Stretching Seedlings. Pictures help please

[frankenstein2]

I said it before and i'll say it again, too much water. If your cubes and slabs are that soaked all the time i the beginning, there is inability for the plant to grow proper roots. It's like having the roots sitting in stagnate water. I've read thru this thread and it seems you want advice, but when you don't agree with it, whatever any of us say from our own experience doesn't matter, especially about less water. I'm telling ya too much water in the cubes/slabs, and the plants won't grow like they are suppossed to, trust me i know from experience.

 

[noyd666]

say no more.

 

[944s2]

Yes, AKA Damp off. That plant you showed which you said is going to snap is fucked IMO.
Too much wetness mate.

as harry g says above buddy,cut and chuck,,good luck peace and safe growing s2

 

[Sinisterzane]

ripped them all out and gave everything a damn good scrubbing in h202 today and have double rinsed everything...all the cleaning materials (towels, scrubbers, buckets etc) were bagged up and binned also

I have 12 in 3" cubes that are bursting out the bottoms...I gave them a 0.8 EC feed of grow yesterday and today they have gone wild

These 12 are currently in the propogation tent with a T5 above them sitting on a tray

Today I got some tile spacers and stabbed one into each corner of the bottom of the cubes avoiding damage to the roots as much as I could. An hour ago me mate phoned me to say now that the tile spacers are in and the blocks are off the floor of the tray by a cm or so the roots have started to hang down and touch the tray of which is bone dry.

I also put tile spacers in the bottom of 15 more 3" cubes of which I put the smaller rooted cubes into yesterday so they are not out the bottom of the 3" cubes yet

I am trying to get the roots to hang off the bottom before I put them on the nft's.

Should I put some water with a 0.8 EC in the bottom of the trays?...the propogation tent air temp is 28 degrees C which would mean this water would be at 28 degrees pretty quick I reckon...im asuming the roots would try and sit in this water? Im not sure if just leaving them to dangle dry for 2 days would make a difference?

Thanks

 

[Sinisterzane]

got the 12 in today (14 days old from splitting with loads of roots bursting out of them)

Ive got a 0.6 - 0.7 EC grow mix going in from the main 100L reservoir top up tank via gravity which is ph 5.8-5.9 and has a very small dose of h202 in..It takes a few hours to fill up the nft's of which are joined together with 4x 1" pipes

So at the moment the damp cubes are sitting on a dry spreader matt...once they are full and the water temp is above 18 I will put the nft pumps on 24/7....I have removed the plastic and they are on floor tile spacers about 1cm off the spreader matt (forgot to turn some of them so the groove is facing the flow however so will correct later)

My lights off time is 9am - 3pm and the fish tank heater comes on between 10am - 2pm the rest of the time the fish tank heater is staying off at lights on...With the lights off and the fish tank heaters on ive noticed it goes between 22 - 23 (stat on the heaters says 20) that and the lights 24/7 on is what made the water go as far as 28 I reckon the heat, soaked cubes and overfeeding caused the topping off last time..main factor was the heat I reckon

I put another 15 in 3" cubes 2 days ago so in about a week I should have another 8 one side and 7 the other in....these will be in the middle

split another 15 yesterday so hopefully another 8 one side and 7 the other a week or so after these will go near the front and each row will be a week behind the other...the plan is to form a U shape round the vert lights

The meter in the picture is the water temp (currently waiting for it to get warm enough before I run the nft pumps) Im going to monitor this camera remotely and keep a close eye on the water temps...I have 3 of these meters the one in the picture and one in each nft and they have max minimum recalls so I can also check whats happening via those

 

[Sinisterzane]

 

[Sinisterzane]

And there off...water temp 20.5, air temp 26, humidity 40..rockwool cube grooves now facing in right direction...4 hours till lights off so looks like waters going to hold below 23!

Going to put 12" fan on the tomorrow at far end on lowest setting and slowed down further with speed controller to give them a nice breeze

 

[noyd666]

all of ozy is so there off to the races, got our fingers crossed for ya lad.

 

[Sinisterzane]

I think the damping off is starting again with the new 12...

Ive just noticed a couple of them have very fine pin point size white dots at the very very base of the stems where they are touching the tops of the rockwool....they rub off when I touch them so it looks like some kind of fungas..a couple of them have come out the blocks at an angle so I can see it more on the ones where the stem should be under the rockwool line

water temp 18-22
ec 0.7
room temp 26
oxygen h202 in at about 0.5ml per litre

The nft pumps are on 24/7 and theres tile spacers in the bottom of the 3" cubes that raise them off the spreader matt slightly but the cubes are soaking

 

[Sinisterzane]

Just tried to take some real close up pics but the camera goes to blury...heres some long range pics...the white dots/specs are right at the very bottom and should in effect be below the rockwool as I have to bend them slightly to expose the specled bits

They have been on the NFT 6 days and were 13 days old from splitting before they went on

 

[noyd666]

water again, do those pumps have to go 24/7?

 

[Sinisterzane]

water again, do those pumps have to go 24/7?

had various reponses to the original problem from 3 different forums

some saying to run the pump 15mins per 24 hours, run them 15mins per 4 hours, run them couple of mins every few hours

Some saying to run them 24/7

Couple of people saying its the EC strength

majority of people saying to run them 24/7 so thats what ive done as dont think its good to have the roots on the spreader matt potentialy in an almost dry state

I have to get the blocks dryer..tomorrow im going to try lifting them up with some electrical conduit 2 strips per block

http://www.wickes.co.uk/oval-conduit-20mmx3m-pk10/invt/712954/

This way I know there off the spreader matt as the tile spacers arnt that good as they stick in the bottoms the more wet they are

If I lift them now this will involve damaging the roots a bit to get the conduit underneath them...is this a wise thing to do as ive read root rott etc loves damaged/broken roots?

 

[Sinisterzane]

its started again on 2 of them...a ring round the bottom of two plants...With the rest the section of stem between the top of the rockwool and the first set of branches is thinner than the section of stem above

I havent seen any difference to the above in the last 4 days although they are growing real fast up top and lots of new roots developing

Is it normal for the first section of stem to be smaller than the next section of stem? I am asuming this part should be the thickest part?

Going to let them run for another week and see what happens whilst im waiting for set no 3 to get big enough to go on...this next set are going to be 1" cubes inside net pots with a row of clay pebbles along the bottom and packed in round the sides with pebbles...they will sit straight on and the pump will run 24/7......EC will start at 0.7 (background 0.4)