help 1st grow

[crashy420]

What type of medium; soil or hydro? soil

What brand and type of soil? super soil potting soil

Indoors or outdoors? indoors

What strain? bagseed

How old are the plants? about 14 from sprout

What type of lights and how many watts? 4 23 watt cfl daylight 6500 k

How far from the lights? about 2-3 inches

What is your watering frequency and source of water? havent watered in a few day becuse i think i over watered them.

What, how much and when was it fed? NPK? none yet

What is the medium/runoff pH and PPM if in hydro?

What are the temps and humidity in the room? temp is around 73-83 humidity around 30-40

What size pots? solo plastic cups

Any bugs? Look real close. a few but killed them with some neem

Any other pertinent info?


my babies have a few brown spots that showed up overnight. I know they are droopy due to over watering so I am trying to correct that. I think they need nitrogen but not a hundred percent sure do to my lack of experiance. here are a few pics of the girls and of my set up.


the grow box



a few pics of the sick girls









Please help if you can I hope i didn't kill my babies.

thanks

[crashy420]

any one????

[crashy420]

no body has any ideas? please help me bring these lovely girls back

[Mr.GoodStuff]

Considering your environment, it sounds like a pH issue. Spots are usually a miconutrient deficiency of some kind. Yellowing is more commonly a major nutrient deficiency. 9 times out of 10 it's usually a pH issue. You need to test the pH of the runoff water and make sure it's inbetween 6-7.

A great product to correct micronutrient deficiency is kelp. Algamin was one of my favorites for soil... But if your water source is too high or low in pH even kelp won't be able to help because it won't be able to absorb through the roots.

You can try foliar spraying them with a mixture of kelp and water without any clorine (sp?) use r/o or distilled water and some sort of kelp-based product.

You have to know what the pH of your runoff water is first though. Your environment sounds great- it might be your soil nutrients, or the pH of the soil at this point. The humidity is also quite low, but it's more likely a pH issue.

If the pH is fine then the soil doesn't have enough micronutrients. You'll need to feed them very lightly and add some sort of kelp.

A very inexpensive product to try to help them out of the slump is SuperThrive. I swear by the stuff when I have a plant that is under the weather!

Good luck brother!

[Mr.GoodStuff]

First thing you need to do is test the pH and TDS of the water you are watering them with, then test the runoff.

They look ready to start feeding but can't. If the TDS is over 700 on a .5 meter the soil is too strong and needs to be flushed. The pH should be off too if that is that case because the plant is too young and not healthy enough to adjust the pH on it's own.

Usually watering a plant with around 7 pH water will cause the runoff to be around 6.5 or so which is where you want to be at. Carbon filtering some tap water with a Brita filter usually causes the water to come out around 7 pH.

I'm not sure if the soil you are using is organic or not... But usually potting soil is not for seedlings. It might just be that the soil needs to be flushed really good with some clean water with no chlorine in it.

I would definitely start but testing the source water and the runoff pH and TDS values though. If you can't do that, flush the soil really good with about a half a gallon of filtered tap water per cup. I would also look into some sort of b-vitamin, perferably superthrive because it's the least expensive and you don't have to buy a huge bottle of it.

Hit us back though, I want to know what's going on

Oh ya- and next time you start from seed... Use coco coir or some sort of starter plug like a Rapid Rooter. You can't over-water coco coir or rapid rooters. The only thing you do different is adjust the pH down to 6 when you use either of them, although I haven't really had a lot of trouble using water that isn't pH adjusted until they need to start feeding. They really work a million times better than soil for starting seeds or clones.

[crashy420]

Thanks for the info. I was using tap water for a while but not too sure of the ph. So i flushed them last night with some distilled water. I hope to buy a ph tester tommrrow so I can find out the ph level of my water. hopefully what will bring them back.

How do you test for tds? not even sure what it stands for.

I plan to test my water before adding anything to the plant yet. as i don't want to stress them out too much. Would I need to use both superthrive and kelp?

Here is a pic of my best one, they all started the same day this was the last sprout and seems to be the strongest.

a picture of Sabrina


I hope to make them all look like this.

Again thanks for your help

[Mr.GoodStuff]

You don't really need an expensive pH meter to start out with. You can just use a drop test kit just like the one they use for pools.

You should be able to find an inexpensive TDS (total dissolved solids) meter that tests the amount of food available to the plants. It works by testing the parts per million(ppm) of dissolved solids in a water source.

I had a little stick meter that cost $40 before. It worked great, just like an expensive $100 meter.

You need some sort of TDS meter though so you can check when to feed the plants without waiting for them to show signs of nutrient deficiency. It would let you know if what you are experiencing is actually because the soil you are using is too strong for your delicate seedlings.

The pH meter isn't really necesarry, just more convienient really. The drop test kit is still 100% accurate though... a pH meter can go out of calibration on you without notice.

I would just stick with some superthrive to revive them at 1 mL per gallon of water. Only give them that strength once- after that you can add it at a drop per gallon and it should keep them healthier than without it.

The kelp is just a soil additive or a foliar spray that will give them a boost. You don't really need it, superthrive is what you need right now. I seriously doubt it's a micronutrient deficiency now that I think about it. It's either the soil is too strong, the pH is off, or they were watered too much and couldn't uptake nutrients for awhile- or a combination of the three.

Wait until the plants are established and growing strong before spraying them or feeding them a lot.

You definitely need to check for the pH as soon as possible though- that is very important at this point. I think the soil was too strong for most of them and it burned them though. Just make sure to get the pH right and not water them too much and they will be just fine

Just watch the new growth- that will let you know if you fixed the problem.

[crashy420]

i just got one of those cheap soil testers that measures moisture, light and soil ph . I also got some of the super thrive. Right now on meter is is more towards the alkaline side but I dont have any ph down, how would i bring my soil ph more towards the acidic?

Should i try to get the ph more towards the acidic side before adding the super thrive?



here are some pics of the tester

[Mr.GoodStuff]

Your pH in soil should actually be less acidic than in hydroponics. You want to shoot inbetween 6 and 7, 6.5 being fine.

You definitely do not want a lower pH than what you are seeing right now. You might want to keep flushing with water to get the pH up a little more.

[crashy420]

I just flushed them two nights ago, how long should I wait to fluch them again?

[Mr.GoodStuff]

Well the pH isn't really that low so it's not like an emergency or anything. You can wait until the next time you water them. You just want to make sure that you pour enough water through that medium that the soil reads inbetween 6-7. Even if it takes five gallons per container j/k

How are they doing now after you flushed them?

[crashy420]

no changes yet so I will wait a few days. I misted them with a very mild superthrive seemed to help moisten the dryer leaves, reduced the lights I had in there to 2 23 watt daylight cfl's and turend off my fan, it is not an oscaliting fan and i read your post saying it can dry out the leaves which is affecting a few of my girls. So far new growth has been super slow but I just think they were stressed out. Hopefully rhe new enviroment will make it a litte eaiser for the babies to grow.

[Mr.GoodStuff]

They do tend to grow very slowly from seed brother. As long as the new growth looks healthy and green, you've fixed whatever problem they had already.

If they aren't growing there is something wrong though- they could be having to re-grow a root system if it got burned from too much nutrient or died from being over watered. They should be fine though, as long as they aren't laying down- they aren't down for the count

[crashy420]

thanks for all your help brother I will keep you updated on any changes.

[Mr.GoodStuff]

you got it, glad to be of service!