Roots growing out of drain holes...

Hi all

Iv'e just joined the site because i have started my first plants and i'm having a few teething problems even after reading all the lovely information all your members have posted on this glorious forum.

I bought a grow tent 1.2 m wide 2.5 high and have a 600wt light good ventilation and i get the jist of water,air,light,ph etc

in my set up i have the grow pot with the plant in it on top of another pot which the water from the plants drains into back to the ressy for reuse of water(i check plants with moisture gauge and water as required)

I have been given two cuttings to start me off and so far this forum has answered all my question until now.

i put the cuttings in the pots i intend to flower them in which is about 350mil wide 300 deep.( i thought they were big enough pots to flower in?)

they have taken off really well and in three weeks have gone from about 3 cm to about a 15cm bush in know time all.I have started a bit of LST to conserve a bit of space because it looks like when i flower the two plants i have going will run out of width and height before they finish flowering anyway ...

i was watering them and i lifted up the pot to watch the water drain and found the roots had just started to grow out the drain vents and i thought if they grow out of there they will hit the water i just watered the plants with and maybe begin to rot?

so my problem is i dont want to repot the plants because of space and height issues and i dont want to get root rot because the roots of the plant of the top pot are growing into my bottom pot that holds all the drainage water.

Im thinking of growing them a bit more before i flower them and might invest in "pot socks" to try and stop the roots escaping the pot but that leads me to ask if i do that will the plant get root bound before i flower?

from pics on this site it looks like people are flowering in smaller pots than what iv'e got so i cant understand what i'm doing wrong

I have used the site search engine for this problem and cant seem to find an answer.


any opinions or comments/questions/answers on my situation would be of great help

thanks heaps

I just skimmed over your post but roots growing out of the bottom of the pot IS normal. Root rot will only occur if your pot does not have suitable drainage and so water gets locked in the pot or your plant is CONSTANTLY standing in water.

But yeah, I have lots of roots poking out of the bottom.

because of the ressy set up the pot is on top of another pot that holds a little bit of water will the roots not grow into that and stay in there and rot??? sorry for just a newbie question but thanks for your reply

I’m not really sure what you mean. My pots sit in saucers to catch water/dirt like a regular plant. However, if after I water my plants I have a lot of water in the saucer I will empty it away. Usually I’ll only get a bit that is dried/used up in a couple of hours. If you’re growing with soil you should not have your pots sitting in water. This is what will cause root rot and cause the leaves the droop. How often do you water? You should water maybe every 3 days or so. I think I water around every 4 days, basically when the top soil and around ½ an inch below has completely dried out. Less is more. Remember, these plants grow in pretty dry, arid conditions.

Next time you wnat to start them off in a smaller pot and work your way up.
The roots travel straight to the sides, circle the sides and then they find there way out. If there where air instead of water they would be air pruned off (safe).
Being they are in water thats a no no for soil. You want to get rid of that water, it's not good to reuse. It's full of run off nutes and salts. Blah...
If you where to start them off in a 16oz cup then a one gallon then your 3 or 5 gallon the roots will be massed in the middle of pots, nice and thick, and then run to the sides in new container.
This is a clone going from a 16oz to a 1 gal. Going into a 3 gal tonight. Notice roots.

ive got a reuseable water set up where the plant is in a pot sitting directly on top of an ever so slightly smaller pot where the water drains into back to the ressy so the roots and bottom of the top pot are about 15cm from the water in the bottom pot so the roots are never touching the water (if that makes sense).its just new to me that i seen roots coming out and i thought they would grow down. the system ive got is water going from the ressy through a pipe to the top of the plant then it drains to another pot directly below my grow pot back to the ressy,its not a pot inside a pot its a pot above a pot

next time i grow i will start of small like you say and maybe rethink my water set up and use only a saucer and not a reusable water system thanks very much for that info man but will these be ok u reckon because there air pruned or should i start again??????????????

snagos said:

next time i grow i will start of small like you say and maybe rethink my water set up and use only a saucer and not a reusable water system thanks very much for that info man but will these be ok u reckon because there air pruned or should i start again??????????????

Click to expand...

No they will be fine.
Never start over, just rethink your methods, try and improve and figure out whats best for next grow. Even if they look half dead, well that means there half alive and I tell ya, give any Ganja plant a chance and it will pay off.

hahaha good advice and thankyou once again for your help as soon as i seen those roots i thought the worsed can u explain a little more about what to do with this hydrogen peroxide stuff please ????

Ok but you need to kick a +rep for this. (scales on right of post)
H.P. is similar to water but carries asn extra , unstable, oxygen molecule which can break down into a reactive atom and either attach itself to another oxygen or attack an organic molecule.

Provides a host of Benifits by cleansing water of harmful substances such as spores, dead organic material, and disease causeing oraganisms while preventing new infections from occuring.

ok thanks i might look into h/p. i was thinking last night to abandon the "grow pot on top of a drainage pot" idea and go for just useing a saucer at the bottom of the pot and getting rid of any left over water after watering , i know the roots will go out the bottom a bit but do you reckon that will be ok (is that what you mean by air pruning?) if i dont add any hydrogen peroxide????????

Dude don't worry about roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. They only come out a bit and they stop because they're not picking up any nutes or water. It's normal in all plant pot growing.

ok i might just leave it alone and see how it go's i suppose. Theres a lot of info out there for new people to read about the dos and don'ts of growing and after you read about what can happen to plants if not treated right, new people get a certain fear of anything new that is happening with there first grow ,such as the case with me. i have learnt a lot from you guys already just from this thread alone. thanks AmnesiaRld and golden ganja13 for your quick replies and reassurance ,i really do appreciate it

When the roots poke out from the pot they are in a inhospital space. Air will prune them off and so will the light.