Sick Seedlings

[ridgelind]

Hello,

So this is my first grow. Looked far and wide across forums regarding my issue, but the symptoms point to nutrition burn and I have not used a single drop of nutes yet. About my setup:

Home box mini 30x30x60
CFL's 2x20 W and 2x2W rigged up to a power strip
75/25 coco perlite. 3l pots
Unknown strain - bag seeds. Guys who sold them to me told me they were of the Lemon variety.
Temp between 24-26 degrees
Water going in at 6 to 6.5 pH (only got the testing drops therefore cant really make it accurate to say 5.8)
watering when top inch of medium gets dry
24 lights, bout 3" away
100 m3h exhaust
Passive intake
Box is in my closet - closet is not airtight, the doors are all crooked and ive checked with a match that it does indeed suck air in passively
Humidity - my biggest problem oscillates between 20 and 30% ive got 4 containers with soaked vermiculite inside as well as some sprinkled around the plant, i spray it every time i take a peek


Germinated in a paper towel, dropped straight in coco mix once it showed a root.

Plants have sprouted a week ago. They dont look anywhere as fine as some other plants ive seen after a week.

On top of that, one of the lings already sprouted with a weird color and a yellow as well as chipped part of the cotyledon. After a few days the tips shriveled and grayed, however its shown.

The relatively healthy looking one doesn't seem green enough to me, and its been like that for 3 days, lack of growth, and i'm not sure if that's not curling that I see.

I mean, looks like nute burn - but added no nutes.

I read consistently that no nutes go in coco for the first two weeks at least, so havent added, though i got the cana coco a&b set

Someone told me its a CO2 deficiency - but havent been able to confirm on the forums ive visited.

Should I nute them?

Or are they just a bunch of bad seeds, and I should get some real seeds from a proper source.

Like I said, this is my first grow, so approaching it cautiously, dint want to spend a whole bunch of $$$$ on this new hobby, just like you don't but the best guitar to learn to play but pick something lower mid range, hence the size of the box, homemade lights etc.

SO what do you guys think this could be?

 

[ridgelind]

Forgot the pictures

 

[mr bub]

I would guess its something about your coco pearlite mix, its affecting all 3 plants.
Mix up some more and soak it well and then check the ph of the runoff.
You don't want to overwater these little plants.

 

[RonSmooth]

Those are sprouts, not even seedlings yet.

They don't need that much light. I would back the lights off and go with a single CFL per plant. 6" is close enough, I would put them even higher until they grow a couple sets of leaves. The area under the bulb and the leaf surface are much hotter than the ambient room temp.

The low humidity isnt a problem. Spraying the plant is unnecessary and can lead to problems esp with so much light.

The other thing would be the pot size. Those are big for such a small plant and it is difficult to water without overwatering. Those sprouts have a tap root and maybe a few lateral roots that take up a tiny fraction of the available medium. That leaves the rest to stay soaked which can lead to problems.

At least 1/3 of the pot could be saturated while the top layer feels dry. The lights will dry out the top inch way before the plant actually needs water. A better method is to lift the pot after a good watering and again a few days later when it is dry. Youll be able to feel the difference in weight and with a little experience youll be able to determine when to water.

Water generously until you get some runoff, this will ensure that you are saturating the entire container and replacing oxygen in the medium.

With a medium like coco or perlite, youll need to feed earlier than with soil. You might try feeding one of the affected plants to see if you notice any improvement.

 

[ridgelind]

Those are sprouts, not even seedlings yet.

They don't need that much light. I would back the lights off and go with a single CFL per plant. 6" is close enough, I would put them even higher until they grow a couple sets of leaves. The area under the bulb and the leaf surface are much hotter than the ambient room temp.

The low humidity isnt a problem. Spraying the plant is unnecessary and can lead to problems esp with so much light.

The other thing would be the pot size. Those are big for such a small plant and it is difficult to water without overwatering. Those sprouts have a tap root and maybe a few lateral roots that take up a tiny fraction of the available medium. That leaves the rest to stay soaked which can lead to problems.

At least 1/3 of the pot could be saturated while the top layer feels dry. The lights will dry out the top inch way before the plant actually needs water. A better method is to lift the pot after a good watering and again a few days later when it is dry. Youll be able to feel the difference in weight and with a little experience youll be able to determine when to water.

Water generously until you get some runoff, this will ensure that you are saturating the entire container and replacing oxygen in the medium.

With a medium like coco or perlite, youll need to feed earlier than with soil. You might try feeding one of the affected plants to see if you notice any improvement.

Thanks,

I actually gave one a dose of Cana Coco A+B yesterday, while the other just some water, so that i can see if it makes a difference.

I am actually checking whether to water by lifting the pot, and i placed the thermometer under the light, and it only got about 27 degrees (which would be the radiant temps) I'm also never spraying the plant directly. i know it can cause them to burn from the light where the drops go, just a few pumps on the verm at the top to get it saturated and giving off humidity

The reason I've kept the CFLs so close is that my growbox is limited, and i don't want them to get too tall, I plan o LSTing them.

Hmm i guess i could have started the grow in smaller containers, its just that this was my first grow, and the thought of transplanting the plant sounded like a guaranteed way of effing it up from the get go

Are these plants the right color anyway? They don't seem anywhere near green enough as i saw on pics of other users, but not sure if that's because they are so young....

Also thought about switching to an 18 hour light cycle, but that's just too much variables for me to get my head around with my first time around

This is a neat little hobby and i'm learning a lot but grow dammit grow!!

 

[DrDee]

I'm with Mr Bub on this one. I've seen many instances of seedlings doing poorly in coco. It's nute retention (CEC) can cause it to hold on to Na if not prepared and rinsed properly...and seedlings hate Na. There is a reason they make mild seed starting mixes...
DrDee

 

[simple-Steve]

I like to use a standard 5 gallon bucket for 2 bricks of compressed coco. The bucket has TONS of holes drilled into it. Soak, expand and all that fun stuff and then let it sit out somewhere with a towel under it for a week or two. Flush it again with a drop of dish soap.

The color of the water alone will let you know that this was a wise choice.

Premium coco might not suffer from this, I use the cheapest crappiest grade compressed garbage coco there is. This step stopped the problems that I was seeing that were similar to yours (although not as bad).

Mine usually showed up later as the salt levels built up along with what I would assume would be the sweepings up of sand and saltwater on the production floor for whatever they mass produce in the third world country that they ship this stuff from (Sri-lanka is where I've hear most comes from)

 

[simple-Steve]

Hmm i guess i could have started the grow in smaller containers, its just that this was my first grow, and the thought of transplanting the plant sounded like a guaranteed way of effing it up from the get go

Always start coco off in the smallest practical container! Cannabis does horrible in large pots without established root systems. Something about the wet feet in the coco. The roots need to get to the bottom of your container until you really start to water them fully. This includes when you swap to your next size container when you flower (if you transplant then.)

Let them seek nutes and water for a few days so that they can get to the bottom of the container (I use a 2.5 distilled water container for my plants, you can easily see the growth of the roots and I SOG so no light gets down there to disrupt them.)

 

[simple-Steve]

Germinated in a paper towel, dropped straight in coco mix once it showed a root.

I've had alot of luck with using 18oz red solo cups, put seran wrap or cellophane over the top with a rubber band to seal moisture in. It will do it's own thing until it needs nutes (just make sure to water the coco well so that there is somewhere for humidity to build up)

I poke holes in the bottom of the cup after I break the seal on the top to start watering.