Indoor Plant stopped growing?

[growgirl]

Hey guys. I have an almost 4 week old plant, and I've noticed it has stopped growing over the past several days. I have it under 3 26 watt 6700k CFLs and one 55watt 2600k bulb. It's in Happy Frog Soil and I'm feeding Happy Frog Nutes. I added Garden Lime to the soil before I planted, but it seems to still have low pH around 5. I FIMMED the plant yesterday, and today the area where I FIMMED is brown and has shown no growth at all. I'm wondering if I should just chuck this plant and start over? It really isn't showing any progress.

 

[Muddy]

If your pH is that low then there is your problem. At that low the plant is unable to properly uptake nutrients, so has stopped growing. I expect you will soon start to see some yellowing in the leaves as the plant starts to feed off itself. I assume you are checking the pH of both your feeds and your run off. What are those readings?

 

[medi]

Agree with Muddy, PH lockout seems likely. My tap water sits around 7.8, not sure what yours is, but if it's high like mine it would be perfect to help balance out that 5. Not sure if it works this way, but if you add 7.8 and 5, and divide by 2 you get 6.4, which would be a good runoff PH.

Anyway, if you can afford it you should consider picking up a PH kit like the "General Hydroponics GH1514 PH Control Kit", I got mine on Amazon for about 16 dollars.

 

[growgirl]

I can't seem to fix the pH, so I think I'm gonna transplant this one to outside to see how it does

 

[growgirl]

I can't seem to fix the pH, so I think I'm gonna transplant this one to outside to see how it does

 

[medi]

Good luck. Is it possible your PH testing method is flawed? 5 seems incredibly low for how green she is.

 

[growgirl]

Good luck. Is it possible your PH testing method is flawed? 5 seems incredibly low for how green she is.

Its always a possibility, I'm looking into buying a ph pen, but my local hydroponics shop over prices them really bad. It's ridiculous haha. But I tested with the General Hydroponics one and an aquarium pH test kit and they're both reading pretty similar!

 

[EverythingsHazy]

As for the fim'd area... Give it a week before counting it as a failure.. You wounded the plant, and some resume growth sooner/later than others.

 

[Dark Matter]

Hit it with a tablespoon of Epsom salts with one litre per water.. that should help with the lock out. Then get your pH up... try some tap water as advised before.. if that doesn't work invest in some pH up and pH down

 

[az2000]

I'm looking into buying a ph pen, but my local hydroponics shop over prices them really bad.

I use the ph pen reviewed on this forum, here. It costs about $8 on eBay or Amazon. You'll need to invest $20 in storage and calibration fluids. (Maybe also probe cleaning solution, but that's not as immediately necessary as the first two.).