Ive got a rubbermaid veg tub at the moment with two that are about 9 days from seed, ive got them on 16/8 schedule right now, and running a large intake fan, with a 6 in. exhaust, temps stay around 76 to 82 F. Need to construct a flower box for down the road, just need to round up supplies. Any input is great. Will keep posting pics every few days. fingers crossed for chicks! sorry for blurry pics, camera isnt up to par.
I do have a pH meter, Im using tap water that has sat open for about 3 days and is room temperature. There has been significant growth in the past day, will post more pics tomorrow.
Is the light setup I am running appropriate for the number of plants, I have 4x 26 actual watts daylight bulbs and 2x 24 actual watts soft white. I want to have all daylight for vegging but i already had the two soft white bulbs.
I would try to get all of the same lights so that you could have the max amount of light going in there with your current set up. According to your last pic, are the soft lights in the middle? Those look dimmer to me from here compared to the others. How close are those lights to the seedlings? So far so good, keep it up!
I don't think mixing the spectrum is such a bad thing as long as most of the lights are in the right spectrum. I would change your schedule to 18/6 by leaving your lights on for 2 extra hours. The idea being that during the day, the roots grow, during the night, the leaves grow (in general). During veg you want to get a nice healthy root system going. Do you have a fan blowing on your plants? They seem healthy but their stems look a little weak.
Thanks for some input. I made an error and said my lights were at 16/8, they are actually set for 18/6 my bad. and yes i do have a fan on them. The lights are about an inch and a half away from the tops of the plants. The stems do look a little weak but they are 11 days from seed, hopefully they will toughen up for me. Will post more pics later today, has shown a ton more growth since first pics, Thanks!
Pics taken about an hour after lights came on, again sorry about the terrible pics, need to invest in a new camera, doin the best with what I have.
they look pretty healthy! that's about what my hydro babies looked like at that point in their life. I'm a first time grower as well. check out my journal and compare .
Thanks for the input! I did notice some tiny dark spots on the very bottom leaves of both plants, something to worry about? Im going to pH test tomorrow when i can water and get good run off.
The very bottom leaves? The round ones that don't look like any of the other leaves? If so, those are the cotyledons and it's natural for them to die off. Don't pick them (or any other leaves) off, your plant will use what nutrients she has stored in those leaves until she's done with it and the leaf will then fall off. If it's not the cotyledons, let me know.
Its not the very bottom leaves, its barely noticible but all except the very top new leaves have tiny dark spots on them, might be nute burn, because of the cheapo MG soil. You have to look real hard to see them, but they are indeed there. Probably will have to transplant into better soil.
Thanks for the positive input, I hope the "dark spot" situation goes away soon, Im pretty sure that its the soil, Im going to check them again when the lights come on today.
Okay so here is today, right as the lights came on, I gave them some water, its been a week since I last gave them a drink, and the soil was dry enough. The dark spots I was worried about havent spread, or moved from the bottom leaves. In the pic with both plants, the one on the right is looking a little weak, maybe its just not as high speed as the other. Working on new grow room design, as the rubbermaid tub will not hold them here in about a month or two. Again, the camera seems to be against me every time, sorry about the terrible picture taking.
Okay so upon further inspection, the leaves I mentioned earlier are starting to look ill, and they are sagging a bit. Ive included a picture to show which ones I am talking about, any help would be great, im trying not to screw this one up lol
sagging leaves could be indicative of overwatering. I can't tell from the pic, any discoloration or anything like that?
Its just those bottom ones on both plants, and there is some dark amber colored spots on both of the bottom leaves of both plants. Im pretty sure I havent overwatered, its been about a week since they had any, and then it was just a little bit to dampen the soil. All of the other leaves on both plants seem to look okay, they dont have any discoloration, or sagging problems.
hmmmm as new gardener I'm stumped but as long as the condition doesn't spread it's probably not a problem. The very bottom leaves on my babies are sagging to the ground too. besdies that though the leaves look healthy maybe its because they're in the shade. keep me posted.