Hello there. This is a desperate cry for advice please! This monstera was my first foray into semi hydro, and I need to know what I should do.
On December 6 2025, I washed the roots and put it into Soil Ninja pon (a mix of course and fine, plus slow release fertiliser pellets) with no reservoir initially. Then added one a few days later after seeing lots of conflicting advice (wicked pot). As I was washing, I discovered one of the stalks was a separate little plant and decided to give it its own pot in the same pon mix (picture 3); no wick, it just sits directly on the cache pot bottom with lots of slits cut into the inner pot (well, disposable cup).
A week or so later, the two tallest and biggest leaves started to curl (picture 6) and felt less rigid than the others. I'd read some shock should be expected so tried to be patient and not panic.
I got a stronger grow light a couple of weeks ago, and moved the plant under it maybe 10 days ago to see if it helped at all.
Last week, I noticed a smell from the big plant; I wouldn't say foul, but very earthy and a bit musty. I'd struggled to get ALL of the soil away and had also worried about causing lots of damage in trying to remove it all, so hoped for the best.
Over the weekend just gone, I pulled the plant out to clean it more, trimmed away the rotten roots, and gave it a 5 minute soak in hydrogen peroxide (6% mixed 6:1 with water). I also rinsed the pon for several minutes under hot water.
I've watched the lower two leaves become progressively yellow, and now all the leaves are a bit limp. I've also spotted dark patches at the base of the yellow leaves (picture 7). There's no noticeable smell.
I did wonder if the grow light was to blame, but the little one has been under it the whole time with no issues (and I think it's actually putting out a new leaf at the moment).
My question is; should I admit defeat and get the poor thing into a chunky organic mix (or even moss/perlite if people think that would be better?), or is it possible that it just got shocked from the trimming/cleaning/soak and it will recover in time? Although I do like the plant, I'm not super attached to it (I bought it with the intent of trying out SH), so I'm happy to keep it going as is as a trial, but only if there's a strong chance things will calm down eventually as I don't want to waste my time unnecessarily. I'll remove the two yellow leaves either way, as I assume there's zero hope for them to bounce back?
I did look at getting some enzymes after reading a couple of posts here that talked about how they're used to dissolve dead roots and convert them into feed, but got a bit overwhelmed on Amazon and could only find huge bottles for £20 that didn't have many reviews... If anyone in the UK has recommendations, please let me know!
In case it's helpful; I'm in northern England. It's very cold at the moment, but the central heating is on all day & night (set to 19/20°C during the day and around 15°C at night). It's surrounded by other plants (which are all fine) so hopefully the humidity is helped a little by that.
Thanks in advance
Give the poor things a chance to settle in. This isn’t McDonalds. Give it time. Patience my friend!!
My advice is leave it alone and flush weekly. The only plants I’ve killed transferring to semi hydro are because I got anxious and repotted it after 1-4 weeks in semi hydro. I have had plants in SH since June and various homemade pon mixes since late July probably. Overall, I have about 30 plants of various types (philo, alocasia, begonias, monstera, jungle cactus, snake plants, peperomia), and the last 10 or so I haven’t even washed the roots. I do top water and flush frequently, so I think that really helps to wash the roots after transferring and restore oxygen balance. I feel like I have less transplant shock and leaf loss if I just get as much dirt as possible off with my hands rather than washing them with water before potting.
Since you mentioned various homemade pon mixes, i was wondering what your thoughts were on bonsai soil being used as pon? Thanks!
I feel like it’s not super important what you use, as far as lava rock, Leca, or whatever. I have some in a generic lava rock mix I got off Amazon, some in Leca, some have oil-dri (a small clay particle) in the mix. Recently I put some in a mix of chunky perlite, fine perlite, and a little bit of charcoal.
I haven’t had any plants do better or worse in one mix over the other so far, but who knows if that’ll change at some point
Bonsai soil has organics mixed in it.
Im a new learner to this. So, what does that mean? Not good for semi hydro?
Washing the roots is important because the roots, not the dirt, need direct contact with the zeolite in order to uptake water. The dirt prohibits the contact. Science.
I’ve always been told leaving dirt on the roots increases risk of root rot because the biological material/bacteria in dirt. Also, plants can pull water from dirt, the air, porous minerals, which is why plants can grow in just dirt without zeolite and there are air plants and hydroponic set ups.
According to science, as long as the substance can hold water, the water will diffuse through it until there’s hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning there’s not enough of a gradient or hydrostatic pressure to overcome the other forces being exerted on the molecules, for example, gravity in most SH set ups.
Regardless, my plants have done way better when I don’t power wash the roots, but that’s just anecdotal.
Time, patience, trust. It's going to have to grow some roots that are adapted to water. Until then it's going to be a bit thirsty. To be honest, you could cut off all your roots and start it in semi-hydro, and you'd have the same (or possibly better) results. If you want to give it some support during the transition, you could cover it with a clear bag to increase the local humidity level. That's usually the gamechanger for me.
Totally understand your anxiety but as others have said, patience and time are key here. Plants need a long time to adjust. I have somewhere between 200 and 300 plants in SH and what I’ve learned from transitioning them is that plants like to be left alone to get used to their new substrates. Some roots will inevitably rot while new roots grow happily in their new home. Most of the time the plant will adjust without you needing to remove it or do any extreme rehab.
One thing to mention about the non-wick pot setup you described, make sure you have a layer of substrate filling about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bottom before you place your plant in. When filling the outer pot’s reservoir, fill to just below the level of the roots. The substrate will do the wicking for you up to the roots. Monsteras’ roots grow very fast - it will grow through that bottom layer, through the holes in your pot’s bottom and into the reservoir very quickly :) Their roots get very thick too. For this reason I like to use inner pots for these guys that have quite large holes. It makes repotting easier as well when you need to size up your pot as bigger holes allow you to pull the roots out instead of cutting them off. Bigger holes though work better with larger sized substrates like LECA. But see how you go. Best of luck!
Honestly i panicked when i moved my first monstera to pon and eventually all the roots rotted. So i cut it clean and rooted it in water. As soon as i saw a bit of root growth i transferred it to pon again with water reservoir and left it. Roots went crazy for 2-3 months then it took off again.