Please help with diagnosis on these poor creatures!

[Smokrates]

Following are the details and conditions:

3 are Nirvana Northern Lights and 2 are Nirvana Blue Mystic - the plan was to grow these 5 and then thin them to one best of each strain
Germinated on Oct 17 (less than 72 hours after planting) in Eazy Plugs using standard Jiffyplug/rock wool/Eazy Plug technique
Transplanted plugs on Oct 24 to small net pots with Hydroton (as seen in photo) as roots were growing out of plugs
First week seedlings seemed healthy and vibrant
Grown in a cabinet with (6) 250 watt equivalent cool CFL's
Intake pulls in from bottom front and exhaust fan top rear of cabinet with 120 CFM/3.4m³ air capacity
Temps stay always at 78-80 F/25-26 C
Humidity is right at 60%
Have not started with nutes yet
Tap water PH is right at 7.0 (used initially for germination and hand watering)
Frankly, problems began almost immediately upon turning on DWC bubbler
Using a DWC with 6"/15cm air stone and large size pump and no nutrients yet
Reservoir water solution for DWC is at PH 5.5-6.0
Water level was just below net pot bottoms and entire net pots were being "bubble splashed"
Original diagnosis made by me was somehow they were being "over-watered" by DWC so I shut off bubbler to allow to dry out some
Currently roots seem bright white, healthy and hairy though have not yet grown out of net pots

I understand it MAY be too late for these "pups", but I need to know what to fix for next go around. Oh wise and mighty green thumbs, please help this poor gardener!

Here is a photo of one plant, however, ALL 5 plants are suffering the same problems.

 

[BravoAlphaZulu]

Hi mate,you should raise the water level until its about 1cm over the bott net pot and raise your feed ec to around .7/.8 ec, ph to 5.7, then you just have to wait and see if they recover,and for what its worth,starting seeds in dwc is a major ballache but im sure you know that now lol good luck mate.

 

[Granger2]

Need mild nutes.

 

[SoulSynergySoil]

Start adding 250 mg aspirin per gallon solution (in res and foliar). Foliar feed the aspirin with a ph-balanced, super Light dose of nutrients (I like soluble kelp or compost/ewc tea myself) to help improve health and stress resistance. Put a slice of potato atop your hydrogen medium and chrck the potato for pests over the next 24-48 hours; if you spot pests try to identify them and the icmag crew will help you further from there. Start with the aspirin and nutrients--it will help immensely--and pray that you done have root aphids.

Bless Ya!

 

[Smokrates]

Clay Pellets the issue?

Clay Pellets the issue?

I appreciate the input everyone. Thanks. The only thing I can think of at this point is the Hydroton/clay pellets. Did not know I was supposed to wash them and just assumed they were the inert neutral medium they were supposed to be. However, I did some research and it seems there are a lot of proponents to cleaning and pre-soaking for PH the clay. Don't know if not doing it was the cause, but it is the only thing I can think of now.

The plants are now dead. They looked like the photos still, but were completely dry and brittle. Where the roots emerged from the eazy plug cube, within a short distance they went from white to brown. It was almost as if the clay medium caused some problem. I am re germinating now, but will "bail out" and use soil until I can figure out the cause of this first batch.

Anyone know if these symptoms/issues could be cause by not prewashing and soaking the clay?

 

[gmanwho]

1 u need light food in the nutes asap, 2 your running to much light. 3 you need to top feed unitll those roots reach the water!!! or raise the water level so that like 1/3 to 1/2 of net pot is in water. once roots are getting longer you can lower the water level. if you had light nutes an top feed unitll those roots reached they'd still be alive. Maintain your rez around 5.8 an your clay pellets will stabilize in a few days.

best thing you can do with hydro at first i run a few plants, not all your eggs in one basket. run a couple soil on the side an a couple hydro till you get the feel of hydro.

ALso get a nutridrip or bluelab gaurdian, NO HANDHELD PH PENS!!!!!!, they always fail an you are chasing inaccurate ph readings. the best ph instruments are the ones that plug in an always stay in the rez. Hands down!! The a ph probe will last 6months to a year an half, Keep a spare on hand alaways. best money spent on an instrument. you can get away with just rinsing the pellets of with tap. your PH will keep drifting hard for a few days because of new pellets ph indifference , they always will drift till u reuse the pellets for some time. it will then stabilize with use. you need to learn how long your rez nutes are good for that particular stage of growth. for example , at seedling stage your rez with X ammount of gallons may last 10-12 days, middle long veg 8 days, early flower 7 days. day 40 of 12/12 you may only get 4 days. Cal mag is usually a good additive... good luck an b-safe b-safe

 

[Smokrates]

...good luck an b-safe b-safe

Gman, thanks a lot for the input. Much appreciated.