first time indoor grower need help fast!

They look overwatered and container size bound. Do those cups have drain holes underneath? When I started my seedlings I watered with very small amounts of water, like a shotglass full every other day or when it was bone dry. After about a week of that my plants have only needed water about every 4 days or so, and I haven't used much water yet. I usually lift the container to feel the weight. Water when it feels light, maybe have a cup with just dry soil to compare. I'm only on my second grow, but things are looking way better this time around because I laid off the watering a bit. Water and soil pH is also something to be concerned about if you want healthy plants. Hope I helped some, didn't mean to ramble. Anyways, I would lay off the watering and see if things improve. Also, look into some decent sized containers to grow in, almost any shape will work. Good luck

 

OK lets get your plants back to thriving life.

First you've acknowledged that you are over watering. It's good that you have recognized this problem and are addressing it.

Lets talk about when you should water. In the beginning when you fill your pots with soil observe how heavy they are. You want to wait until they are this weight to water them again.

Now lets address your soil. What type of soil are you using? From the looks of it the soil is very dense. This will not accommodate good drainage and can result in the plants being overwatered and even worse root rot which can and will be detrimental to any grow. Get some soil with perlite in it. It's those little white Styrofoam looking bits in it.

Third lets address temps what are they? Do you have some sort of thermometer you can put in the cab to check? Ideally you want your temps to be within 75 - 85 degree range when the lights are on. Anything above that will stress the plant and prevent it from growing properly.

Fourth do you have nutrients? If so great but don't use them until we can get the current issues sorted out.


My immediate advice would be go get some perlite and mix it in with whatver soil you are using. Do all of this in a new container. Take it out of the party cup and transplant it into the new container. Take note of the weight and water it. Then DO NOT water it again until it's back to it's original weight or close.

Let me know if you have any further questions along the way. Hope this works for you!

 

Listen to rbhrman. That's pretty much what I was going to say. Also if you can more light.

 

I agree, more perlite... I am using a pretty affordable soil and seeing decent results so far. Its called Kellogg patio plus. Its fertilized and its organic too, so thats a plus. I paid $5 for a big 1.5 cu ft. bag that weighs like 40 lbs or so. I got that and a bag of $4 perlite at home depot, and mixed about 30% perlite - kinda wish i did a little more. I also picked up a little digital thermometer / humidistat that records highs and lows over time.. that also was like $5, but at Walmart. So just by scrounging a few bucks together you can get by with some necessary items. Digital pH pens can be found online like eBay and Amazon for cheap. I just ordered one the other day for my grow, check out my thread sometime, its a cfl micro.

 

I don't think you need much more light right now.

If you want to get some more light for the future that is great but for right now what you have should be adequate. If anything get a 2 pack of 23w CFL's and you should be set.

Additionally you want "Cool White" 65k for vegetation, and "Warm Light" 27k for the flowering cycle.

 

Yea, I just put "Cool White" and "Warm White" in there because sometimes its very hard to tell on the box what the kelvin rating is. Instead they use terms such as Cool and Warm.

 

A good cabinet is nearly air tight, except for exhausts and intakes. If you add more lights, you'll probably have heat issues if you don't already have them. That's the only reason your cab would cause a problem.

As for adding nutes, I probably wouldn't add anything without being able to check the pH. You could probably get away with adding very small amounts, but it's not fun to discover pH problems via bad plant growth. Also, Dolomite Lime and Granular Gypsum have a neutral (7) pH, and are organic. You could mix those into the soil at the beginning, and they'll help you keep pH under control. They also add calcium (and magnesium or sulfur).

As for good organic soil, good compost is best. You could make your own really good soil just using compost and perlite. Dolomite, gypsum, and earthworm castings could make it even better. But for a new grower, quality organic soil is good enough to get you started. It takes a lot of reading, then trail and error to get a soil mix just perfect.

Organic grows typically have less pH issues. There are experienced organic growers that never check pH, or add any kind of added nutrients.

 

Well i didnt take much time to read all the posts. but a few things are obvious. 1. its root bound. 2. its drowning in stagnant water. 3. not near enough light.

My best advise. start over. your not that far in. recovering from that kind of damage could take weeks. in that time you could have a new healthy plant twice the size of the recovering ones.