SLOW GROWING Northern lights

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first time grower
heres the story
i germinated the seeds i had in late december.
the first seed broke soil on new years morning (kinda cool, start the year off right)
but anyhow
i started them in small little plastic cups
this proved to be a bad choice, the roots bunched up and coil at the bottom and it took me a while to figure out why they werent growing anymore. (they were about 2 inches tall with the first pair of real leaves coming out)
but when one of them finaly died i dug through the soil to figure out the problem. anyhow
i transfered them into big cups a few weeks ago
they are growing
but very slowly. they are about 4 inches tall (average, there are 8 of them) and most of them have a bunch of leaves but all coming from the same spot at the top of the plant (no stem between leaves) they are very green and healthy looking to my eyes (but i could be wrong)
some of them have as many as 5 pairs of leaves all coming out of the same node (correct me if that is the wrong term) the biggest botom leaves are about 1.5-2 inches long. all the leaves basicly are just forming a circle above the top of the stem.
it seems a bit over the top to have them be a month and a few weeks old and not have had any more growth. were they just stunted
any ideas? all help would be greatly appreciated. thanks

[TexarkanaTim]

Have you started fertilizing yet? What kind of soil are you using? They may be lacking nutrients or Ph could be screwed up. If you haven't added nutes yet, start using 1/3 strength and see how they react. And make sure you have sufficient light and the light is right down on the plants. Pictures would help too.

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im using : Plantation Products Professional seed starter mix
ingredients: sphangnum peat, horticultural vermiculite, perlite, wetting agent and lime for ph balance.

i had the 125w cfl 3 or 4 inches above them, and the entire box lined with white 90% reflective panda film (that white on one side black on the other stuff) but the leaves started to sort of spiral out and go down instead of flat. as if they were receiving light from ALL sides. i thought that may be why they havent grown any taller and have grown so many leaves from the same spot. so i moved the light up to about 8 inches to try and stimulate some stem growth.

as for fertilizer i purchased Earth juice Grow formula
i picked it because it had low NPK and i am into the idea of natural. the NPK was 2-1-1
unfortunately the mixing instructions on the bottle were very confusing. they didn't have water to fertilizer ratios. so i have been reluctant to use it much. i mixed one tea spoon into a gallon of distilled water and have used that once a week. i have been watering them with 25 ml each, every other day with regular distilled water and supplemented with the previously mentioned fertilizer weekly.

[myles117]

the description of the plants with tons of leaves growing out of the same spot... thats exactly what you want at this point. Once the leaves grow out, branches will grow from the axillary bud just above the leaves petiole Just let em grow a week or two and you'll see it.