How to take care of my baby seedlings?

[RobMarley420]

UPDATE: Things are going good. See my most recent posts for pics.

I've got 4 baby seedlings that just sprouted a couple days ago and I'm wondering what the best conditions are for them and the best ways to care for them.

Right now I've got them in my homemade "incubator", a heated blanket and a 60watt CFL inside a cardboard box. I keep the temp right around 75F by adusting the heating blanket.

They are growing in Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil.

What is the best lighting for these baby seedling? CFLs??? How many watts should I use and how/where should I position the lights?

How often do I water them? How moist should the soil be?

And what are the best conditions for these little guys? Temps and humidity?

Thanks!

 

[DaPurps]

Take the saran wrap off the cups once they pop up through dirt. They want as many watts as you have. With CFL's, keep them within inches of your plants.

For watering you want the soil to cycle dry - wet - dry - wet. Don't keep it a constant wet.

Temps 75-85F works for me with lights on. Higher humidity is good in veg.

 

[GREENSMOKE]

I keep my cfl's no farther than 3inchs away during seedling...use 6500k daylight cfl's for veg. I use a spray bottle on the soil at first sprout till the first true set of leaves come up the i water normal. I also started off using 29watt cfl's.

Hope this helps.

 

[teh_piper]

Seedlings
75F and 60-70% humidity
Light waterings with no nutes until 2-4weeks old(You can tell when they need food by paying attention to the lower leaves. Once the cotyledons yellow up, I know it's about time for a 1/4strength feed)

As for lighting, they can take alot of fluro or cfl light. Like everyone else said those lights need to be kept withing a couple inches of the seedling.

 

[smoke1sun]

Here's a good read with pics.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=112662

Goodluck

 

[RobMarley420]

Would it be okay to veg these tiny guys under my 600watt HPS??

Would that be too intense for them?

Or would I be wasting electricity?

 

[FreezerBoy]

Too intense? A 600 isn't even a penlight compared to what they're looking for. What they want is the full power of the sun in all it's blazing glory.

 

[RobMarley420]

How much 'wind' should I have blowing on my seedlings??? My tent has a 4"intake fan which creates enough 'wind' to blow the seedlings back and forth, and I also had a little circulating fan clipped about 3feet up blowing air down on them. Is this too much air movement?

When I checked on them when i got home from work today one of the seedlings had fallen down and was resting on the side of the cup. The rest were fine, only the 1 had fallen. I'm wondering if this was because of too much wind or from soemthing else like too much water???

I bent a paperclip and stuck it in the dirt to hold the seedling upright.

 

[spacejerk234]

Seedlings
75F and 60-70% humidity
Light waterings with no nutes until 2-4weeks old(You can tell when they need food by paying attention to the lower leaves. Once the cotyledons yellow up, I know it's about time for a 1/4strength feed)

As for lighting, they can take alot of fluro or cfl light. Like everyone else said those lights need to be kept withing a couple inches of the seedling.

I wouldn't worry bout nutes till at least a 1 to 1.5 months along since the FFOF is pretty rich to begin with. Just my 2 cents
~spacejerk234

 

[spacejerk234]

also wouldn't hurt to add some extra perlite to your FFOF once you transplant.
~spacejerk234

 

[FreezerBoy]

How much 'wind' should I have blowing on my seedlings???

None.

 

[RobMarley420]

So my one seedling that has fallen over and still can't stand up its own on strength. How should I care for this guy? Any special treatment? Should I keep using the paper clip?

And any ideas why this plant can't stand up? Was it probably the fan that knocked it over? Or could it have been overwatering or something?

 

[FreezerBoy]

That looks like insufficient light. Plants don't know much but, they know where the good light is and will do whatever it takes to get there. Including hyperstretching themselves to death.

It's been 6 days between your first and last posts. You mention in your first post that your seedlings hatched "a couple days ago." For comparison, here are some of my seedlings (vegged under a 250 CMH) at days 6 and 10 respectively.



While there are concerns in cab growing with lamp heat and proximity burns, in terms of intensity, no lamps we use are too strong. Remember, the very instant your seedling breaks the surface it's looking for and expecting the full strength of the sun. What they want is this...



HOWEVER!!!! Because you've told them that the Sun is a 60 watt CFL, they believed you and have built themselves accordingly. (D'oh!) Placing them directly under a 600 watt HID now would be the same as the sun going nova, they'll burn to a crisp. Hanging your 600 double extra high, place seedlings under the 600 at "noon" so their first exposure to legitimate light will be a half day followed by a full nights rest. Lower lamp once a day over several days allowing them to acclimate to proper light levels.

 

[RobMarley420]

How long do I leave the seedlings in the cups before I transplant them to bigger pots?

The roots are sticking out the bottom of the cups on some of them. Should I transplant now???

This are how my plants are looking today. They have been under the 600watt HPS since 4/20 (8 days). I keep the temps between 75-85F and the humidity usually stays around 50%.
The 4 bigger ones in the back are the ones that first sprouted in the original post. The 4 smaller ones in front were the soil cups in the first post.

 

[pinecone]

How long do I leave the seedlings in the cups before I transplant them to bigger pots?

I usually leave them until they can be sexed so I don't end up wasting space (and soil) on male plants. Typically they stay in cups 3 to 4 weeks or until they look about like the plants below. You can have roots poking through the bottom without having them any where close to fully rooted out in the cups.

Pine

 

[RobMarley420]

All the seeds I used were feminized so I know they will all be females.

Will it damage the roots to let them grow through those tiny cracks like that?

 

[pinecone]

Will it damage the roots to let them grow through those tiny cracks like that?

Nope. I leave them i seedling trays and often grow out of the cups without issue.

You could certainly move them up, but it does potentially make things more difficult. For instance, it may be the case that the roots don't have a firm grasp of the soil in the cups yet (I would bet on it) so when you pull them out the root ball won't stay intact and the roots could be damaged (potentially). Also, one of the hardest things to get your head around as a new grower is watering. It is much easier to gauge watering when you don't have a small plant in a big pot.

Pine

 

[pinecone]

Nope. I leave them i seedling trays and often grow out of the cups without issue.

This plant was a step up (in 4" square nursery pots), which I still keep in nursery trays.

Pine

 

[RobMarley420]

How close/far should my 600watt HPS be from my seedlings?

Right now I've got it hanging about 3 feet above them. Temps are at 77F with 60% humidity.

 

[pinecone]

Try 2 ft and if that works well move them a bit closer.

Pine