Problem with seedling in coco - Input needed

Discussion in 'Coco Coir' started by SoulClinic, Feb 7, 2011.

  1. OK...second grow here, first was in soil, decided to go coco on this one, got 4 seedlings (Fastbud autofemX2, Tangerine Dream and Pineapple Chunk from Barney's. Sitting in about 80% Canna Coco, 20% perlite, about a foot under a 250W HPS 24/7. Humidity 20% and temps 80-83 degrees. Hand watering at the moment with ph'd spring water.

    Problem appeared on the oldest Fastbud seedling (about a week and a half old), after the second pair of leaves, it started going yellow/pale green. I thought it was time to feed so I gave it 2ml/L of Canna Coco A + B and a couple of drops Rhizotonic. Today the tips of the leaves seem kinda burnt so I'm a bit lost here on what's causing the problem. Hopefully one of the more experienced coco-nuts will be able to provide some insight.

    Word to Ed for inspiring me to go coco! :wave:

    First pic is before feeding, the rest half a day after.
     

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  2. Humidity is to low, temps are too high and I would probably not use the bottled spring water you buy at the grocery store, instead use distilled. That 250w HPS is also probably too strong for your seedlings.

    You fed them to early, flush the coco with 5.8 distilled, give them some superthrive.

    When expanding your coco, did you flush it adequately? I know peeps say there are brands of coco that don't require flushing, but I say always flush because you never know. I expand coco with florakleen to leach out all of the salts.
     
  3. Thanks for replying, I know humidity is not ideal but I make sure medium doesn't dry out so I doubt that's one of my problems. I tried to get distilled water in my area, supermarkets don't carry it so I found a brand of spring water with ph at about 6 from the bottle. Why do you reckon I shouldn't use spring water? I'm keeping the HPS well away and the ambient air tempetature is considerably lower than the temp I posted which is affected greatly by radiant heat. Canna Coco is already expanded and ready to use so only thing I did was mix in some perlite. It makes sense for the browning to be nute burn, but why did it start yellowing even before feeding?
     
  4. Companies that produce spring water like to add chemicals and other things that can be detrimental to our plants. I understand the HPS lamp is far away from the seedlings, but that light is still too strong for younglings. To give you an idea, I start out my seedlings under a 42w cfl bulb for the first 10-14 days. I know Canna states their coco is ready to use, but I would still flush before using. Can never be to safe. HUmidity is most important early on in life.

    Why did it start yellowing before needing a feed? Not completely sure, but things to check are ph, run off ppm, and that spring water. I use just tap water, sometimes mix in distilled if it is at the grocery store and cheap.
     
  5. Right, so I flushed it with ph'ed tap water with a splash of rhizotonic. The affected leaves are looking worse now, the tips are dried out BUT there seems to be healthy new growth. I dropped the temps a bit and waiting. The rest of the seedlins are looking good except I have the feeling they growing a bit slow. Might just be psychological though :p

    If anyone is interested in seeing a pic I can post one later.
     
  6. The one you burned, the existing growth will look worse... because you burned it :)

    Not to worry, if the new growth looks good then she should pull through if everything else is in order, temps and humidity mainly. Do you have a dome?

    Post some pics of the whole shabangabang
     
  7. Some plants are just duds..

    I had a plant which no one would resolve, it was put down to being a dud plant :p Sounds similar to the symptons i was having with mine. Best of luck.
     
  8. Canna coco definitely doesn't need to be flushed before use. You're just wasting your time imo by doing it.

    As far as the yellowing. That is weird stuff. It can't be a deficiency because they don't need any nutes that young. I think it could have just been light bleaching. Seedlings can't take a lot of light at all, but if the new growth is looking good you'll be fine.
     
  9. i dont know about canna coco but i use botanicare 5 lb bricks that have to be rinsed anyone bc they have to be broken up and expanded.ive never used already expaned coco so i always rinse my coco VERY well.

    as for your problem hers a few tips ive learned along the way.i too start my babies in pretty much straight coco with 1 tablespoon of marine cuisine and 1 tbsp of dolomite lime.i then water the coco in a bathtub in th 1 gal pot until water runs out the bottom with half strength nuted water to kind of "charge" the coco with nutes.ones the babies break out of the seed and sprout their using up the nutes..thats why you have to make sure theres nutes right away.ive had week old seedlings show signs of N def and cal mag def that early.you kind of just have to get down the system with a couple trial runs until you see what works.

    DEF get a humidifier.20% is stupid low.i have a humidfier and keep a bowl of water near the plants.i also hang wet clothes from the washer in the room to keep humidity up.in veg i wouldnt have humidity below 60%
     
  10. #10 Beanbag, Feb 11, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2011
    I grow in Canna coco and use Canna nutes and have had some similar issues with light green foilage along with nute burn when I try to fix it.

    I think I've finally track down the problem with a new mix this last week. Specifically I was not using even close to enough Rhizotonic during the first two weeks after I start feeding.

    Here is the early, veg and bloom mix I'm currently using. If you put my stats into the Canna grow guide they come out higher than I use on the A & B and the Cannazym but I got too much nute burn and leaf twist so I tweaked it.

    Currently working with this mix but my results are improving fast:

    My tap water is natural pH 8.8 and PPM 45 and uS EC 83. I do some minor pH tweaking to 5.8 after mixing my nutes and letting them sit for several hours. I check pH again and tweak if necessary before watering.

    - Made early mix E01 as follows:

    1ml per liter of Canna A
    1ml per liter of Canna B
    4ml per liter of Canna Rhizotonic
    1ml per liter of Canna CannaZym
    1 drop per liter of Root Excelurator

    - Made veg mix V01 as follows:

    2ml per liter of Canna A
    2ml per liter of Canna B
    2ml per liter of Canna Rhizotonic
    2ml per liter of Canna CannaZym
    1 drop per liter of Root Excelurator

    - Made new flowering mix F01:

    3ml/2ml per liter of Canna A during week 1-2/3-7
    3ml/2ml liter of Canna B during week 1-2/3-7
    1ml per liter of Canna Rhizotonic during week 1-7
    2ml per liter of Canna CannaZym during week 1-8
    2ml per liter of Canna PK 13/14 during week 3 only
    2ml/3ml/4ml per liter of Canna Boost during week 1-3/4-6/7-8

    The thing to notice which I really wasn't doing properly was the Rhizotonic. There is four times as much Rhizotonic in the early week 1-2 mix than in the flowering mix and twice as much as in the normal veg mix.

    This really helped with my green color while backing off the A & B early helped with the burn. Not sure why and I'm no expert, just passing along stuff from my journal.
     
  11. Thanks everyone for their replies! Beanbag bro thumbs up for the suggested mix. I'm giving it a shot now but it seems that my plants have really individual needs and while some things improve, others are going wrong. Right now the seedling mentioned above is the biggest one of all. The odd thing is that it was only planted 3-4 days before the rest. I fed with the mix Beanbag suggested and while the fastbuds seemed to like it, the pineapple chunk seedling showed mild burn marks, while the tangerine dream remains pale and yellow and growing slowly.

    pic 2 is the oldest fastbud
    pic 3 is tangerine dream, such beautiful leaf structure
    pic 4 tangerine dream
    pic 5 younger fastbud

    So far coco is definitely harder than soil...
     

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  12. Also, what this is? Calcium def? Could it be magnesium?
     

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  13. Appears to be Calcium def.
     
  14. im having the same prob. my seedlings in coco seem to be struggling
     
  15. I just wish they pull through...

    Veo should I get some cal/mag or up the feedings?

    tothehead are you saying it gets easier past the seedling stage? Sure hope so! :p
     
  16. Yea I get that a bit on the early leaves too. Small brown spots/patches but it normally just stops or goes away once my nutes kick in. I only recommend the early mix E01 for when root development is most important. First few weeks of a clone or the first week or maybe 2 after the 2nd set of razor leaves on a seedling.

    Once I hit that mark I switch to the Veg mix. Just so you get an idea of timing it can take several days for the plants to change color even though I always think it should happen faster.

    It took almost 2 weeks for my jack flash seedlings to turn from almost bright yellow to dark green but that veg mix did the trick.

    I would completely agree that different strains are affected differently by nutes. I have four strains on the below mix (Jack Flash, Red Dragon, Kandy Kush and Sharksbreath) but my Strawberry Cough in the first grow liked a hotter mix.

    The calcium and all the other stuff you need is in the Canna nutes. I am pretty confident that if you feed your plants for a week with those nute mixes that they'll shape up. Just to give you some hope, my plants looked EXACTLY like that before I put them on the new mix. I'll throw some before and after up shortly.

    Here's hoping for the best my friend.
     
  17. Beanbag, thanks bro, I thought I was the only one...

    Here's a picture update from today. I'd say it's looking worse.
     

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  18. yea id say their struggling a bit.i start my seeds in coco and they really start thriving after a few days to a week once they start builing up roots and intaking nutes.your babies def have a N deficiency.if you water with a mild NPK fert you shouldnt have a prob.my chart says to use 3 tsp of a boost and grow and i use 1.5 of each for the first week then step it up to 2 tsp once their good to go.

    the trick ive learned with starting babies in coco is that they need water with nutes every day..even if you just give them a small amount.if you water the coco good in the first days ppl think they should let the coco dry out and not water for a few days..but in my case thats when deficiencies occur.i dont let the coco dry out until a couple weeks from sprout.
     
  19. #19 Beanbag, Feb 18, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2011
    I agree with masterlights completely. I give my seedlings a drink every single day and I've never had a problem with over watering using pure coco as long as you have drainage out of your container. Those top two in the four plant picture are definitely drier than I'd allow with my small plants. They definitely need nutes now and the nutes are in the water so let em drink up.

    Honestly your pictures don't look too bad at all. In my first grow (in the sig) my Purple Urkle plants were tiger striped with yellow, similar to the yellow on your edges but way worse as it cover the whole leaves

    It was definitely a low nute problem and your new grow looks pretty good. I think you are ok man just hang in there.
     
  20. To start off thanks everyone for their advice. masterlights cheers! I had to find that out the hard way. Seedlings stop growing at all shortly after their first set of true leaves if no nutrients are provided, 2 weeks is too long imo, like one week after popping up they will need their first dose. Problem is, even at 1/4 dose they seem to be getting burnt at that stage. Something in the lines of half ml/l should keep them kicking during their second week. Beanbag let me know how you feel about this bro. I'll admit coco is hard to start seeds off unless you have everything dialed in perfectly. I was freaking out at first but then as I lightly fed them every day, they seemed to start growing. Few burnt tips and all but sure better than idling in their pot all purpose-less.

    I'll also say, damn, those fastbuds are FAST!

    PICS 3 + 4: oldest fastbud
    PIC 5: younger fastbud
    pics 6 + 7 + 8: tangerine dream
    PIC 9: pineapple chunk

    Maybe I should quit this thread and start a journal...
     

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