Inexplicable wilting - please help me troubleshoot!

Hey Fellow Growers!

I have been crazy trying to figure out what is wrong with my plants and I would really appreciate any advice!

So here's the lowdown- I have 2 plants (Australian Blue strain-sativa) that I have been vegging for about 3 months. They were from my last (and only grow) and were just an experiment to try out hempy buckets. Turns out hempy buckets live up to the hype and my two plants started growing pretty large. The hempy buckets consist of a .5 gallon container with 100% perlite with holes about 1.5 inches up. I estimate that the reservoir holds about 1.5 cups. I have them wrapped with aluminum foil to block light. I taped it in a way so that could peel it back and see the magic happening inside.

This was happening under a 125W CFL 6400K in an open door pantry with temps around (guessing) 55-60 at night to about 80-85 daytime. I have no idea what the relative humidity was.

Fast Forward… 1 month ago I decided to start another grow and wanted to chop’em up for clones. I stuck them in my main growing cabinet with a 400W HPS for faster growth for bigger clones. Bad move. I have spent the last month trying to figure out and resolve why they are wilting. If you have any ideas or advice, please share’em!

Overwatering: My usually problem. Tried to be extra stingy. No noticeable change.

Underwatering: Tried to be extra sure that they were getting enough water. Fed them once a daily until it over-drained. I noticed that all free soln is absorbed by the next feeding, although they still looked moist. Again, no noticeable difference.

pH: I have a Hanna pH/EC combo that I cal. weekly or so. For my soln, I start with store bought distilled water. I mix it to a PPM of 1200 with pH of 5.7-5.9. That seems correct, right?

Temperature: When they were looking good, they were in an open-door pantry (app. 2x2 ft) with temps around 50 at night and 80 daytime.

Now they are in my grow cabinet. I use 2 thermometers. One at the bottom with an external sensor touching the glass corner of the light and one in the shade of my fan (midway from top and bottom). The bottom reads 85 the top reads 89 and the midway reads 76. RH is 37%. Those numbers seem reasonable, no?

Light: While in the pantry, the plants were under a 125W CFL @ app. 8 inches away. Now, they are under a 400W HPS @ about 6-7 inches away. I was worried they were too close, but didn’t have the ability to move my light, so I moved them out towards the fringes of the cab, so no distance from the bulb to the plants is about 12 inches. Still wilting. Could this be a problem? If the temps are fine, then the wattage shouldn’t matter other than positively, right? I have few several FAQs about light proximity and I don’t see any bleaching except for speckles which I’m not really sure is even bleaching.

So there you have it. I have tried and failed and so I ask you grow gurus to take pity on my plants
Here are some pictures for your convenience:

http://img12.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=twinbtwistedcloseupl.jpg

Sounds like a bad case of light shock. You've increased the lumens by about a couple of thousand. One way around this is to find a grow shop and get some wilt guard which will help them deal with the trebbled light intensity, or, change back to your CFLs if you cant raise the 400w to lesson the lumens on them.

actually forget the wilt guard, just change your lights back, or somehow lesson the light from the 400 till they are used to it.

Jonus said:

actually forget the wilt guard, just change your lights back, or somehow lesson the light from the 400 till they are used to it.

Click to expand...

Hi Jonus,

Thanks for the reply. How do I get the plants used to the lights. They have been in there for about a month now.

Oh, I didnt see the bit about a month, ok well its probably already used to the light then. Try backing the PPMs down to about 800 and see if it picks up. Sometimes increasing the light can also cause the plant to uptake more nutrients which at 1200PPMs could be causing nutrient burn, which as you can see some of the tips are burnt.

If at 800ppm you find its a little light green then slowly increase the PPMs till the color comes right.

Jonus said:

Oh, I didnt see the bit about a month, ok well its probably already used to the light then. Try backing the PPMs down to about 800 and see if it picks up. Sometimes increasing the light can also cause the plant to uptake more nutrients which at 1200PPMs could be causing nutrient burn, which as you can see some of the tips are burnt.

If at 800ppm you find its a little light green then slowly increase the PPMs till the color comes right.

Click to expand...

Hi Jonus,

Well looking over my plants again, I think that most of the burns are earlier in its life. The only problem in the new growth seems to be wilting. I tried googling up light shock to fix it, but could not get any good info. I don't see how I could step up my light source more gradually. Thanks for all your help. My girls thank you too!

Bump... lowering the ppm didn't help. They are still wilting! I seriously cannot figure out why. Temps look fine. PPM and pH seem correct. Is light shock a possibility? Please help!

So just to update for those who might cross this thread later with the same problem. I flushed the plants with pH'ed water for two days and it really seemed to perk them up. No more "claw" leaves (which I think was caused my N excess). I have just started bumping the soln back up to slightly below 400 and see how that goes. Will update.