Help!!!!!!!

[GeorgeWBush]

I'm not brand new to coco. I've done 2 successful runs with hps lighting.

Due to security reasons I had to leave my old place and am currently in a temporary situation and starting over. Spent a couple hundred on new genetics. I'm looking for a new place and that is priority #1, but in the meantime I have a ghetto setup and very limited with what I can do.

I'm running 2 new led ufo's never run them before. I'm confined to a very low key grow in a closet that I must keep closed or else risk being discovered. I have no incoming air except for a couple times a day when I can open it up for a while.



I have 1 box fan for circulation, and one electric heating fan set at 75. I'm using H&G nutes that I managed to get from a friend, but they are in different containers... a cleaned out rubbing alcohol container and a washed out starbucks cup (ghetto as phuck I know).

My babies are all doing horribly and I don't know what is causing this. Please help be diagnose the problem. I wish I had constant fresh air as that would be my first change. Is that what's causing this?



Some aren't as bad just beginning on the edges:



And newer ones I put in with a new batch of coco and after I installed the heater, hoping temps were the problem but they are already showing signs of something bad:



And my newest which aren't bad yet help me save them:



Is it the lack of fresh air? Humidity (I'm sure it's very low), contaminated nutes? Low nutes (Currently 250-500 depending on size), ph (6)? I have some powdery mold on my coco too. This is bad I what is happening?

 

[DHF]

Let em dry out and build roots .....The white moldy shit you`re seeing is from overwatering , and the seedlings don`t need those kinda ppm`s when they`re that little......

Air circulation`s important but don`t let the fan blow directly on the babies.....

Too much water/nutrients are killin your seedlings.........Back off and maybe they`ll pull through.........

Good luck....DHF.........

 

[mrktwiz]

Yeah what DHF said.....the more I grow the LESS I do to the plants...this is exactly what I did when I started I was just to "fussy" with my seedlings, I over-watered, I almost nuted to death my plants (I was growing a very touchy KUSH line 1st time). It is amazing how much MJ already knows what to do, just give it some water when it's dry, air to breath, decent temp range and you'll get great results!

Good luck bro!

 

[sm0k4]

Yeah what DHF said.....the more I grow the LESS I do to the plants...this is exactly what I did when I started I was just to "fussy" with my seedlings, I over-watered, I almost nuted to death my plants (I was growing a very touchy KUSH line 1st time). It is amazing how much MJ already knows what to do, just give it some water when it's dry, air to breath, decent temp range and you'll get great results!

Good luck bro!

Sound advice. Always KISS when you can. Let the cups go until they just about dry out before soaking again, let the young roots establish. My top layer of coco looks light brown and flaky usually when I water again. Watering every day is for roots that are already filled in the pot and can soak it up that fast.

 

[Bud Spleefman]

Did you rinse that coco? Most coco is processed using SEA WATER, very little fresh water where they package that stuff.. better wash the salt out of the coco!

 

[gaiusmarius]

yeah coco should be well flushed to start seeds. as the others have said back off with nutes and watering and no direct air, even use a dome if the air is too dry for them.

 

[GeorgeWBush]

Thanks for the advice. Yes I flushed the coco to begin. The little babies get 200 ppms the larger ones in the middle get 500.

You really think overwatering is the problem? I am watering them the same as I did for my first 2 runs at my other place and I didn't have problems like this before.

If 200 ppms of nutes is too high what ppm range is ideal? Should I just use ph'd water for a while? Should I attempt a flush?

 

[gaiusmarius]

yeah because the hps lights probably dried up the medium faster then the led lights

 

[GeorgeWBush]

OK thanks everyone for the advice it looks pretty unanimous so I'll lay off the watering and nutes for a while.

Anything else I should do? Raise the temp a little to help dry them out?

 

[GeorgeWBush]

Should I flush them once before I begin drying them out?

 

[TRUESCIENCE]

yea str8 water till they develop more roots, id leave temp at 75, i may flush them before drying as well. also if ur humidity is too low it can be hard for them to breath.

good luck.

 

[GeorgeWBush]

Yeah about the temps... I ended up putting a digital thermometer in there about an hour after I switched the thermostat on my portable heater to 80, and it was only reading 70, so I guess the thermostat on that heater is a piece of crap. So, low temps, little evaporation, waterlogged coco, it's all starting to gel for me. So now I'm gonna keep it at 80 and see where the actual temps are tonight when I get home.

About Humidity, the thermostat reads 20%. What can I do to bring that up?

 

[crazybear]

Cal/Mag! Mine were looking like that until I got cal/mag!

 

[TRUESCIENCE]

let a few cups of water sit and evap in the room or buckets depending on room size.
not sure this will make a big diff but a humidifier will def work.

peace and best of luck to ya.
T5

 

[gaiusmarius]

hows it going? might help to get a pic of them with the led lights off once. did you try adding a dome? did the leaves get crispy from getting wet with the lights on? or from the climate?

personally im no fan of starting seeds or clones in coco. prefer small rw cubes to pop seeds or root clones. they seem to get me higher success rates.

do you have anything like rhizotonic? something to boost the roots and strengthen shocked or weak plants? that stuff can help in situations like this when given with very low ec. let the cups get a bit light in between watering. i noticed stem rot can happen fast with seedlings in coco if the surface of the coco is always wet.

gl man

 

[Chomp]

Cal/Mag! Mine were looking like that until I got cal/mag!

^^^^this...coco likes to store up cal/mag to a certain degree and then it becomes available to the plant and if there isn't enough in your nutrient solution then it will literally suck it out of the plant.

Your coco should NEVER dry out like yours have, it leads to swings in pH that can also be very bad for young plants. Coco is very very hard to overwater and that is the beauty of it....so do not treat it like regular soil or peat.

That white residue is built up salts or minerals from your nutrients due to not watering through enough...with plants that young you should water every other day with coco and make sure that you have some runoff to flush some of the old salts out.

Never water coco with straight water, always water with at least 1/2 strength nutes with the size plants you have.... and get some cal/mag ASAP...keep the pH from 5.5 to 6.0.

DO not let it dry out.

Chomp

 

[GeorgeWBush]

Update: It's not the water

Update: It's not the water

OK so I haven't watered them since the last post. They all got very dry and light. I didn't expect much to change yet anyway. But I did have some newly popped beans that I purposefully went very easy on the feeding/watering with, and they are already starting to get the same problems.



So I think it's fair to say the problem is not over-watering. It's not over-feeding.

I only have one plant that doesn't look so bad.



All the rest are getting worse



So today I decided to flush everything out with warm ph'd water and very light mix (175ppm) of new and different nutrients, ph'd at 6. Unfortunately they are not coco nutes but I'll be picking some new H&G up tomorrow.

So my hope is that it was just the nutrients that went bad from the sub-par containers they were in.

Anyone else who knows what they're doing with coco have any suggestions?

The lights are brand new, so I switched one of them out with an old t-5 that has worked great before. I also raised them up about 2 feet above ground level. Maybe the floor was making them cold? Humidity is still at only 20% I don't know how else I can get that higher. Can't really afford a humidifier.

Someone with some experience want to chime in? I'm desperate here.

 

[GeorgeWBush]

^^^^this...coco likes to store up cal/mag to a certain degree and then it becomes available to the plant and if there isn't enough in your nutrient solution then it will literally suck it out of the plant.

Your coco should NEVER dry out like yours have, it leads to swings in pH that can also be very bad for young plants. Coco is very very hard to overwater and that is the beauty of it....so do not treat it like regular soil or peat.

That white residue is built up salts or minerals from your nutrients due to not watering through enough...with plants that young you should water every other day with coco and make sure that you have some runoff to flush some of the old salts out.

Never water coco with straight water, always water with at least 1/2 strength nutes with the size plants you have.... and get some cal/mag ASAP...keep the pH from 5.5 to 6.0.

DO not let it dry out.

Chomp

Well it looks like you're right about the water. My gut was telling me that's not the problem but everyone seemed sure so I thought it was worth a try.

As far as the cal/mag... I've never needed it before with these H&G. Aren't coco-specific nutes like this supposed to compensate for that?

I'm thinking maybe they got contaminated, or it has something to do with either the heat which should be good it's at 75% now, or humidity, or lack of constant fresh air. But I think you're spot on about the over-watering it's not that.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

first - hahaha awesome avatar georgeWbush rofl


rigth now - water those plants! they are suffering from too dry coco. nothing else really.....

in dry coco the nutes and salt levels are multplied because of lack of water to dilute the salts...

at thqat stage of growth the plants hardly needs nute, but they really do need water and constant humidity. at this stage i personally feed them 50% strength nutes or less. and often with only plain water.....


make sure the pots got good drainage, its very important even for seedlings...

keep em humid, and lay off trying to fix a nute defiancy etc, since it will surelly kill em...

patience is the key to success -

tell me how it goes

peace

 

[Scrogerman]

You got the 2 main coco people on the case helping out here in Gauis & Bone, couldnt get better help than those 2 guys with the Coco.

As the guys both said you gotta raise RH, put a dome over them asap, 20% RH is bad, plants struggle to assimilate 'K'-pottasium yeah!, & struggle to breath, its too arrid for them(they only babies). get the dome on them or make one out of plastic if you really have to, make a flap that you can open & close slightly so you can keep a constant RH(spray/mist inside of dome to raise RH, 50-70% would be better)-dont forget to make an adjustable flap/opening in the top of your dome or you'll be upto 90-100% RH in no time. listen to the Coco experts bro! Stay Cool!

G'luck!

(DripClean from H&G is some good stuff, helps/stops salt accumilation in your Coco) ill be getting some! everyone that uses it seems to swear by it.