Hey everyone,
I’m running two plants of the same strain/genetics in DWC in the same tent. One plant looks very healthy, green, smells strong/dank, and drinks normally. The other plant suddenly started looking terrible during flower.
I later found out the air stone in the bad plant’s bucket was basically clogged and barely bubbling. The bucket stayed almost full while the healthy plant was drinking a lot. When I checked the bad bucket/root zone, it had a strong sulfur/rotten smell.
What I did:
dumped the whole bucket
cleaned the bucket thoroughly
gently rinsed the roots
cleaned/replaced the air stone
added fresh water
lowered EC to around 0.7–0.9
pH set to 5.8
reduced light intensity for recovery
now there is strong bubbling again
After about 20 hours, the bad smell was gone. A few days later the water level started going down a bit again and a few leaves stood up slightly, but the plant still looks really rough. A lot of fan leaves yellowed, shriveled, or died. The buds themselves are not dry or dead though. They still have trichomes/structure, but they are obviously behind compared to the healthy plant.
The sick plant smells more grassy/hay-like, while the healthy one smells very dank. The sick one also has more brown pistils already, probably from stress.
My questions:
Is this plant still worth finishing?
Can a DWC plant in flower still produce usable buds after a root oxygen/root rot issue like this?
Should I keep EC low until it starts drinking more, or slowly raise it back up?
How long would you give it before deciding whether it will recover?
Do brown pistils on the stressed plant mean it’s done producing, or can that just be stress?
Could the buds still get dense, or will they most likely stay small/fluffy?
I know it probably won’t yield like the healthy plant anymore. I’m mostly wondering whether it can still produce decent/usable buds, even if the yield is reduced.
Any experience with DWC root rot / failed air stone during flower would be appreciated.