[Snider]

Sup dudes!

Friday I made all the buckets on my SWC ready, so I could go out on a trip.
Tonite I came back, 2 days after, and NONE of my seedlings grew anything.

I am so sad!
What did I do wrong?


I made the PH right, added pond ferts and rooting hormone to the water.
Is that too much for new seedlings like this? I didnt add much I know they're still very young.

Can anyone help?
Can I throw them into soil?







White Rhino.


Can't manage to lose them both.
please help!

[stevr59]

looks like its to late dont add any ferts till there older and from the looks of things you over water as well i quess you got them in rockwool and it looks to me like its water loged

yeah it's definitely too late for them. another case of too much care.

for your next germ, keep in mind plants dont need any nutrients until their bean leaves die.

also, if you have a problem with overwatering, i'd suggest ripping a thin length of fabric off an old shirt and using it as a wick to bring water up to your rockwool during the seedlings early days.

hope they werent expensive strains man, best of luck on your next grow!

might not be too late for the bean on the bottom, try putting it in slightly damp soil or whatever and see. GL!

[Snider]

Oh well...

:(

Thank you guys. I had some soil ready and put the white rhino on it. Let's see what happens.

[sm0kateer4204]

next time just put the seed directly in the the rock wool cube and wait for it to pop up. notice the root of the seedling is green from seeing light. thats not supposed to happen. they shouldnt see ANY light until they are planted in the ground with root's covered. also the cube's are drenched in water. i wouldnt even have setup the bucket's until you saw root's popping from the rw cube. next time just set the cubes on a tray dont have them sitting in puddles of water keep them moist. good luck on next time man. it's all a big learning experience.

[Mr_Micro]

I'm not exactly a "know it all" kinda guy when it comes to these matters, but I think I can still tell you the most likely reason for why your WR seedling has died.

I would attribute it to two things really. The main being that the medium you used was not porous enough, in other words it didn't hold enough air. The second is a lack of proper nutrients... since this plant was in the seedling stage this doesnt factor in quite as much though, so the big thing here is air.

Plants need 5 basic things to live and grow. Air, water, nutrients, light, and decent temperatures. When you grow in soil you have a big buffer in the areas of nutrients and air in your medium, but this is not so with hydroponics. There is simply no margin for error here. When you grow hydro you basicly play God... you must make sure all 5 of these basic plant needs are properly met, which means going to great lengths at times to artificially supply things like the growing medium and nutrients in it.

The only thing that worried me about your setup was your choice of medium. The green floral foam and coco choir you picked up are both not esepcially well suited to SWC or DWC growing. This is because these mediums are not very porous and do not hold oxygen well if put in constant contact with water. If hand watered in a pot or in used in an ebb & flow table where they are only saturated with water a few times a day at most, they might have worked quite nicely. But when constantly sitting in water they simply do not hold enough air and end up choking the oxygen supply out seedling's root system, leading to "stem rot" which appears to be the cause of death for your WR seedling.

Those hydrotron rocks you used are very good at holding lots of oxygen for your root system, but they generally do not provide a strong enough housing for the newly forming root system of your seedling, thus creating the need for a rockwool cube or Rapid Rooter plug in the middle hydrotron rocks to start the seedling in.

This was simply an unfortunate case of your choice of mediums not holding enough oxygen to supply the newly formed root system with. I would certainly recommend you try your hand at hydro again, but next time get some tiny rockwool cubes or Rapid Rooter plugs to start your seedlings in. They will hold much more air than the floral foam or coco choir when used in a SWC setup, so you won't have to worry about your plant's root system drowning to death the next time around.

Rockwool or Rapid Rooters might be rather difficult to come by since you live in the UK and the only hydro shop I know of in the UK is in East Sussex, but these days it is fairly safe to order things off the internet if you need to.


As well as oxygen, it is possible (if not likely) that the seedling's nutrient requirements were not being properly met by the pond fertilizer. Unlike growing in soil, you have to be pretty exact about the ammount and specific kind of nutrients you use in hydroponics. You play God here, and there is no buffer or margin for error. If the plant gets too little of any one nutrient or micro nutrient in the water, it will starve to death. If you give it too much of any one nutrient or micronutrient, you will burn it and cause signifigant damage to the plant or kill it. You really have to be pretty exact with what kind of nutrients you use and the quanity you use them in when it comes to hydroponics because you don't have any buffer like you'd have with soil.

Simply put, soil growing is an art, hydro growing is a science. I think hydro is much easier to grow with than soil because all you have to do is pick the right medium for the job, feed 5ml to 15ml of your nutrients once a week, and give plain water in between. Theres no guessing when to water or guessing when or how much nutrients to use and when to use them like you would have to do in soil... hydro is a science, plain and simple. Follow a easy weekly plan and watch em grow!

However, this does require a bit of financial output and the ability to buy the right kind of medium for the job along with the right nutrients for the job. You can feed soil grown plants rose fertilizer, tomato fertilizer, miracle grow, or whatever and they will grow fine. But this is not the case with hydro... unless you know how to make your own teas, you need nutrients specificly designed and tailored to the nutrient needs of hydoponically grown cannabis. Not just any fertilizer will do, and anything short of the plants needs or more than what the plant needs will damage or kill it.

In other words... if you have the right medium and the right nutrients, hydroponics is a simple matter of following a weekly feeding chart and watching them grow big and strong. But if you can't get the right medium or the right nutrients specificly for hydro (or make your own well balanced teas) than you might as well just stick to soil, because anything less or more than what the plant needs will certainly kill it when grown hydro.

But then again... thats what works for me. Damnit Jim I'm a scientist, not an artist!

[pieceofmyheart]

Mr. Micro...good advice...and i'm an artist, not a scientist!!!!
Sorry Snider, it does happen, pretty much to everybody occassionally, we lose a baby or two here and there.
Just keep on keeping on.

[sproutco]

PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THESE READINGS!

Your hydro food lacks: phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, copper, and boron. This stuff was made for a goldfish pond. Maybe start the seeds a different way.