Mine was, Eyes being bigger than my brain.
I already had my own plants but was off to a slow start, all my girls were only about 12in or less and a "nice" guy I knew needed to move and offered me 2 absolutely beautiful and
huge plants 2 different strains for free if I would give a few grams off whatever I got. He let me know they have been a bit neglected, he said just a little under watered and needed some nutes, possibly a transplant. My eyes saw at least 20 clones I could cut immediately from both plants and have them already be 6+inches tall. I had played around with cloning and had just gotten it down. I figured I'd clean them up, check them for bugs (even though this organics expert assured me they were clean) give them a week or two to heal and put them in flower while the clones rooted. So I agreed and he said he would bring them later that night.
The night comes, he shows up, brings them in and in a hurry has to go. It was late so I left the plants sitting in my living room and figured I'd double check them and clean them up in the morning. Morning comes and I'm picking off dead leaves for about 5 minutes before I see some mold. He had warned earlier on that they may have a tad bit of un harmful white mold from the leaves drying out etc. and being in a basement for a few days (this guy ran a store and claimed to be an organics expert, I was a mostly new grower happy to be learning so I trusted him) but the mold I saw was brown or blackish. Me not knowing anything about fusarium wilt or fungus and molds I just kept cleaning them up. I picked off every dead leaf and every leaf with any speckles of black spots.
the night they came (sorry for the bad lighting)
Next is around the bottom of the plant. I'm picking up dead leaves from the bottom and start seeing red mites. THESE guys I recognized. I immediately quarantined them to the bath tub and began a foliar and flushing treatment. I called him and told him what I found. He seemed sorry and offered to get me some better stuff for treatment. I didnt hear from him again. After about a week in the tub I noticed another type of bug in the soil. I thought it was a white mite but I crushed it and put it under a microscope and it was a THRIP! I couldnt even believe it. So I switched to a different treatment that was better for thrips and tied garbage bags around the plant with neem at the stem to keep bugs in/out and from getting in/out and while I didnt kill them all, didnt see more than 2 or 3 in the next weeks time. The next weeks I continued to loose leaves at an alarming rate. I figured stress from all the treatments etc. and because they stayed in the bathroom under natural sunlight through an open window because I didnt want to risk contaminating my flower room and cloning chamber.
One day they would look fantastic
and I didnt see any bugs so I would consider moving them but then the next day 4 or 5 more leaves would be black and dead. I didnt know if the bugs were still there sucking leaves or something or what was going on. Well, in the beginning of my own growing plants I had a minor problem with fungus gnats. They never went away but never bugged me or the plants until now. Apparently they spread diseases and went from one plant to another. Vegging plants in my clone chamber started getting black spots on the leaves and dying.
That's when I began looking up as much info as I could and found out I had been gifted fusarium wilt, or thats what I believe did it.
I panicked because nothing was working to kill it. After one last failed attempt of light bleach vinegar mixture on the leaves (figured they were dead anyway why not see if it would work). It seemed to for about 4 days. After that I took everything with any sign of black spot and killed it and took anything that had been vegging in the clone chamber inspected it and put it in my flower room. I figured flowering early was better than losing a particularly special strain to me c99xsomango. Well this happened very fast. The fungus gnats spread it to my flower room and by now I started seeing a couple black spots a day on a leaf or two. I ended up harvesting what had already been flowering about 3 weeks early and the vegging plants were now in flower and growing small buds. Every leaf affected was picked off immediately. They didnt make it more than 5? weeks in flower. I tried one last time to save them after finding out I also had root aphids...all that did was make what little bud WAS there unsmokeable, I cant say where they came from because I honestly dont know if I picked them up along the way or if they were gifted to me.
THE FUN PART, this guy called me a few days ago to uhh... see what was up. :X
I burned everything, bleached everything moved my grow area and started over from seed. I will never bring another already grown plant into my home.