Hey all, Thanks for looking and hope you can give me some input!!! I currently have 4 seedlings a week old. 1 Strawberry Blue 3 White Widow x Big bud. Soil. 50% organic soil 30% perlite 20% sphagnum peat moss. Veg room: 36" base cabinet 4x 100wCFL's Flower room: 2' x 3' closet 6 x 100 w and 2 x 125 w CFL,s (all CFL's are equiv to incandescent My soil seems like it may be holding water too long. 3 of the seedlings took a week b4 needing more water the 4th was 6 days. Does anyone think that is a problem?? I plan too transplant them at 3-4 weeks to put them into flowering room. 3 are in gatorade bottles with several holes drilled in bottom 1 is a reg 5 6" pot so I don't think what they are in has anything to do with it. Also if someone could tell me how they go about feeding their seedlings that would be cool too. Some of the problems with my `1st grow were Hot soil! (never buy any soil with nutes, each time I tried to feed they would show signs of nute burn...yet one i am struggling with a magnesium deficiencie right noew or atleast I think thats what it is. treated with epsom till I can get some cal-0mag next week. Stems are purple is my research right in assuming mag deficiency??? another problem was hopeing that CFL's would do the trick during flower stage. IMO Bad idea! I have read plenty that say's they don't work weell but being a stubborn Irishman I had to find out the hard way. I will be investing in an HID b4 my new seedlings go to flower. first 3 pics are WW X BB and 4th is strawberry blue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I figure 30% perlite should give plenty of aeration and drainage. some folks recommend more, I've only got about 20% perlite in my outdoor and they're taking water every two-three days. Gonna be a bitch transplanting out of those bottles though. For one week old seedlings they look good-cotyledons still happy and intact, couple solid leaf sets, no major stretching. I'd back off the Epsom and just litfa. I usually start 'feeding' at the first sign of the coty's degrading, course this year I mixed about 15% of my soil mix and a handful of castings into the starter sphagnum, watered it a few times with molasses to get it 'started' before sowing and the cotyledons stayed green and healthy till plants were bushy and I forgot about them. Early feeding for me is just molasses and castings 1-2 tbs and half cup or so per gallon, just let it sit in the sun for a bit and then shake up. If the plants like it I'll top dress some castings too. After transplant to 1g nursery pots in homemade soil I start in on some n heavy act...chicken poo, castings, buffaloam, molasses...got my hands on some goose poo from the neighbors pasture and had a tea go anaerobic...likely operator error though. Then it's transplant to the woods and teas, neem, pyretherine and if I'm lucky come October I get a few red eyed days in the barn gunking up some scissors daydreaming about next spring. Man I'm high....good luck friend
Then look fine to me happy and healthy just continue watering how you are if they seem to be doing fine your doing fine when you transplant add more perlite so the bigger pots have good drainage, your cfls's are fine 100w is okay for 1 plant for very added plant you need Another 50w and next time for seedling containers I would choose something less transparent And for flowering cfls's are still okay you just need another 100w 2500k so they will be in the right color spectrum
yep i second this... also keep in mind the 100w isn't the equalivent value you need...it's the actual value...so if your bulb sez 23w equal to 100w you use the 23w as the value of the light....so you'll need 4x23w bulbs for each plant....and sometimes the package won't tell you the light spectrum so a general rule of thumb is "soft white" for seedlings and bloom...."daylight" for veg.