first grow, do you think they're healthy or asking for nutes?

Strain - Nirvana Seeds - Blue mystic (predominately Indica)

# of Plants - 2

Grow Type - Soil

Grow Stage - Vegetative

Bucket Size - currently in middle size of half a 2-liter pop bottle. moving up to a 3 gallon smart pot.. maybe.

Lights - 24/0- 3x 26w 6500k CFL, 2x 26w 2700k CFL / 300x 5050 SMD leds at 0.24w per diode. (~70w?) = ~200w



Nutrients - only a small epsom salt supplement with the most recent 200mL watering
diluted at a rate of 1Tbsp/Gal

Medium - 60% FFOF/40% generic organic potting mix from joblot, to avoid "too hot" ffof

PPM - I opted to not go with PPM measurements this time around.

pH - ~6.5 I'd say slightly higher, maybe a 6.7.. using liquid indicator.

RH - 45-55

Room Temperature -74 to 84

Solution Temperature - n/a?

Room Square Footage - .67 sq ft.

Pests - saw a single bug the other day, pretty sure he got sucked in through an intake. have been monitoring closely, with no other incidents.



I'm mord, long-time reader, first-time poster; hope it's worthy.
This is my first time trying to grow cannabis apart from tossing seeds in my yard when I was younger.

Due to living arrangements, the plants are growing inside a 5 gallon bucket, modified in a stacking design to allow additional height as it/they grow(s) (#spacebuckets). One of the plants will be moved outside to a guerilla location, allowing the space inside for the other.

My goals for this aren't really for a high yield, though I'd like to fully utilize the space in the bucket. I'm looking more to develop a relationship with the plant, as I enjoy plant medicine studies and ethnobotany, and would like to add this to my list of plant teachers. We're going for potency guys, so here's my lighting..




I'm not sure whether they're growing at a healthy rate or whether they're stunted, I germinated them in plastic dinner cups with some stones at the bottom to assist drainage, but I think I fudged the practice there, stones were too big and the roots were stunted halfway down the cup. They were moved to the bottles 1 week after germination. This is them after the transplant.

4/25-Germination

5/2- transplanted by filling the bottles to within the height of the dinner cups from the rim
I then loosened the sides of the dirt mass in the cup and flipped it gently upside down to slide it out, placing it in to the bottle, and gently adding soil around the edges to fill it in. i added straight tap water..



I feel that the soil was too damp, with no real wet/dry cycle, and they didn't have an opportunity (or need) to stretch their roots, the overwatering continued until after the second set came in, with some purple tints on new growth, at that time it was a toss-up between pH problems, the overwatering, genetics, or a legitimate magnesium deficiency, so I waited until 5/4 for my pH kit to arrive, tested soil samples from both, found A to be 7.0 and B to be 6.5ish, and found my tap water to be 8.0!!!! I took a gamble and pH corrected a gallon of water to 6.5, added 1 tbsp of epsom salts, shook well to aerate, let it sit for a couple hours, shook again gently, checked ph, still more or less 6.5, and I flushed them, intent on now giving them a solid wet/dry cycle, and measuring water from here on out.

5/6- Soil as dry in both as I was comfortable with, bone-dry to my second knuckle, gave both 200mL of the epsom salt water at ~6.7 pH.

5/7- Today, my day off, so I'm making this post and taking all the pictures. Soil is still moist in places, so i'm holding off another day to check moisture and potentially give them another 200mL, also, FF Big Bloom and Grow Big will arrive tomorrow, I'm not sure if they need them though. What do you think?

Here is Lady A-


The droopage is real! Hoping the firm wet/dry cycle helps!


Are these roots on plant A a result of the break in watering after the "flush"? It was the first dry spell they had experienced and I feel like this is a good sign, though I am now worried about them becoming root bound.




Hooray! maybe!

Here's Lady B, significantly less droopy, but her yellow coloration makes me think she was affected by the over watering practices as well.. or ph problems prior to being tested.. or transplant shock.. or everything..
I'm hoping new watering practices and a some FF BB and GB will perk her up and bring new growth in at a great color.






The other ill news aside, I think the lighting is spot on, the node structure seems TIGHT! I intend to top and main-line the one that remains in the bucket, though which one that will be is undecided.


So what do you guys think, do they need to start nutes like I think?
Should I wait longer and see if the watering practices alone will fix it?
Am I just being impatient?
Does growth look good for day 13?
Does the third set of true leaves coming in mean this is Day 1 of Veg?

I want to thank everybody in advance, I've already learned a great amount from reading these forums (and others), and am excited for some personalized advice to help me fine-tune my own technique

Hi mordero.

I would start off by getting some black 1gal pots. light is not good for roots. if they get to much light they will turn green.
also I would get a complete nutrient and start feeding them a little at a time. don't over do it.
looks like their a little iron deficient too.
I like the 5 gal bucket set up. never seen that before.


good luck
-mystic

Root bound? Not even close, I was going to suggest the opposite. Continue with what you said about wet/dry cycle, it appears to me you might be bogging them down a little. Let them look for water just a bit more, when they are bigger than their containers they might be getting root bound, right now I think you need some root health. Cover the containers if you don't want algae growing, I.don't really like it but the advantage of a clear container..... idk how you would see it anyway, yr in green bottles

They are getting enough nutes but it looks like you are giving them too much water and they don't have proper drainage. Cut some holes in the bottom of you containers and spray paint them so that the light does not get to the roots, or just buy some pots.

Wait. No drain holes? No way.

Put them in the container you are going to grow in. make sure you have drainage holes. They look like you have a little too much moisture put them on half nutes and leave them alone.

How are the plants doing?

Your scenario is very similar to my situation a month ago. I also overwatered so they got yellowed and was droopy, not quite like Lady A but not far from. It really affected growth and a few of the plants stopped completely and stayed like that for prob a week+.
Anyways, what I did was transplant into larger containers early and watered lightly just to get the soils "connected". I also took some of the damp soil off before potting. I have no idea if it was a good idea but the drooping stopped in a few days and they started growing fine, but I have no idea if it might have put some long term problems with roots or something or if I was lucky that they didnt sustain more damage.

Im also a new grower so dont go repotting right away, just know that it worked for me.

The more wrinkled one was culled to allow space for the survivor, and she is doing well! i moved her to a larger air pot and used a 65% ffof 35% perlite mix.

after the transplant she didn't receive any water for 4 days, i waited til the soil was good and dry about half a finger in, the new growth is much softer, and she seems to have worked her roots in to a stronger mass, as the up-top growth seems to be picking up.

2 days ago she got about 600mL of water (my drainage is insane now) with 1/4 str FF big bloom and grow big, I think I see the tiniest signs of nute burn, but i'm leaning on heat since she's getting close to the light and it's on the upper leaf tips. time for another spacer I'm gonna add another 5 meters of led strip in the next section of stacker, to keep up with her bulk.

I am going to get some BioAG VAM inoculant and the best way to colonize is contact with the roots during a transplant, but since she's already in her final container and i missed the boat, do you guys have any ideas?

You really shouldn't be giving them salts or any nutrients whatsoever for at least the first two weeks. They only need to be very lightly watered for the first 2 weeks as well. The soil might seem dry but it's not dry unless it's crusty. Seedlings dont need to be watered everyday and with that mix, you've already wayyyy over watered them. If they were mine, they would have had only 1 cup of water in that 2 week period.

It's hard to kill seedlings by not watering them, it's easy to kill them or fuck them up by overwatering and/or using ferts & nutes.

Just let them be and get them into real pots with drain holes. Stop watering them so much/often and stop giving them nutrients for a couple weeks.

They'll clean up and be fine.

Oops, I missed your most recent post but still, they're barely 2 weeks old - don't give them any nutes at all for the next two weeks and only water sparingly. They don't need a lot of water right now, trust me. Give them like a light nutes on the 1st of June. Untill then just let 'em do their thing and don't fuck with them.