They're all dying! PLEASE HELP!

Good seeds, Barney's LSD & Nirvana NL. Germed on paper towel, set into 1.5" Rockwell after soaking in 5.5 Ph'd distilled water, placed in ebb & flow with few drops of Clonex & Superthrive, Ph @ 5.8, temp mid 70s, 4 6500 k fluorescents @ 18-6 three inches above plants, cubes initially set directly on tray and pump cycled 15 minutes every 3 hours, grew a couple inches, developed cotyledon leaves, first set of leaves appeared, had to leave for 2 days, came back most of the plants were shriveled up and barely alive, some looking totally dead and others just looked very bad. Checked Ph & it was 7.2, corrected Ph back to 5.8, one day passes & they're still going down, out of desperation added 1 tps GH Flora Grow to 4 gal reservoir. Another day & they're still barely hanging on. I then started reading that nutes aren't suggested that early so I drained system and changed water, added Clonex & Superthrive, still bad! Placed a single sparce layer of hydroton into 3" net cups and placed the cubes on top of pebbles to allow for better drainage, changed cycle to 15 on every 4 hours. Nothing seems to help, they just keep going downhill. Am I missing something? Some things I've considered, room temp is low, about 70. I smoke in the house but never in the same room and the door is always closed when I do. Any ideas?

Well it might be your flood timer. My timer goes on for 15 minutes 3 times per day. You may be flooding it too much but probably not since I know people who flood continuously. CAP reccomends you flood 3-4 times per day

maybe your over watering if there seedlings you dont need to feed that often a soaked cube will take 5-7 days to dry out if your cubes feel wet leave them to dry up before feeding again. other than that i dont know matey best of luck

Im glad you caught that shadow. I had this problem the first time I used DWC adn grodan. It was because of the cube. They have too much water retension and not water replusion. When your starts are a couple inches tall or taller carefully break the cube around your roots and delicately place them directly in the hydroton, so you dont suffocate your roots with water.

yeah im on my first grow using rockwool cubes my babies sort of stopped for a few days then i noticed them drooping, classic over watering so checked the cubes they were soaking wet i didnt feed them for 7 days and they have returned with great growth rate. less is more!!!

Suggestion for watering cycle? Is there a better method for seedlings? My eventual goal is to grow them in an aeromist system.

every 3 days untill you see they need more that worked for me. i fed for about 30 mins every 3 days using nft system now i have increased the feed schedule because they going well. just keep an eye on them day to day get some pics up if it persists so people can look and help more. hope it works out dude

Thanks for the help guys, will back off my watering schedule and hope.

Take some pics

Did you wait for roots out of the rockwool cubes BEFORE putting them into a bucket of hydroton? You TOP feed babies, not bottom feed em with ebb & flow. (Not to mention a waste of space and lighting)........... My guess is seeds directly in there, then overwatering them to death.

Shrivel = overwatered
Crispy = not enough water

I didn't really set em in hydroton. I was afraid that the rockwool couldnt drain properly if it was sitting directly on the bottom of the grow chamber so I raised the water level a little and set the cubes on top of a sparce single layer of pebbles so thay the water would be able to drain completely. Water level is set for half way up the cube. I will get picks when i get home in the morning. The roots are not showing, the are just a week old. The things look shriveled and krispy. Top feed? Like a dripper? This is my first grow and I'm at a total loss. Should I take them out of ebb and flow and just maybe mist the cubes every day or so?

I got the idea off one of the high times vids. He placed the germinated seed into a tray with about 1/2" of water that had an airstone in it and just left it there. They grew beautifully. I have read of water issues with the cubes so I made a miniature ebb & flow to make sure they wouldn't get too wet. Other equipment I have is an aerocloner and domed black trays. What do I need to do before I lose them all? Next time, what should I do differently from the start?

Not to advertise, but read my grow journals. I grow the same as you, rockwool and Hydroton. They'll show you how to veg, how to germinate, how to water, etc....

Kinda new here, I clicked the links and got 81 pages on one. Is there a way to navigate to specific areas, specifically the seedling section. Awesome setup BTW!

You might benefit from reading it all. There's no quick links unfortunately, but you'll get to see things as they happen and when! There's some 200 pictures or so.

Definately want to read it all. Just need a starting point. Which link and do it start at the last page and read backwards from there?

if you use google as your searchbar you will get better results just type in what you want to find and put riu in your search you will get better results .

hey dude. i'm new to this site but been doin this(gardening) for some time now(7 yrs). just scrolled through the text and 'shadowdarker' seems right, you prob are over watering. also young seeds don't need nutrient suplements until around day 10 or so, learn to read the plant(strain) it takes time. but it's good to give a root hormone(in low doses) when they do reveal themselves(pop out of the soil). don't know what you get over in your country but i use (AU 60 root repair) it's almost as good as rhizotonic. i'll post some pics of "a mates" garden in the fututre. ha ha pics are good. there'll be :la confidential, kings kush, bubblegummer, white KC, bubblegum th seeds(2 phenos) and a so called northern lights from an old dude who's had it for 20 or so yrs. by the way,(researchkitty) you have the best profile pic ever. is that your missus, ha ha ha. nice!

For the google trick that someone else mentioned but didnt really clarify on, you go to google.com or in the chrome url bar and type:

site:rolliup.org blah blah blah

Replace the blahs with your search terms. results are faster and you dont have to wait 60 seconds between searches

Thanks for all your help guys. I took the cubes out of the E&F and squeezed them out. Man were they wet! I had no idea that rockwool held so much water. I put them in a propagation tray with a dome on top of a warming mat. Mister them lightly with water and they're starting to look better. Being inexperienced, i guess the first though when they show signs of distress is to add something. Never dawned on me that they already had too much. I lost over half of the new sprouts but thanks to you guys, I was able to save a few. Hope to get some good mommas out of them and clone for a while. Thanks again to everyone, you guys are great and this site rocks!

My thoughts are to continue with the tray and misting unroll roots start showing through the bottom of the cubes and then put the cubes into 3.75" net pots with hydroton and then put them in the E&F. Veg them until I can pick the best ones to be mommas and get some clones. Gonna set the clones in an aerocloner and raise them in and aeromist/fogger system. Not quite sure what do do with the mommas at that point. I got a steal on a large Botanicare E&F system with 6" square pots and thought I would put them in there.

Does this plan sound OK? Any changes or improvements that you can see?

I've got 4, 4' 6500k bulbs, a load of clamp on cfls, 4 - 400/600 Nextgens with 600w eye Hortilux super hps bulbs and 2 more on the way. The reflectors are ?eXtreme aircooled ones. I can't remember the exact name. CO2 tank and controller, good ventilation and am working on getting an AC/dehumidifier with controller. My grow space is 13'6" x 20'. What type of grow would work well with what I have right now?

One more question on the lights. How would you utilize them on the grow? Should I get some MH bulbs? If I start at 400 Watts can I use the same bulb I have or do I have to get a 400 Watt bulb and swap it out?

I would like to keep a perpetual grow going and harvest every 2-4 weeks. What's my best options? What do you think I could yield with what I have? Oh and I've got a gallon each of the full GH nute line to start.