What's Going On With My Plants? (coco)

[Bad Habits]

Trying to figure out 1) why my leaves are looking so distorted and 2) why they are so droopy.

Strain is Alphakronik Las Vegas Purple Kush, all sprouted 12/19 from seed in Botanicare aeration coco mix.

Lights have been on 24/7 (because also have other seedlings in the same cab as them).

Temperature averages around 78f, with 30%RH. Temp has never gone above 85 or below 63. I have the plants about an inch or two under 2 105w CFLS, and I frequently check the temps of the top of the plants using an infrared thermometer, and they are usually in the 75-79f range.

First week I watered with bottled "spring water" bought at walmart, as I didn't have my PH meter yet, so no idea what the PH was.

2-3rd week: 1st 2 days I used 3.5ml CalMag, 1ml rapid start in 1 gallon (100ppm and 5.7ph). For the next 7 days I fed em 2.5ml Floranova Grow, 1/2 ml rapid start, 2.5ml cal mag (390ppm and 5.8ph).

Up till this point I was watering em once a day to about 10% run off. Buddy suggested that I was over watering em, which is why the leaves are so droopy, and I needed to let them dry out more between waterings.

So after that I let them go for 48 hours, then just fed them PHed water (6.0ph). Let em go another 48 hours.

Then last night I fed them the 2.5ml Floranova Grow, 1/2 ml rapid start, 2.5ml cal mag (390ppm and 5.8ph) again, for about 30% run off (was reading that 30% run off was better for flushing out old stuff from the coco). Plants appear no different today.

Any idea why my plants are looking so weird????

 

[willyweed]

check the run off water for ph and ec would be a good start,if it is higher ec than you put in the top ,would imo be a bit of over feeding ! sounds a lot of feed for the size of the plant,have you grown any of these before? also do you have a fan on them?.ww

 

[BlackBuds]

IMO it looks like youre over watering them. Let the coco dry out a bit for the first few days to allow the roots to develop, then you can hit them once a day and ramp up after that.

 

[BlackBuds]

Also, look below the surface at the stem and make sure they aren't rotting. If they are VERY carefully wipe them with a cotton ball dipped in hydrogen peroxide and they may recover.

 

[AloeRuss]

You did overwatered them. That's a fact.
When they are young, you can't water them every day or even every other for that matter. Roots need to grow and they do as they look for food/water.

Plants this young will need several days to recover from the shock. You may not even see the old leaves getting better shape but the new ones will.

Also, you need to be a little bit more humid then 30RH. Pre-vegge you need to be at 60-65
Others then that and if you let them dry out a bit (do you know the bucket weight test?) you will be fine

 

[Bad Habits]

check the run off water for ph and ec would be a good start,if it is higher ec than you put in the top ,would imo be a bit of over feeding ! sounds a lot of feed for the size of the plant,have you grown any of these before? also do you have a fan on them?.ww

Haven't checked the ph/ec of any of the run off yet. I'll definitely have to do that next time. Thanks for the suggestion.

Never grown this strain before - only grown bag seed prior to this lol. Trying to do my first "real" grow this time round.

I have a small computer fan blowing across all the tops of the plants.

IMO it looks like youre over watering them. Let the coco dry out a bit for the first few days to allow the roots to develop, then you can hit them once a day and ramp up after that.

Most definitely.

Also, look below the surface at the stem and make sure they aren't rotting. If they are VERY carefully wipe them with a cotton ball dipped in hydrogen peroxide and they may recover.

You mean right below the base soil line? I brushed away a bit of the coco at the top and I think they look fine, healthy-looking white roots trailing off:

Also couple shots of roots slowly creeping out the bottom of the pots yesterday before watering them:

 

[Coconutz]

I think theres something wrong with your pen.
3.5ml of cal mag would be more like 300ppm. I think you said 100?
Either way... These plants dont need an calmag! That shit has way too much N!
If you were to use it I would suggest cutting way back to about 1ml or less.
Anyway... Your plants are overfed.
They arent overwatered... They might be underwatered though. Thats a lot of perlite.
I wouldnt recommend that mix for any future seedlings.
My seedlings usually get watered once per day in coco, but with that much perlite you might be asking for trouble.
The aeration formula needs to be watered multiple times per day and thats tricky with seedlings and coco.
You cant let it go 48hrs without water.

 

[Bad Habits]

You did overwatered them. That's a fact.
When they are young, you can't water them every day or even every other for that matter. Roots need to grow and they do as they look for food/water.

Plants this young will need several days to recover from the shock. You may not even see the old leaves getting better shape but the new ones will.

Also, you need to be a little bit more humid then 30RH. Pre-vegge you need to be at 60-65
Others then that and if you let them dry out a bit (do you know the bucket weight test?) you will be fine

Even in an aerated coco mix? I've read such conflicting stuff about this... some people say it's impossible to overwater coco, but I suppose they might be referring to when the plants are well established and not in the seedling stage.

And yeah I know the RH needs to be higher The plants are in a really small cab right now, and I have no idea how to raise the RH in it. No room for a humidifier/mister/etc, and the lights would be way to close to it anyways.

I'm hoping once I prepare my veg area in the closet with more room in the next week or so I should be able to stick a humidifier or something in there to help with this issue.

Thanks for the response man.

I think theres something wrong with your pen.
3.5ml of cal mag would be more like 300ppm. I think you said 100?
Either way... These plants dont need an calmag! That shit has way too much N!
If you were to use it I would suggest cutting way back to about 1ml or less.
Anyway... Your plants are overfed.
They arent overwatered... They might be underwatered though. Thats a lot of perlite.
I wouldnt recommend that mix for any future seedlings.
My seedlings usually get watered once per day in coco, but with that much perlite you might be asking for trouble.
The aeration formula needs to be watered multiple times per day and thats tricky with seedlings and coco.
You cant let it go 48hrs without water.

Interesting point about the PH meter. It's a brand new blue lab combo meter. Does the PPM seem to add up with the 2nd watering I listed? Hopefully it was just a one time thing?

And yet another calmag debate in coco... some people seem to say it's necessary in coco because of deficiencies that can occur in the medium, others say no... I'm using it because my buddy who grows (pretty successfully) in coco uses it and told me to use it. However, he only grows from rooted clones - I'm guessing the nutrient requirements for rooted clones vs early stage seedlings are different? What would you recommend feeding for early stage seedlings?

Also related to that: I'm using the botanicare aearation mixed at his suggestion, but like I mentioned he goes into them with rooted clones, not seedlings. He really likes the aeration mix so in flower so he can feed them a ton of times per day with drippers. What coco would you recommend for starting seedlings/early growth veg?

Appreciate the response.

 

[Coconutz]

I dont know much about floranova. I use flora micro and bloom. 6/9 gets me to about 600ppm in a gallon of water. Ill use a little less or a little more water depending on the stage of growth with the same 6/9 profile.
For seedlings I would go with half strength until they are about 10-12". But water everyday!
The seedlings dont need all the N in the calmag. Dont even use it until you see that you might need it. Theres plenty in the 6/9 formula.
Ive experimented with adding doses of calmag here and there and it seems like its really easy to overdue it with 6/9. Theres plenty of N in the formula and it has all the cal you need.
Just water everyday!
Usually Ill start my seeds in rapid rooters and then put them into coco.
Ill control PH for the first week with a few drops of canna start and then bump it up or just switch to 1/2 strength 6/9 for the first few weeks.
I like coco with a little bit of coco chips.
I wouldnt recommend using rapid start every feeding. Maybe once or twice in veg.
I dont like giving my seedlings any supplements until they are in veg.
They dont need any hormonal/vitamin type shit now.
At this point you should just be trying to let them do their thing.

 

[AloeRuss]

OP - I know by now you are confused by conflicting messages. Few of us told you you water too much. One even told you to water every day. Or maybe they are overfeed.
Normally you get uniformed answers to obvious things like this, but sometimes you get this...

When you get to situations like that, try to do more research. See how overwatered and underwatered plants look like. See how young plants in coco respond to every day watering In the meantime, you've done some changes. See if they recover.
Keep looking. You will find it.
Good luck to you.

 

[Coconutz]

And here it is.
H3ad says you need to replace the o2 as often as possible since its hydro.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=55683
Both of these guys say to water everyday or you will have problems
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=81674
Bottom line is water everyday with the correct ratio. Dont bother with calmag.
Mofos have air stones in their res and let the coco dry out...lol that shit is backwards
Peace

 

[AloeRuss]

OP - don't get distracted, mate....lol
This isn't that difficult to resolve....lol If you want to make it easy, just PM me.

 

[Bad Habits]

Hey guys-
I really appreciate the responses. I gotta run to work now, so don't have time to respond to everything ATM. Will do when I get home.

But first: I let the plants dry out a bit more (to the point of seeing a slight crack between the wall of the container and the coco), and they perked up a bit more. Just fed them PHed water (6.3) and tested the runoff for the first time:

Runoff was 7.1ph and 440PPM

What exactly does this mean? I have no experience with testing run off....

Thanks guys.

 

[vapor]

They look over watered, You can defiantly over water in coco seen it myself when i first try'd it out, folks said it could not be over watered but it can{especially when roots are first starting to develop in the medium}. let the top of your pot{coco} dry out then water, coco need to be wetter then peat in terms of dryout range and health{i let peat/compost dry out more then coco but not a huge amount}. Even then some planties come from very dry places so they have fatter leaves and veins for scooping that morning dew{conservative minded}. Watering although it sound super easy is one of the things that takes practice to master, keep on you will get the hang. I see some mag def starting. I think what happens when signs of over watering happen in plants{drooping leaves, wet looking medium} is roots are dieing and dropping the ph to the point mag and cal become harder for them to use. Good luck

 

[farmari]

Coco coir can vary a lot in consistency, between brands or even of different batches from the same brand. Some can be overwatered really easily.

Was the coir thoroughly rinsed before planting? (with runoff ppms checked)

That runoff PH is really high. I don't know whether to tell you to do a thorough flush of nutrient solution to get the runoff PH down closer to 6.0-6.5 or if you should just not water them for a little while to see if they recover from overwatering. If you're going to water them again to the point of runoff, definitely do so thoroughly until the runoff PH goes down a bit.

 

[MIway]

2 dirty little secrets about coir...
- most of it will sprout soul mites (even compressed bricks)
- there is major variation from batch to batch, in particular with the pH

soil mites aint no thang, cept a major nuisance, but the pH is a killer.

run 500ml of ph balanced nutes (1.0ec/6.0ph)...check the runoff ec/ph
do that 4 times, check each time the runoff
my bet is that the runoff ph doesnt change... it is between 6.5-7.0 each time
if it comes down & stays down the next day, hey great
if not, it wont & they will not grow properly... ul be fighting it the whole time
ps, after this test/flush of sorts, let the top of the coir dry to a flakey state before you feed again, or do it by feel (50% of weight loss)

 

[Bad Habits]

I dont know much about floranova. I use flora micro and bloom. 6/9 gets me to about 600ppm in a gallon of water. Ill use a little less or a little more water depending on the stage of growth with the same 6/9 profile.
For seedlings I would go with half strength until they are about 10-12". But water everyday!
The seedlings dont need all the N in the calmag. Dont even use it until you see that you might need it. Theres plenty in the 6/9 formula.
Ive experimented with adding doses of calmag here and there and it seems like its really easy to overdue it with 6/9. Theres plenty of N in the formula and it has all the cal you need.
Just water everyday!
Usually Ill start my seeds in rapid rooters and then put them into coco.
Ill control PH for the first week with a few drops of canna start and then bump it up or just switch to 1/2 strength 6/9 for the first few weeks.
I like coco with a little bit of coco chips.
I wouldnt recommend using rapid start every feeding. Maybe once or twice in veg.
I dont like giving my seedlings any supplements until they are in veg.
They dont need any hormonal/vitamin type shit now.
At this point you should just be trying to let them do their thing.

I've actually decided that I'm gonna try running the 6/9 formula on my 2nd batch of LVPKs from start to finish, and compare it with the nut regimen my friend gave me to see which one performs better. I planted my 2nd batch 1 week ago, and have fed them only PHed water so far, so tonight I will start them with 1/2 strength 6/9

Do you think the rapid starters work better than just planting the seed directly into the coco after it's germed? What are the advantages?

Definitely understand what you're saying about not using any supps until they are in veg. Up till now I'm just following my buddys advice verbatim because he has been growing pretty successfully for the last 4 years or so. Obviously he hasn't tried everything out there though, so I'm definitely open to suggestion.

OP - I know by now you are confused by conflicting messages. Few of us told you you water too much. One even told you to water every day. Or maybe they are overfeed.
Normally you get uniformed answers to obvious things like this, but sometimes you get this...

When you get to situations like that, try to do more research. See how overwatered and underwatered plants look like. See how young plants in coco respond to every day watering In the meantime, you've done some changes. See if they recover.
Keep looking. You will find it.
Good luck to you.

Seems like this crowd is 1/2 and 1/2 on the over/underwatering... pretty conflicting I have been letting them dry out a bit more between waterings now.

And here it is.
H3ad says you need to replace the o2 as often as possible since its hydro.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=55683
Both of these guys say to water everyday or you will have problems
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=81674
Bottom line is water everyday with the correct ratio. Dont bother with calmag.
Mofos have air stones in their res and let the coco dry out...lol that shit is backwards
Peace

Like I said in the previous post, I'm gonna try and run 1 batch using h3ads method, and another using my buddys method and see what happens

OP - don't get distracted, mate....lol
This isn't that difficult to resolve....lol If you want to make it easy, just PM me.

Can I send PMs under 50 posts???

 

[Coconutz]

I've actually decided that I'm gonna try running the 6/9 formula on my 2nd batch of LVPKs from start to finish, and compare it with the nut regimen my friend gave me to see which one performs better. I planted my 2nd batch 1 week ago, and have fed them only PHed water so far, so tonight I will start them with 1/2 strength 6/9

Do you think the rapid starters work better than just planting the seed directly into the coco after it's germed? What are the advantages?

Definitely understand what you're saying about not using any supps until they are in veg. Up till now I'm just following my buddys advice verbatim because he has been growing pretty successfully for the last 4 years or so. Obviously he hasn't tried everything out there though, so I'm definitely open to suggestion.



Seems like this crowd is 1/2 and 1/2 on the over/underwatering... pretty conflicting I have been letting them dry out a bit more between waterings now.



Like I said in the previous post, I'm gonna try and run 1 batch using h3ads method, and another using my buddys method and see what happens



Can I send PMs under 50 posts???

You need to use nutes with the coco. In the rooters you can use just water. When the seedling stretches after popping you can just bury it in your pot with the rooter a few inches down.
Seems to work well for me.
Forget additives all together until you have some grows under your belt. Theres no way of telling if they work or what they do unless youve grown without them. Its also much easier to fuck up with additives in the mix

 

[Bad Habits]

They look over watered, You can defiantly over water in coco seen it myself when i first try'd it out, folks said it could not be over watered but it can{especially when roots are first starting to develop in the medium}. let the top of your pot{coco} dry out then water, coco need to be wetter then peat in terms of dryout range and health{i let peat/compost dry out more then coco but not a huge amount}. Even then some planties come from very dry places so they have fatter leaves and veins for scooping that morning dew{conservative minded}. Watering although it sound super easy is one of the things that takes practice to master, keep on you will get the hang. I see some mag def starting. I think what happens when signs of over watering happen in plants{drooping leaves, wet looking medium} is roots are dieing and dropping the ph to the point mag and cal become harder for them to use. Good luck

Yeah I just gotta learn to dial it in like you said. I'll post some shots from today in a sec and see if there's a deficiency like you hypothesized.

Coco coir can vary a lot in consistency, between brands or even of different batches from the same brand. Some can be overwatered really easily.

Was the coir thoroughly rinsed before planting? (with runoff ppms checked)

That runoff PH is really high. I don't know whether to tell you to do a thorough flush of nutrient solution to get the runoff PH down closer to 6.0-6.5 or if you should just not water them for a little while to see if they recover from overwatering. If you're going to water them again to the point of runoff, definitely do so thoroughly until the runoff PH goes down a bit.

Well that's not good to hear I'm just going with the Botanicare aeration mix because it's what my buddy successfully uses...

Didn't rinse the coir before use because it comes pre-rinsed and specifically states it doesn't need to be.

Thanks for the response!

2 dirty little secrets about coir...
- most of it will sprout soul mites (even compressed bricks)
- there is major variation from batch to batch, in particular with the pH

soil mites aint no thang, cept a major nuisance, but the pH is a killer.

run 500ml of ph balanced nutes (1.0ec/6.0ph)...check the runoff ec/ph
do that 4 times, check each time the runoff
my bet is that the runoff ph doesnt change... it is between 6.5-7.0 each time
if it comes down & stays down the next day, hey great
if not, it wont & they will not grow properly... ul be fighting it the whole time
ps, after this test/flush of sorts, let the top of the coir dry to a flakey state before you feed again, or do it by feel (50% of weight loss)

Dang more bad news about coco Because I don't wanna do full-blown hydro, coco seems like the way to go though...

You don't think 1.0ec for 3 week old plants is too much??? Today is day 20.

Thanks man.

 

[Bad Habits]

Here's some pics from today at day 20.

Today I noticed on 2 of the plants some purpling on the leaves, and a couple orange spots on of the plants (the one right under the light in the middle that looks the most deformed).

Despite the IR thermoter saying the tops of the plants are never hotter than 80f, I decided the were too close to the lights so dropped them down about 2 inches after taking that shot of the cab. I also added in the extra (3500k) light on the right because I didn't think the seedlings on the right were getting enough light (I could be completely wrong though).

Any input???

Appreciate all the responses fellas. Thanks.