I’m just giving back what others taught me before, sorry for the rant and keep posting, I know the 
will finally arrive to good port … 
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I do use a RV filter, actually. I’ve been watering with my well water, because has a lower EC and TDS than my city water, but the pH is pretty high (>8.0, but I lower it to around 6.5 for watering). I had it tested for contaminates, and got the all-clear. I don’t know the breakdown of what’s in the water, but a home test kit says everything is in normal range. My new neighbors don’t have city water, and they just had their well water tested. They’re having a filter and softener installed, but there were no red flags on their water report. I imagine mine, given the proximity, would have the same results.
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This is a very solid explanation.
To read through these comments and see some of the recommendations and I just can’t help but 
Super soil is suppose to be water only because it is packed with everything it needs long term, BUT ONLY if u have a healthy soil with healthy active microbes which at a pH of 8, def not the case
Op already stated pH is too high at 8 which as we know about nutrient availability, that plant ain’t getting the essentials nutrients and to the untrained eye a yellow plant just appears hungry and most think just throw food at it. But when the roots are sitting in a medium that’s 8 that’s like trying to feed a human with a sowed shut mouth.
To hear comments saying maybe ur soil is tapped out and needs more food makes zero sense knowing the pH is locking out AND it’s a super soil
The plant is bushy but in a 7 gallon is not a concern of oversized, basic requirements suggest 1 gallon per 1 ft of height for minimum substrate needed (ever notice autos recommended is 3 gallon and rarely get over 3 ft tall?)and seeing the soil pulled out the pot and not being obliterated by roots should easily confirm that suggestion, there is def still plenty of room that an up pot wasn’t necessary like was suggested several times
Bottom line the plants arent gonna get better without getting to the source of the problem with actual problem solving solutions
Problem: pH is way to high
Solution: flush the fuck out of the soil to get what’s driving it up blasted out of there, not dump a couple gallons, take ur garden hose with a shower nozzle and blast that shit till the water starts running off clear. Let sit for 15 min then do it again
Problem: plants haven’t been able to uptake any nutrients for weeks
Solution: brewing an aact with primarily worm castings, alfalfa, kelp,a pinch of gypsum(helps pH buffer) and if possible some blended aloe leaves and immediately root drench about an hour after the flush and throwing some of it in a spray bottle and foliar spray as well. This is gonna get immediate soluable available nutrition in the root zone in a pH adjusted soil after it’s problem has been blasted out and doing a foliar with it is gonna get those plants immediately fed through their leaves till we can get your root zone sorted out
Problem: Microbe populations aren’t healthy
Solution: getting the pH in an acceptable range they can thrive and restore with innoculants such as recharge, Dr earth, down to earth, etc OR my recommendation of the AACT
type in my username and go look at any of my grows, I don’t have deficiencies, I don’t have lockouts and I’ve even had months at a time I didn’t feed anything, the Fem autoflower breeding run I did, I didn’t feed anything once for a wall to wall room of 55 of em. I understand these plants needs, nutrition requirements and above all soil health to keep a happy and charged soil. So I really hope ur not taking my advice with a grain of salt
Bottom line the pH range u need to have ur soil hitting is 6.2-6.5, till u can get it there ur not gonna get those on the right path to get ur soil and it’s microbes functioning properly
Here the veg tea recipe I use
And there’s a link to my soil building thread that I still use to this day for cost efficiency and a better mix than most bagged shit and I’ve never had to pH a damn thing with it
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LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!
PREACH BROTHER!!! Growing organically not only takes a different approach but requires a different mind set. Without healthy productivity in microbial herds, plants simply can not satisfy their nutritional requirements. Foliar sprays are essential when the root zone is compromised. Not to mention that it can take 1 week for the rebound to show. Alot can happen in that time and make the plants condition amplified with negative impact shown in weeks to come.
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Exactly! If the microbes can’t consume and break down your soil then they also can’t feed the plants as the biproduct. I see plants that are starving themselves and need something immediately, but only in the right form and in a ph range thats not gonna cut the nutes off anyways . At least with a tea and foliar it is soluable with a decent punch from the microbes having a breeding party feeding on the amendments during the brew and a worm casting dominant tea is rarely ph wacked. Getting them on the right path now is the only way those are gonna be acceptable to flower in very minimum 3 weeks to a month to get em lush and green again with plenty of stored nutes for the flower stretch punch of budsites forming
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Watching these comments roll in…
I come to Overgrow because I believe you folks are among the most knowledgeable. Admittedly (and perhaps obviously), I don’t know much about growing, and though I try to research what I can, I’m more inclined to try and buy the solution. That’s my own shortcoming, and hopefully it doesn’t take a lifetime to change my way of thinking.
That being said, my apologies if I offended anyone by not following their advice correctly. I didn’t think up-potting was a big deal. My local grow shop is right up the street, so buying new pots was an easy step towards correcting things (or so I thought), and I had the soil on-hand. I was pretty surprised to not see root growth throughout the old soil, too. I really think my watering “schedule” change screwed things up, slowed growth, drove the pH up, etc.
Also, I didn’t know you could buy a basic soil test kit on Amazon. That’s rad. I thought that was something I needed to send to a lab, or seek out through a cooperative extension. Again, learning something new with every comment… so, thank you, @McShnutz
And @AzSeaindooin420 - thanks for helping out on this thread. You actually posted those tea recipes to try and help my first grow, and I saved/printed them. Though I haven’t used them yet, please don’t think I’m taking anything in this thread for granted. I only flushed with a couple of gallons of water because I’m physically unable to carry my pots upstairs (basement grow, no floor drains), to a place they can easily drain. It’s the same reason I didn’t consider larger pots from the jump… it’s difficult for me to move them. I’ll see if I can get some help from a friend today, and then maybe I can give them the proper flush you suggest.
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If you ever get into dry amendments mix your soil 2 weeks prior to get it to chelate.when you transplant into that soil you will never get that lockout thing unless you dog pile nutrients on top of it after transplanting there will be food ready for whenever the plant wants it.Most amendments have enough feed in them for at least two months to get you to the next step plenty of time to cook another batch of soil and have it ready for the forever pot
I am not in organics but I really appreciate your approach, explanation and solutions 
, this is my favorite section of the forum, you can learn a lot from people like you…
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Starting watering them from the bottom after the flush would be ideal, this way you are sure that the water is distributed evenly. It’s normal that the roots aren’t showing at the sides when growing organic, they stop because of the aeration, that’s the whole point of fabric bags. 
When you keep the topsoil wet then you have little to no habitat for aerobic microbes. When only bottom watering the topsoil will be more dry, so you get a gradient of moisture from bottom to top, that provides habitat for more diversity in microbes.
This also ensures that your topdressing won’t stink up the place, it will decompose fast anyway because fresh mulch contains lots of water, some of it will evaporate but the fungi will also suck the water out of it and distribute it across the soil, althewhile adjusting PH. I’m currently bottom watering with PH 7,45 without problems. A well balanced organic soil can take a beating when it comes to water PH.
I’m not looking at just the sides I’m looking at the bottom too and overall what’s seen in that pic. When I do my up pots in my grow bags I usually have roots growing through the bottom and can see them on the sides but compared to the pic shown I def have much more there and a lot more white showing than i see there but given the info we know it’s because things arent thriving to their full potential and expected.
I personally don’t think it matters whether from the bottom or not and how I feel is just opinion not a proven fact. Any watering I do the top layer of soil is dry after the first day and only water once or twice a week for indoor and about 3 times a week for my outdoor and my feedings are with aact so they are already getting oxygenated water full microbes dumped on em every 10 days with a plain watering or two in between feedings. Typically with watering with grow bags too some water dumps out the sides and come back 15 min later and what dumped out just got soaked up by the bottoms. That being said I’m sure there’s something to the sip buckets and ain’t knocking the method but rather mine are working great so no need to change it
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Either way, may everything work out and take a turn for the better!
Curious what they will look like in a couple of weeks. 
Telling your plants that you love them and thanking them for growing helps too! 
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Plants totally thrive off good vibes and vibrations. They love reggae but hate metal just fyi
-----the dude grows show
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One of the big benefits of bottom watering as I see it, is that it forces the roots to look for water deeper in the soil. Rather than up at the surface. More roots is the key. I find a mix of top and bottom watering works great for me. Top for feeding every three to four waterings. Bottom water the rest of the time.
With those size plants and that root system it looks to me that they have been consistently under-watered for a bit while also being in soil that’s too “hot”
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DGC stand up! And I actually have music (Plantasia on Spotify) programmed to play in my grow room for 4 hours everyday lol
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Haha that’s awesome! I just blast reggae at mine during the day, mostly some dirty heads or jahneration haha
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With organics, the larger volumes of soils are much more forgiving, the most important thing willl be to get the watering right in larger beds. Usually 5-10% volume per watering, so you don’t really want to have run off.
And then Mulch!
Mulch! Mulch! Mulch! 
That extra layer of material will be a huge help when it comes to getting the moisture content correct, it’ll also provide an environment for beneficial bugs and micro organisms to thrive, and eventuallyitll become compost for your plants, provided you have s9me worms in there too 
I know some people have mentioned that with organics that you dont know whats in the soil, but you literally know exactly what’s in your soil with organis lol.
With bottled feeds, you’re just relying on what the marketing tells you, and they’ll generally tell you anything to make a sale.
With just the smallest amount of research and basic understanding of what a plant needs, you can easily make a decent soil from scratch, and fix any problems that might arise.
Organics is much more forgiving that hydro imo when it comes to learning curves too, provided you start with a decent soil mix.
I’d highly recommend checking out Build A Soil youtube channel for countless hours of knowledge and tutorials, multiple grow diaries from seed to harvest and just generally entering videos.
(Thats not a sale plug lol, I’m in the UK and have never bought a single product from BAS as they dont ship internationally)
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I keep coming back to this one, @George
I believe that when I switched to well water the iron level, though it appeared safe on my store-bought test, was too high and locked out phosphorous. I have a “clone” in my other tent that I didn’t previously mention. It’s actually the top that I accidentally broke off my other plant, and I intended to keep it as a mother. Dark spots just appeared in the last couple days, along with purple/red petioles. Take a look:
This one has been in different soil (FFHF), and I have not used any additional nutrients yet, though I will next watering. I’m going to switch back to my city water, and be sure to filter/bubble-off any chlorine. Hopefully that does the trick, and this little mother gets back on track, too.
I’ll post an update on the big girls soon. They’ve been flushed, albeit with the well water, tea’d, and they’re looking a bit better already (thanks, @AzSeaindooin420).
I have a bottle of Roots Organics HP2 on-hand, and I’m wondering if I could do a light foliar with it?
Edit: Guessing the foliar isn’t necessary. Just flushed the clone/mother with city water. I’m sure she’ll be fine.
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Indeed that clone has Phosphorous deficiency, my suspicions go to Calcium instead of Iron (or both 
) as it’s more probably to be abundant in that well water. I would keep checking the runoff ppm to be if they lower and so the pH, anything more than 7.0 will also block Phosphorous:
You can add some bone/blood meal, fruit eating bat guano, worm castings, fish meal or crabshell to feed some Phosphorous if you want to keep up organics, changing to city water looks like a good solution too …
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Indeed they’re greening 
, great job done …
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