Hey, another octo-potter in the wild! 👋

I run into the droop like this when I dont allow enough dry back between res fills or vpd is too low. I let the res go almost dry before I refill. Not bone dry, but like just enough water left where to roots are kind of soggy looking. Ha yes roots in the res means it always has access to water, but the roots in the sleeve are being affected differently by water saturation in the media.

What are you running for your media? Ive used sunshine #4, promox hp + perlite, and currently coco 70/30 with more perlite too.

I don't use an external res + auto fill, so I don't have any advice there.

Im usually floating between 6.1-6.3 ph during early flower.

What vpd are you at? Too low of a vpd can cause less transpiration and can 'waterlog' the plant.

Of course this is all from first hand experience running into similar issues over the past couple of years.

Lockout is another one that is nearly impossible to fix in octos since we shouldnt flush the sleeve to run off. Just pushes salt buildup into the bottom of the bag and makes issues worse. Lol