Help! trying to keep plants small - but leggy seedlings

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for a bit of advice. I've planted 5 easy ryder seeds into Grodan A-OK starter cubes inside a propagator tray with dome, a heat mat, and thermostat set to 80º for germination.

3 of the 5 seeds have germinated in 4-5 days now, each within 1 day of each other. I want to give the other two seeds one or two more days to try to get out and then call it a day. I'm assuming i need to leave the propagator dome on to give them a chance and keep humidity up. The problem lies with my three germinated seedlings. They're so tiny, but keep growing UP. in fact, they've just grown their first tiny two little leaves.

I'm not exactly sure when to transplant these seedlings into my hydroponic system. I'm using a SuperBox from SuperLocker. My sprouted seeds are about 1.5, 2, and 2.5" inches tall in length, and each only have about 1/8 of an inch of root coming out the bottom on each of these. One of the tips of the root on the tallest one actually has a bit of browning on the very tip which is slightly worrying me as well. I've done nothing but soak the cubes in ph 5.5 solution for 10 seconds each (as the directions stated with these specific cubes.). It said if temperature remained correct you wouldn't have to water them. The plugs are still moist, not wet.

I believe that my little seedlings are super leggy and tall, due to the lack of light. Should i transplant the little seedlings into hydro pellets asap to give them light to keep them from growing in my superbox? Or do i leave them in the tray near a window with the dome off? My total grow space is only about 2 feet - so i'm trying to keep these plants small - without LST or SCROG.

Thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by pogojr23

are u doing 12/12 from seed what is ur light setting but yeah your prob is the light is to far away they are reaching for that light

I actually don't have a light on the propagator. It told me to leave it dark or low to mid light. I was leaving the cubes in until the other 2 germinated, but still no luck. I'm doing 24/0 or 20/4 because its an auto.

I've moved them into the veg/flower box now but haven't put the hydro-rocks around them yet. Just one bottom layer for the roots to cling to. So now i've got 200w CFL in the box to hopefully help with them stretching. Bummer i can't move the light closer on this box! :/

SS