Lights too close!? Brown/Yellow!

[jjng5]

Hello everyone,

I have been keeping an eye on my seedlings and noticed them turning yellow several days ago (almost a week now). They've been slowing getting worse and now I even notice the tips curling under and other tips turning brown! When I touch the surface of the leaves they feel crusty almost -- not soft/lush at all.

I have 6-7 26W CFL's running on them with a cycle of 20/4. I have the CFL's between half and 1 inch away from each plant. I run a fan on them when the lights are on and use CO2 (the home made CO2 method), so I figured they would be okay with being this close. However, I cannot figure out why else the seedlings would do this.

Take a look at my light arrangement and tell me if you think they are too close? Also, the taller plants are not mine -- I just added them them other day when my friend gave me plants from his strain collection. Any thoughts to why they are doing this or what I can do?

Thanks!

[GigZ-16]

With a strong fan it shouldn't be a light distance issue. Are you using fertilizers? What is your pH? We need more info to help you mt friend,

[jjng5]

No ferts yet. I used Seed starter soil and the pH is within a good range because there is only a small amount of blood meal in the soil and its balanced out with lime that is also in the soil to "balance pH". Again this is a Seed start soil -- so it is small amounts I'm sure. Also I am using water with only 1 drop of Super Thrive that I started a couple days ago with no improvement yet. I am going to add 1/8 tsp of Epson salts on my next watering.

The plants are 13 days old (almost 2 weeks now) and seem very behind where they should be after two weeks. They have been growing extremely slow. I water once every other day. I have 1/2" of rocks in the bottom of the cup under the peat pots to help with drainage.

If you look at the larger plants next my seedlings -- they were started from seed by a friend of mine a day or two after I started mine and look at the difference!

Any thoughts?

[jjng5]

With my limited experience (haha) I figure it can only be one of two things. 1) nute burn from the blood meal that is in it (which isn't much) or 2) Not enough water. I have been letting the soil get crusty and trying to only water every other day but the they are super dried out after 36 hours and the soil is crusty after 18-24 hours.

With that in mind (along with the lights being hot and very close to them), I have made the following changes:

1) Watered with Super Thrive and Epsom salts (which will also limit the uptake of nutes and flush it out).

2) rearranged my lighting setup -- take a look

3) Misted the leaves to give them all some moisture.

Btw I checked my temps/humidity and they are 80F and 42 Humidity but the max. read 90F and 55 Humidity. It gets hot under all those lights during the day. Hopefully backing them off a bit off the young will help along with the later.

NOTE: I had to move the lamp that sits in the whole on the left to take the photo. So imagine another lamp directly above on the left where their is all that space.

Any other tips or thoughts?
Thanks

[GigZ-16]

Under/over watering will not cause the problems that you are seeing. Actually , I don't see anything wrong with your seedling, they look healthy. Sometimes a brown spot means nothing. Don't be so worried.

Oh, maybe super thrive and Epsom salts shouldn't be given this early. I might be wrong though as I don't use either of them.

[jjng5]

Yeah I cannot figure it out. They are over 2 weeks old and don't look a day bigger then day 4. Notice how much worse the brown spots are today! Notice the difference in color between the plants that were given to me and the ones I started. I am so bummed that they are growing so slow and look so bad. I just don't understand why. What does it most look like? Nute burn? Maybe the seed starter is a little too much for it or maybe too much Epson salts or Super Thrive?

[jjng5]

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Take a look at my latest pic.

Thanks

[SmknVTEC]

Hey bud when they say "seed starter" mix they are ALWAYS talking about vegetable seeds. They do not sell soil in the US at Home Depot, Lowes or Wal Mart that is meant for growing marijuana. Therefore assuming a seed starter mix would be OK for weed seedlings has so far gotten you and about 5,380 other people in trouble.

[GigZ-16]

Actually I find that using Seed Starter works well for me. I usually start with it until they get root bound, then transplant to Scotts potting soil and peat moss. Then fertilize. I'm then good all the way through flowering.

[jjng5]

They are even worse today. They are beginning to look completely brown now with very little yellow. WHAT SHOULD I DO!?!?! Two look saveable... one looks shot. PLEASE HELP ME AND SOON! FLUSH!?!

[jjng5]

Originally Posted by GigZ-16

Under/over watering will not cause the problems that you are seeing. Actually , I don't see anything wrong with your seedling, they look healthy. Sometimes a brown spot means nothing. Don't be so worried.

Gigz, just so you people over in the sick post part claim that they show signs of over watered and nute burned and are not savable at this point...



Thanks anyways

[SmknVTEC]

Originally Posted by GigZ-16

Actually I find that using Seed Starter works well for me. I usually start with it until they get root bound, then transplant to Scotts potting soil and peat moss. Then fertilize. I'm then good all the way through flowering.

Obviously they are not working for him. If you used stuff like this maybe yours was less concentrated and/or you were lucky with a non sensetive strain.


jjng5 you should do a flush for sure.
For shits and giggles do you know pH?

[jjng5]

[quote=SmknVTEC;2440179]
jjng5 you should do a flush for sure.
quote]

I flushed the 4 plants that looked the best and then left them out in their peat pots alone next to the fan and a light to help dry them out a bit. The two worst (smaller ones in the pictures above), I ran water carefully over their roots and trasnplanted them in different soil. Do you think this will help bring them back? I am hoping.

I do not have a pH reader -- it's the only thing I haven't purchased yet! Haha.

Thanks

[Rekisito]

IT's teh lights, I had 6 26w daylights over my two seedlings and they both did the same thing. I tried adding a bit of water, moved them to fertilizer free soil, etc etc, still the same problem. I even had a high power fan runnnig over the lights keeping the temp at 85~ and it didn't help.... Finally I cut back to two CFL's and my one remaining baby is growing great, I just bumped uo to four lights today as I noticed the newer set of leaves were a bit purple.

[jjng5]

Originally Posted by Rekisito

IT's teh lights, I had 6 26w daylights over my two seedlings and they both did the same thing. I tried adding a bit of water, moved them to fertilizer free soil, etc etc, still the same problem. I even had a high power fan runnnig over the lights keeping the temp at 85~ and it didn't help.... Finally I cut back to two CFL's and my one remaining baby is growing great, I just bumped uo to four lights today as I noticed the newer set of leaves were a bit purple.

Wow.. I wondered if it were the lights. I had 7 26W CFL's on them and noticed extremely slow growth and quickly noticed a yellowing in color until I've ended up where I am now. I have 3 lights on now and the most damaged/smaller plants are further away from the bulbs. I hope I am able to save these!!

I wonder why the light is too much for them?