Seedling Growth Slow? Advice needed please!

Hey friends. My plants are growing real slow. This is my third grow so I'm still a new but I've always had plants stolen etc before flower. Anyway I'm feeling like my seedlings are growing ever so slowly and I'm wondering why (besides forgetting to turn the fan on and burning a few of them their all healthy). My last grow s I remember my plants being almost twice this size at the same age and it worries me. Here is my setup.

All autoflower and there are 10 strains in this pic, except a few reg seeds, all purchased from nirvana and gorilla. I'm using:

Diy soil made of jiffy potting mix, small portion of sand and an organic potting mix I found at Walmart with no certs in it.(anytime I've tried to give ANY amount of feet to a plant they have all died so I have used no nutes besides the tiny amt in the perlite).
50% perlite,
plain pH 7 water
PH of plants is 6.5ish
Currently have 100w worth of cool daylight blue cfls over seedlings, trans to 400w HP's later.
Just added diy co2 bucket
Watering maybe once every 1.5 days
18/6

I have lots of questions but my main concern is with this same setup my plants were always twice as big before, but that was always bagseed and these are all auto seeds besides a few. I'm just worried since they are all 10-12 days old and other pics from growers seem like their plants are much bigger and that worries me. The leaves on many seem to not be going much at all and I don't get it. Please help.

imo/= go get a turkey cooking thermometer and keep an eye on the soil temps

ensure that SOIL temp and the air temp are about 25C/77f

tho the soil temp is always cooler ,ensure its warm enough

good luck

ps avoid the C02 bucket ....for now

I've been growing auto's since i started, and i found that starting in small containers and then switching is often unnecessary stress to your baby's.(autos tend to have a shorter life span and less time to deal with severe stress) Also the roots could be slowly running out of room in there causing slower growth (vs being in their big 5 gallon pale right from the start) if that wasnt the case maybe to much water, Most people, myself included go by weight of the pots instead of days between watering. Get to know how your container feels dry and then how it feels after a good watering. When they grow and are flowering some will consume water much faster then others and if your just watering them all routinely it could lead to over watering, fungas nats, root rot. Etc. Also letting the soil dry out between waterings will encourage root growth as the roots will stretch out seeking moisture

u need more light kid. throw them bitches into that 400watter

Your seedlings look healthy from here and I wouldn't worry about their size. If you keep a detailed grow journal where you measure them every 2-3 days you can better judge how your present growth rate compares to others. At this stage seedlings spend nearly all their energy laying down a root mass that will support the plant. So most of your growth is taking place below grade until the roots grow into the side of the solo cups. Then you will see the inch-a-day growth you want to see. They are fine.

Did notice a couple things though....
* Hard to tell from the picture but I can't see that you have drilled drainage holes at the bottom of the cups. The ability to properly drain will help keep you from over- watering and makes root rot a lot less likely. Drill them holes.
* DIY dirt is fine and perlite is important as it helps store water in the soil as well as trapping more oxygen below grade for the plant to utilize. But you have no where near 50% perlite as stated. Ideally perlite should be 10-15% and you look to be in that ballpark. Check your numbers on that, eh?
* For plants - light = energy. Get them under your 400W set-up asap to increase growth rate.
* Finally - it doesn't look like you have individual identifiers for each plant. Develop a nomenclature (terms used in a specific field) or shorthand to ID each plant. For instance, I pulled 3 clones from a Big Bud momma plant today and put them in Styrofoam cups and into my domes. The first clone is labeled "BB 6-26-A", second is marked "BB 6-26-B", etc. You cannot keep a meaningful journal without being able to positively ID each plant.

Been doing this for awhile so feel free to PM me with any SPECIFIC questions. Always glad to help.

Good luck, BigSteve.

Wow guys thanks for those responses. Very insightful. The picture you can't see the plants names or the drainage holes but both are included, my mom taught me the whole drainage thing. I actually gave each plant its own name cuz I'm a geek alike that. What I worry about is it seems that every time I turn the hps on it gets way hot. And I feel like even if I took my 250w bulb and tried to put it within a foot of those seedlings they'd fry. I font understand how people always say to keep your lights closer than a foot away because even with CFLs I've never been able to do that without destroying the plants. As of now my HP's hangs about 18 inches from the seedlings. I have a 400 and 250 w bulb I can use but I don't wanna hurt the babies hence the CFLs.

I could be wrong, but ph for seedlings isnt supposed to be 5.8?

From my understanding depending on strain and medium anywhere from 5.5 to 7?

ElevatedLife said:

Wow guys thanks for those responses. Very insightful. The picture you can't see the plants names or the drainage holes but both are included, my mom taught me the whole drainage thing. I actually gave each plant its own name cuz I'm a geek alike that. What I worry about is it seems that every time I turn the hps on it gets way hot. And I feel like even if I took my 250w bulb and tried to put it within a foot of those seedlings they'd fry. I font understand how people always say to keep your lights closer than a foot away because even with CFLs I've never been able to do that without destroying the plants. As of now my HP's hangs about 18 inches from the seedlings. I have a 400 and 250 w bulb I can use but I don't wanna hurt the babies hence the CFLs.

Click to expand...

Seedlings are always exempt from the idea they need to be close to the light source. When I move s'lings into my veg room I put them in the back row farthest from the bulb. You're correct, they will burn up if placed to close to the light. For a week or so give them distance from the bulb. NOTE -- with the weather hot remember that MH bulbs run hotter than HPS bulbs. Don't be afraid to do the whole grow with a HPS bulb to cut down on heat. Also, consider a fan to blow on seedlings. Along with making the room cooler you help the seedlings grow a stronger main stem as they firm up to resist the breeze from the fan.

Good luck, BigSteve.

Then I don't get why all these idiots are saying to put your lights a good away from these sized seedlings its ridiculous. I'm not having tap water poisoning issues from the chlorine or chloramine and I have only used tap water once and it basically stunted and made every single seedling I have turn yellow so my whole grow is basically fucked. I'm so angry right now I can't even express it.