Help Confirming Couple Problems

Hello everyone,

Im new to the forum as well as growing. I kind of came in to it unintentionally haha. My girlfriend was given 2 plants by a friend who was traveling and couldnt take them. He said they were white widow. I basically had a crash course on growing over the last couple days, which I know isnt ideal but oh well.

So here is my problem, the plants were given to us without a pot, the root ball was in some odd off white foam like cube. By the time we got them they were out of a pot for a couple days and by the time she told me about them almost a week had passed. She kept them moist and they looked alright just a little lanky and the bottom leaves were yellowing. After reading a bit on the controversy for and against miracle gro, I decided to give it a try. I used miracle gro potting mix. Currently they are in a 1 gallon pot and I have plans to move them to a 2 or 3 gallon soon as they stabilize and grow a bit.
Im using cfl's for lighting, I have 4 23 watt 6500k bulbs and some foil panels surrounding them. Ill probably get another 4 today, because they seem sort of weak. The first day after potting them they looked great, they stopped drooping and looked a bit more vigorous. Im on day 3 and they have gone back to drooping and the yellowing has progressed from the bottom up. The leaves are a bit pale. One of the two plants has an odd texture on the top leaves and looks like its trying to flower already! I switched to a 20-4 lighting schedule to try to pull it back to vegetative.

Now my guess is that they are nitrogen and nutrient deficient from having been out of a growth medium for so long, miracle grow should have time release nutrients so im not adding any additional nutes yet in order to avoid burn. I also guess that they may be a bit over watered from the transplant process. What do you think? Here are some pictures.
First day: second day: then all the third day pictures:

Oh and I noticed it looks as though her friend topped the plants already??

Oh and their names are Bonnie and Clyde haha.

nutes and sun could bring them back, shame its flowering already...anyway you can get em outside in the sun?

Diabolical666 said:

nutes and sun could bring them back, shame its flowering already...anyway you can get em outside in the sun?

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Yeah I can definitely put them in the sun just wasnt sure if its ok to move from artificial to real sunlight. Ill do that soon as it's time.for them to wake up haha. What nutes would you recommend? Should I stay on the light side to prevent burn due to them being in miracle gro?
Definitely a shame about.the flowering ill just be happy to keep them alive. Should be a fun and educational first grow.

Oh also the environment is a bit harsh here I live in a desert so it's usually dry. It just rained so the humidity is high but that was another reason I was afraid to put them outside.

The dryer the better...makes for stickier buds and less chances of getting mold. If your sun is super intense....ease them into it, put them in indirect light for an hour then push them out into the sun and watch them for a few minutes to see if they can handle it. Im not comfortable giving advice about mixing nutes with miracle grow. Maybe you could post something about what nutes you could use with MG and whats successful

I would give them a week or so to recover from the transplant. If you used regular MG potting mix then there should be no need to feed them for at least 3 or 4 weeks, sometimes longer depending on their particular needs.

Cool, thanks for the advise I'll do that and see how it goes!

I would give them a week or so to recover from the transplant. If you used regular MG potting mix then there should be no need to feed them for at least 3 or 4 weeks, sometimes longer depending on their particular needs.

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That's what I thought, I got some 5-1-1 fish fertilizer just in case but ill hold off on that for a bit and see how it goes. I also doubled my light so hopefully that will help when they're indoors. Thanks for the reply!

So here's an update on the situation,

One of the plants seems to be doing great and growing fine for the most part, the other seems stunted and I'm suspecting its suffering from Nitrogen toxicity. I thought it was over watering at first but then the leaves got kind of crisp feeling and started to sort of claw. Also the new growth is really dark green. What im having a hard time understanding is why the are reacting so differently, could it be that because the one plant tried to flower it is less tolerant of nitrogen? I flushed the soil in an attempt to reduce the nitrogen content, I used 4x the volume of the container they are in. I'm not sure what to do from here.

Here is the one I suspect is suffering a Nitrogen Toxicity:

Here are both:

And the only spot I see some trouble on the recovering one which I think is where the leaf got wet while under the light:

Halp! Plz! Haha

Gahhhh surfnachooooooo.... gimme a recap : are you putting them in the sun? They dont seem to be growing since last time I seen em...PH? tap water? nutes?

Haha yeah theyre getting a couple hours of sunlight a day, the one on the right has a bunch of new growth coming out of the lower nodes and the top two heads are growing pretty well its probably a few inches taller.

The other hasnt grown much at all, im using tap water for the most part but I have used some purified as well. No nutes in addition to the MC soil. Im not sure on the pH im waiting on a meter that I ordered a couple days ago. The temps have been a little warmer than I would like sitting around 82 degrees. Humidity is 30-40 I just put a humidifier in the room to keep it more stable. The leaves are doing a weird kind of spiral downward its really odd. They also feel weird and kinda dry/stiff not like the healthier one which is cool and springy.
I also noticed that the stem is redish near the flowers and the pistils are turning brownish. I figured it could be because its trying to go back to veg?

yea, you could totaally have the N toxicity It will probably remain that way unless you could possibly get it out in the sun more hours and give it some good ph'ed water. Are you familiar with lollypopping? that growth near the bottom needs to come off to give more energy to the top of the plant. That might help it a bit. I looked back at pic and they did grow a bit (stretched).

Diabolical666 said:

yea, you could totaally have the N toxicity It will probably remain that way unless you could possibly get it out in the sun more hours and give it some good ph'ed water. Are you familiar with lollypopping? that growth near the bottom needs to come off to give more energy to the top of the plant. That might help it a bit. I looked back at pic and they did grow a bit (stretched).

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Thanks again for all the help! I really appreciate it, this has definitely been a crazy learning experience haha, Ive got them out in the sun longer, as soon as I get my meter ill check the pH, and adjust accordingly. It seems like the flush and increased sun is working! They both have a good amount of new growth up top and it looks a healthier shade of green, and is much less curved. The flowering plant is going back to veg, they might just make it through.

I hadn't heard of lollypopping, I just looked into it a bit, I may have to give that a try too. My only concern is whether that would make them grow taller vs bushier? Id prefer them to stay on the shorter side, but shit if its an option between tall and alive, or short but dying ill go with the taller option!

Dude these plants are just overwatered. That seems the only problem really. Stop loving it so much and treat it like a weed! lol

Flushing was a bad idea but live and learn

SnaFuu said:

Dude these plants are just overwatered. That seems the only problem really. Stop loving it so much and treat it like a weed! lol

Flushing was a bad idea but live and learn

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That's what I thought at first, then I let them get almost bone dry and the problem continued to worsen. Also from what I understand the clawing/spiraling and excessively green leaves are signs of N toxicity, the tips of a few leaves were starting to yellow as well. I've only watered them once aside from the flush in the last two weeks. Its been about 3 days since I flushed and they're bouncing back like crazy!