Grow Mediums Reasons why a plant stops wicking from the autopot tray

[lunarman]

I wasn't sure if I should post this in an existing thread or a new one. Decided new.

Just in the interest of this board and people sharing experiences and knowledge and having good content to search on in the future related to wicking problems, I thought I'd post this.

I know there have been cases where people have had plants stop wicking or uptaking water. Like not have an ideal substrate at the bottom of the pot. Or maybe out of control roots. Or a malfunctioning valve.

I was surprised to have a couple of times where I picked up pots and they were light compared to other pots. And I could not figure out why. Did not have out of control roots. And the substrate was theoretically good. In these cases I had perlite at the very bottom 2/3 covering the domes and then coco on top. And I know the res and lines were good. And the aquavalve looked functional to me.

I contacted autopots and we came to the conclusion I had PH lockout. I have an accurate 8 PH probe that lets me check PH levels at any place in the medium I want. And I had PH levels of 6.8 for the most part throughout the medium. And I had signs of bad PH as well. And I know lockout means the plant or roots won't uptake nutrients any more. But I didn't think that also meant it won't wick liquid any more and the pot will dry out and fluid is reduced. Autopots said that this can happen. And I did adjust the pH of my feed water down to 5.8 but the probe was not showing any reduction in the medium. Whereas other plants on the same res did show PH changes were happening.

I am kind of surprised about this. And can't wrap my head around it.

I aborted one of the plants that had this issue. But kept another one. I pulled it out of the tray 2 days ago and have been hand watering it from the top. And I can see with the probe that PH in the medium has now dropped down to 6ish. I think I'll put it back in the tray soon and assuming I don't have lockout any more, it should mean the wicking will resume properly. If that happens, then I think this isn't just a theory.

 

[Screwauger]

I find this very interesting given I've had this problem along with out of control roots.
I agree with @pop22 that the hydroton creates a nearly impermeable barrier and I look forward to my next grow when I eliminate it altogether.
That said, I recently had a very light pot, plant 5 weeks into flower that stopped uptaking nutes (res was not going down at all for days).
I top watered the plant twice in four days and bam, she started drinking from the res again????
Interested in what some others have to say.

 

[pop22]

Have you checked for a clog in the tubing? I use a 30ml syringe to flush mine, but you can take them off and run water thru them, you my have blow air into them to push out the clog if you don't have a syringe. Sounds like what you have an issue with now. I keep an extra hose " harness" and swap them out once a month, and clean the used one.

I find this very interesting given I've had this problem along with out of control roots.
I agree with @pop22 that the hydroton creates a nearly impermeable barrier and I look forward to my next grow when I eliminate it altogether.
That said, I recently had a very light pot, plant 5 weeks into flower that stopped uptaking nutes (res was not going down at all for days).
I top watered the plant twice in four days and bam, she started drinking from the res again????
Interested in what some others have to say.

 

[lunarman]

Have you checked for a clog in the tubing? I use a 30ml syringe to flush mine, but you can take them off and run water thru them, you my have blow air into them to push out the clog if you don't have a syringe. Sounds like what you have an issue with now. I keep an extra hose " harness" and swap them out once a month, and clean the used one.

I dont think it was a line clog. He said he had wicking going again after a flush.Maybe it flushe out a line clog I suppose.

 

[Screwauger]

I don't think it was a clog. Partly because I learned from pop22 and hansbricks and I regularly swap them out like pop suggests to soak and clean and I also run clean water through the lines at every res change. It was odd for sure but that seems to be my experience, odd shit happening!!!

 

[NasGrow]

When you guys run water at every res change, are you filling the res with straight water and then running it through the system? And for how long? Every time I change my res, I wash out the res and the pro filter, then fill with new food and drain 2 liters from each of 3 main lines. I always see a good deal of built up food matter coming out of my mains. I’ve had this problem with the pots drying up in my last 2 runs. BUT 5 of my 24 pots don’t have the issue at all and are growing beautifully. I can’t explain why it’s happening.

 

[NasGrow]

When you guys run water at every res change, are you filling the res with straight water and then running it through the system? And for how long? Every time I change my res, I wash out the res and the pro filter, then fill with new food and drain 2 liters from each of 3 main lines. I always see a good deal of built up food matter coming out of my mains. I’ve had this problem with the pots drying up in my last 2 runs. BUT 5 of my 24 pots don’t have the issue at all and are growing beautifully. I can’t explain why it’s happening.