That was for my particular run. Others experiences may be better with small pots and SS

As mentioned, too small of a pot for the ss. The water may be part of the issue too, but I don't know. I do know that if I had to store the water like that I would aerate it with a pump to keep it from going stagnant and keep it oxyginated. Aerating it can't hurt, that much I DO know. good luck.

They were quite small when I put them into these pots - only in half gallon containers. I then put them into the 3 gallon pots for two weeks before going into 12-12. I Figured bigger than 3 gallons would have been a waste of space.

I don't think it's a lack of food because I pulled one out of it's pot the other day and the roots had barley made it to the bottom of the pot, still more than enough fresh soil - which should not be the case, I know. Obviously something is hindering root growth. It seems more and more that I'm suffocating the roots with stagnant water, because I just can't figure what else it could be. I'm going to dump the water barrel, clean it good, and refill with fresh water. I'll also pick up an air pump and start aerating it. Hopefully this helps, although I imagine it may take a while to turn around.

show a pic. Sounds like the SS could be burming them