Please help me diagnose!

[Vyre]

It's my first grow, and I don't know what's happening to my Fruit Auto.

She is on day #19, and I haven't given her any nutes- only water. I don't have a regular watering schedule, I use my finger to test the dryness and have been watering increasingly more as she has grown. Now I give her maybe half a liter every other day on average.

She's always been dark green and a bit curly on the edges as you can see in the last picture, which I attributed to the base soil having too many nutes. She's in store-bought soil mixed with perlite and the water I give her is tap water left to sit for a day or two.

The acute curling happened almost overnight, and I'm afraid it might be because I touched her. As you can see in the first pictures, the curled part is a lighter green than the rest of the leaf, and in the third picture the underside looks strangely darker on the curled parts as well. This has led me to think that it may be a virus or pest, but I have absolutely no idea about those.

Concerning light, heat, and humidity- she's under a single 6500k 80w CFL good for 7000 lumens, 20/4, though I've messed up an hour here or there- stress might be a factor. Heat is never under 68 F at coldest, and never over 81 F at hottest. Usually she's sitting pretty at 73.5 F most of the day. She's some 6 inches away from the light, and I vent the room by opening the window daily. There is no fan in my setup so airflow may be insufficient. Humidity stays in the 50%-70% range.

I don't have a ph meter so that's definitely possible, but from what I've researched the symptoms don't match up. I don't know if she needs to start getting nutes in her water, if there are already too many nutes, if she's stressed or what.

Please help me make her better!

The first three pictures are what she looks like right now. The last one is from when she hadn't curled up yet, some 4 days ago.

 

[namvet25]

:smokebuds:It looks like nute burn to me from to hot of a soil mix. I would run straight water through them to flush excess nutes out. Just make sure there not too close to the lights with a light that strong. I wouldn't feed them until they get at least two or three more sets of leaves than at a very light dose at first than more as they get bigger. You should have a small fan circulating air gently over the girls,this is important.Also if your using non organic nutes you will need a ph meter to keep the ph in line ,or you will continue to have problems.For now I would water with distilled water that has a neutral ph until you get a ph meter.

 

[Vyre]

Thanks for the reply, I'll flush her and start watering with distilled water. I'll look into how to make a PC fan work with a plug or something, too. It's a bit embarassing, but I've started to care a lot for her as a living thing over these past weeks, so I'm really thankful that you took your time to help me out.

I'll report progress in a couple of days!

 

[namvet25]

Don't be embarassed about caring for them,most of us spend more time on caring for the girls than we do some humans.:smokebuds:

 

[krug]

Aint that the truth(not quite as annoying...imho)!

 

[krug]

I reckon(maybe) you should let the pots dry out(when flushed)...Too much water, and damage can be done, just a thought(could be wrong), but they look quite small, to water regulary, at the mo. The lights might well dry out the topsoil, but the medium from half way down, could still be saturated(and I`d guess thats where your roots are at/heading! Like I said, just a thought...

 

[Vyre]

Hey guys, I'm here with a sad update.
I flushed her thoroughly about 5 days ago, and things were looking really good. A bunch of new leaves started growing, but I was a bit worried about her size being not quite right. She's now at day 26, and being a Fruit Auto that means it's about a month to harvest (not only according to Dinafem, but all the grows of it I've found online). She looks tiny.

The worst part though... I woke up today, and the older leaves are now having the first signs of the curling. What should I do? Is this a Cal/Mg def??

 

[namvet25]

Remove that yellow leaf.Why did you flush her at that size? You didn't say that you fed her so I would start with a 1/4 dose of veg nutes and the same with cal-mag.She looks healthy so I think she needs some nutes and this should get her going.

 

[Vyre]

Maybe I didn't use the terms correctly. I ran a lot of water into the pot and waited for it to drain, and I haven't ever fed her yet. Should I start giving nutes? What worries me is the tip of the rightmost leaf, which is what it started to look like when the yellow leaf started dying. You said that would go away with the water, but now I have to add nutes?

 

[lr2jd]

Here's the case:
If you over-water a plant (too much water), that plants' roots can't acces any breathing air which is vital for living. It's like being 5ft deep in a swimming pool filled with mud. When roots can't take in oxigen or co², they start to die off and will eventually rot away. Also their 'food channels' will slowly start to close off because they can't handle the crazy amount of constant water/wetness. This way these food channels can't take up nutrients, and that'll cause symptoms of N-deficiency (the yellow, dying leaves).
Here's my advice:
Don't flush, don't give nutes. Just have some patience and let the soil dry. Your plants will be up and running within days when that happens, I promise. After that, if leaves keep turning yellow; add a small amount of nutes. But only if they keep turning yellow. Keep in mind for the future: a small nuteburn in the beginning is no cause for worries. If your plant is still alive, there's no need for flushing. If the soil was fertilized to heavily, it wouldn't even survived germinating.
Also, don't believe any package that says anything specific about flowering time. I've had lowryders finish in 8 weeks, and auto hazes finish in 13 (instead of 9). Your plant will be done when it has decided to be done . It could take a few days till it hits flowering however, it could take another month as well.