When soil drys out to much it has a hardvtime soaking back in sounds ti me like tour not watering enough @JDS1972
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On average every two to three days your soil should be enough to water again
Can you please st a few pictures of the plants
What kind of pots are you using as well
@merlin44 is on track with the watering
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You can always add a wetting agent as well then just water slightly more often to avoid it in the future.
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Just getting in tonight, seems as though pots, 3 gal smartpots, are evenly wet throughout and plants look fine. Have only watered enough to have runoff on the larger one, right after transplant. Gave the pot a liter of PhD approx 6.0, need to get a pen to be sure. Watered her again 4 days later same way, but no runoff, then liter this am no runoff. Should I water to runoff every time, and increase freq. to every three or four days. Thanks for your suggestions and help folks😀
Luckily, they do look healthy and don’t seem to be underwatered. I think you should water till you get some runoff every time you water. Usually, that runoff will get sucked back up into the soil almost immediately.
@JDS1972 I agree with @raustin water until runoff. Knowing the pH and EC of your water/nuts going in and the runoff coming out are your key indicators.
Will get a proper water tester, so far I’ve just been using the GH test kit and guessing. Thanks again guys, and will keep ya posted
Just good morning))
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hey guys thanks for all the great feedback. so after 6 days I watered with 6.5ph water and they lived it. I waited 3 days to water again and I only watered one to see how show would do and not but 10 mins later she looks like this. I don’t understand.
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She looks a little over watered, just let her dry out a bit more next time you water. She’ll perk up again.
Every 3 days is probably too often. She’s still small, so she’ll only need watering maybe once or twice a week. As she gets bigger, you can water more often.
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thank u so much, I was trippin a lil bit, but after reading that I feel better
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Good, I’m glad I could make you feel better! 
Don’t worry and stop hovering over your baby, she’ll let you know when she needs something. Remember that watering too much is worse than not watering enough. You gotta let her dry out between waterings.
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I only have a few real grows under my belt and I’m finding one of my big problems is over-watering too. Don’t worry you’re not alone a lot of us make that mistake. I’m getting better at it but it seems like I still do it once or twice a grow. I’ll learn my lesson sooner or later. 
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I got rid of the guesswork on watering: I switched to pure coco coir. You just water to waste every day, The excess runs out the bottom and carries accumulated salts with it. The roots get plenty of air by using cloth pots and they can never get root bound because the rootlets air prune by coming through the cloth.
All guess work gone, but you do use a lot of nute solution.
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I’m getting to the point where I think after my next girl I’m going to ditch my 5-gallon plastic pots and get those fabric pots. Thanks for your input. I have heard great things about Coco and fabric bags. I’m not quite ready to say I mastered soil yet so I’m going to keep using it but as for fabric pots that’s a must have in my future purchases. Have a good morning
Coco is interesting. You can buy it at hydro shops in 2.5 cubic foot bricks. You toss a brick into a plastic tub full of water and let it saturate and uncompress for a few hours. (You can speed things up by getting your hands in there, breaking it up.) Then the best thing to do is to use your hands to pull it out and drop it in a cloth pot. When most is out, pour the tub and rinse it with the hose into the cloth pot. Then rinse it in the cloth pot with the hose for a few minutes. This gets any left over salts out. Of course you do this someplace outside where all the water can drain out.
Let it drain for a few hours and it’s ready to use. 2.5 cubic foot = 18.7 gallons
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I’ll have to look at YouTube or something and see an example of that. I have seen those big old bundles of them at my local Hydro shop. I’ve just never used any. It seems pretty user-friendly though
The best thing about coco is that it is impossible to overwater. You just mix up enough nute solution so when you dump it in the pot, about 20% of that volume runs out the bottom. That carries accumulated salts away so the only nutes in the pot are exactly what you just dumped in. Hence perfect control of the nutrient levels. If you use felt pots, it can never get root bound because rootlets grow through the felt and air-prune.
The bare coco has no nutrition in it at all, which is why they say it is hydroponic. So changing nutes is easy and flushing at the end is complete.
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