Help... cold water stress???

Someone please help... my girls are slowly dieing!!! Just changed over to flower and I did a water change. Instead of using my stored water (65) I used my well water(55 temp) and I believe I stressed them. It's been four days and they haven't recovered.
They want to sleep, and when I turn the lights on they start to droop after a few hours. Any suggestions...IMG_2170.jpeg
 
sorry, it looks like over watering, but your growing hydro, so there in water all the time. hows the ph? i can't see water temps causing the droop after 4 days
 
Change the water.
Check all your numbers twice on the water you're putting in.
Check your environment.

They've grown to the point they're at just fine so one of your inputs must've glitched.
 
A lot of replies thank you...
I never used this well water before.
Air pumps are good.
Ph was high the day after the water change.
Ph 6
Temp 78-80/ humidity 50
Water temp 68
Roots look ok, no slime or smell but they're sure not thriving!!
 
I've changed the water. Checked and rechecked all numbers. The only thing that was changed was the different source of water and the temp. Besides all the stress... light change, defoliated, flower nutrients.
 
My guess is that the well water has something in it that the plants don't enjoy.
If you used glue at your connections something could be leeching into the water also.
Finding a good water filtering system might help your situation.
I've never used EC meters much, but they can be useful to check water quality.
 
Dump the res and go back to tap water. As well, get a water heater to warm the res to 82, run an air stone + wavemaker too. You can't grow hydro with a good res
 
My guess is that the well water has something in it that the plants don't enjoy.
If you used glue at your connections something could be leeching into the water also.
Finding a good water filtering system might help your situation.
I've never used EC meters much, but they can be useful to check water quality.
That was my thought, so I did change res back to my regular water (65). Do you not think that a cold water change like I did at a temp of 54-55 did this? Someone mentioned turning water temp up to 82.. that sounds extreme so I did turn my water res up to 72. Your thoughts?
 
That was my thought, so I did change res back to my regular water (65). Do you not think that a cold water change like I did at a temp of 54-55 did this? Someone mentioned turning water temp up to 82.. that sounds extreme so I did turn my water res up to 72. Your thoughts?
82 is too warm. 72 not so bad. Ive had mine at 73 with no problems. 55° could possibly shock the plant, but once the water temps came up, after a while I would think it would've snapped out of it.

Are you able to put up a pic of the roots? Just curious to see how they look.
 
That was my thought, so I did change res back to my regular water (65). Do you not think that a cold water change like I did at a temp of 54-55 did this? Someone mentioned turning water temp up to 82.. that sounds extreme so I did turn my water res up to 72. Your thoughts?
If the problem has occurred only as a result of changing the water source, the first step I would take would be to swap the res and go back to the "known good configuration".

Re. water temp - 68° is warm enough so that the temperature probably won't drop to 64°, a which point phosphorus uptake will be reduced, and will have slightly more dissolved oxygen than at higher temperatures. Also, the rate of growth of bacteria will be lower than it will at higher temperatures. Conversely, a res with 82° will have less O2 than a res at 68 as well as providing a very comfy home for bacteria.

Unless you have a specific reason to increase water temperature, which will decrease oxygen levels, I don't see why it would be a good idea to raise the temperature of the reservoir.
 
82 is too warm. 72 not so bad. Ive had mine at 73 with no problems. 55° could possibly shock the plant, but once the water temps came up, after a while I would think it would've snapped out of it.

Are you able to put up a pic of the roots? Just curious to see how they look.
That was my thought too, that things would turn around when the water temp increased so something got taken up from the well water. Perhaps, too much benzene?

"72 not so bad. Ive had mine at 73 with no problems." - you are a wild man! ;-)

You run sterile or bennies?
 
My guess is that the well water has something in it that the plants don't enjoy.
If you used glue at your connections something could be leeching into the water also.
Finding a good water filtering system might help your situation.
I've never used EC meters much, but they can be useful to check water quality.
Good idea — check EC for both water sources.
 
If the problem has occurred only as a result of changing the water source, the first step I would take would be to swap the res and go back to the "known good configuration".

Re. water temp - 68° is warm enough so that the temperature probably won't drop to 64°, a which point phosphorus uptake will be reduced, and will have slightly more dissolved oxygen than at higher temperatures. Also, the rate of growth of bacteria will be lower than it will at higher temperatures. Conversely, a res with 82° will have less O2 than a res at 68 as well as providing a very comfy home for bacteria.

Unless you have a specific reason to increase water temperature, which will decrease oxygen levels, I don't see why it would be a good idea to raise the temperature of the reservoir.
Thanks...
That was my thought too, that things would turn around when the water temp increased so something got taken up from the well water. Perhaps, too much benzene?

"72 not so bad. Ive had mine at 73 with no problems." - you are a wild man! ;-)

You run sterile or bennies?
I'll try getting a pic of the roots later today. They're ok but not thriving. I've been running a water temp of 66-68 so I'm not running Sterile. Benzene??? I'll have to do some reading. Thanks
 
Thanks...

I'll try getting a pic of the roots later today. They're ok but not thriving. I've been running a water temp of 66-68 so I'm not running Sterile. Benzene??? I'll have to do some reading. Thanks
"benzene" - that was my semi-annual attempt at humor. In all seriousness, weird things can happen in the water supply.

A moderator on a site for autoflowers redid his RDWC set up and started having problems with his grows dying off. It took a couple of grows for him to trace it back to the metal in some of the fittings that he was using (copper, perhaps).

We've also seen growers kill off multiple sets of germinated seeds because the paper towels he was using were scented.

The key issue about "root rot" is that the roots will be tan to dark brown, slimy to the touch, and they give off a distinctive odor. In hydro, roots will turn brown over the life of the grow because they're immersed in nutrient water. The newest roots, closest to the plant, will be lighter in color vs the older roots. With root rot, the color will be uniform and will quickly turn brown.
 
That was my thought too, that things would turn around when the water temp increased so something got taken up from the well water. Perhaps, too much benzene?

"72 not so bad. Ive had mine at 73 with no problems." - you are a wild man! ;-)

You run sterile or bennies?
I used to use hth pool shock for dwc. I never had any problems like that with dwc, it was always something else. I was always able to get nice strong roots, that smelled like the inside of a pumpkin to me.....

Screenshot_20250412_153741_Gallery.jpg

It always frustrated me that the gh micro would stain the roots.

I bought a chiller. I never used it. It sits, boxed, in my attic to this day. Lol
 
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