My pots are heavy and not getting light, stunted growth.

KikiRollsItUp

New Member
Hi everybody, I'm having issues with my current grow. I have been lurking this forums for a couple years but finally created an account in the hopes I can find some guidance for the issues I'm currently having. My current issues is with a medium which is holding too much water, my pots are still heavy when I lift them 5-6 days after my last feeding :(

I'm currently growing indoors, they are 6 autos (the pink labels to the left, NYC Diesel) and 6 photos (the blue and red labels to the right, AK 47 and Black Domina). The autos seeds' were put in soil on february the 4th and the photoperiods were put in soil on the 7th; yet there's a huge difference in growth. I'm running 3 mars hydro 300 w in a 4x2 tent (I know it's a bit over kill for this stage but I needed to raise temps inside my tent), the medium is a mix of soil and peat moss, lights are running 24hrs (I switched from 18/6 schedule 3 days ago because I wanted to keep temps high and because I was hoping this would help the soil dry faster).
I currently watered this pots on february 11th, so that was 5 days ago; when I lift them they feel heavy (they have lost some weight but not enough to warrant another water). The first 2-3 days I noticed significant growth, but on days 4-5 they stopped growing, some of them are showing signs of overwattering (the heaviest pots) and a couple of the autos are becoming light green instead of the deep green color they used to have...

I suspect the main culprit is the soil I used. I bought an 80LB bag of soil from Home Depot months ago, and unfortunately some rain got into it some weeks ago. I didn't thought much of it and used that soil mixed with some peat moss when I started this grow. I just recently read about how soil can be hydrophilic or hydrophobic, so I'm thinking perhaps the soil being so wet for so long has changed its properties and now it's hard for it to dry up?

anyways, I was considering transplanting into bigger fabric pots. I bought Coco Coir and Perlite today. So I was thinking about doing a 1/3 Coco, 1/3 Peat Moss and 1/3 perlite mix when transplanting; then next time I water I would try to mostly water the edges so mostly the new medium is the one getting the water (allowing the inner core [the current troublesome medium] to dry).

Any ideas? constructive criticism? is my diagnosis wrong? Can't really think about things I'm doing much differently from previous grows, other than the soil that got wet before this new grow.
Thank you for any help given!
 

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There will be a good bit of debate, but I think you'll want to stay away from mixing peat and coco. Two different ph needs from what I understand, could create problems your whole grow.
I had good success using Miracle Gro Performance Organics potting soil, and adding perlite until it was about 25% of the mixture.
I've had even better success using the coots mix soil recipe, and putting that in some SIP's I picked up at Lowes. You can also grab some lava rock to use along with perlite for aeration. Sips take all the guesswork out of watering. Here are the ones I've been using. SIP
Plants have been showing great growth with the Dr Earth line of dry ammendments. Ive used "Homegrown" 4-3-6 for veg and just switched to "Pure Gold" 2-2-2 for flower.
If the pots aren't drying out and the plants seem stunted, I'd transplant them asap in case the roots are getting rotten. Best of luck
:blsmoke:
 
There will be a good bit of debate, but I think you'll want to stay away from mixing peat and coco. Two different ph needs from what I understand, could create problems your whole grow.
I had good success using Miracle Gro Performance Organics potting soil, and adding perlite until it was about 25% of the mixture.
I've had even better success using the coots mix soil recipe, and putting that in some SIP's I picked up at Lowes. You can also grab some lava rock to use along with perlite for aeration. Sips take all the guesswork out of watering. Here are the ones I've been using. SIP
Plants have been showing great growth with the Dr Earth line of dry ammendments. Ive used "Homegrown" 4-3-6 for veg and just switched to "Pure Gold" 2-2-2 for flower.
If the pots aren't drying out and the plants seem stunted, I'd transplant them asap in case the roots are getting rotten. Best of luck
:blsmoke:


thanks for the advice. I'll have to go to home-depot to get new soil... because the only soil I have right now is the wet one I mentioned. Would a 50/50 mix of soil and perlite help? I've seen some people going way over 50% perlite and I'm hoping that this would help the roots breathe.

Hopefully there's no root rot issue, I may discard the heaviest pots (some pots feel like they haven't lost a gram of weight), specifically the one on the first pic with leaves that are loosing their dark green color, that one feels the heaviest and feels like it's not drying at all. So I will focus in salvaging the "lightest" pots (or, the less heavy ones lol); hopefully the issue is not as bad on those

thanks for the info GrassBurner, I appreciate it!
 
I'm sure you could run 50% perlite, you just might have to feed them a little more often once they eat what's in the soil. I see people making the coots mix soil with 30% peat, 30% compost, and 40% perlite. They seem to like it.
Biggest thing is not over watering when they are young. Honestly I've never been too good at watering, thats why I switched over to sips. A lot of growing, is finding out what works for you. That's one of those things only trial and error can determine. Keep notes, search for answers to problems, and when you can't find them, ask here :blsmoke:
 
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