Browning and curling leaves.

First off, this 'newbie central' thread is off the hook. Three pages of posts since this morning, I can't possibly find my last thread. Is there an option to route back to threads I've already created?

Ok, so I posted a few days ago about my plants. Here are the facts again. This is my first grow.

I have four seedlings in half gallon pots planted in miracle grow potting soil (I know now to just use plain sterilized soil next time so I can better control the nutes and have lower pH). My plants are 2.5 inches away from a 125w CFL self ballasted light in a reflector hood. I've been watering them every time my moisture meter indicates below the "moist" range. Watering consists of tap water purified with fish tank drops. I have added fish fertilizer twice (5-1-1) about a teaspoon to a gallon of water (half the recommended dose). The fert waterings were about 10 days apart. My plants are on a 16/8 light cycle with a small fan blowing on them on the same cycle. Their soil pH is too high, between 7 and 7.5. I've been dropping the water down to around 6.5 before watering but it's very slowly effecting the soil. I use a bottle of acid (hydroponic pH down) to manipulate the water's pH.

Ok, so on to my questions!

Two of my plants are showing browing on the tips of their bottom leaves--only the bottom leaves--and some of those leaves are curling under. It has been suggested that I over fed my plants and that I should flush them. Today I used a nutrient soil test kit and found that my soil has no potash at all (K0) , correct to slightly over correct amounts of nitrogen (N3) and the same amount of potasium (P2 and P3). I also found that my plants were slightly under watered, so I watered them again today. Also I had a short power out last week and this could be contributing to my browning leaves.

Besides these defects my plants are green and healthy, short and stocky, and starting to smell like early skunk. Any advice or tips or even comments would be greatly appreciated, thanks again!

Seedlings cannot handle nutrients. That is the cause of your brown tips... and if you continue, it will get worse.

That's a pretty good explaination. So if I just give them pure water until they're big enough for nutes then this will be ok? Also, if I shouldn't give them nutes now, when should I start?

While on topic, what's the best way to measure nutes in the soil? I know a ppm meter will tell me the total dissolved solids in the solution, but I otherwise need a way to specifically break down what nutes are lacking and surplus and I've read that soil test kits aren't very reliable.

Also what really qualifies them as seedlings? I planted them as seed about 3.5 weeks ago, they're between 3-4 inches tall now and have several sets of leaves.

Bump for support!

Ok Bro, heres what you need to do. First off you need to get em out of that pot and into a 3 gallon pot with plain topsoil and perlite mix. NO Miracle Grow anything. Just turn plant over and tap bottom til whole ball of soil comes out, knock off what dirt you can without hurting the roots, transplant into new pot half full of dirt/perlite mix, fill in rest of pot with mix til its above the top of old dirt. water real real good until water comes out of bottom of pot. water again when the dirt is DRY. DO NOT keep the dirt moist all the time, you will drown the roots and cause them to rot!

You are experiencing Nutrient burn, this is caused by the MG soil, which has nutes in it in what are called Ozmocote. Ozmocote gives off its fertilizer when it gets wet, so basically by keeping the soil moist you have been fertilizing with chemicals 24/7 and also drowning roots. Plants show burn by creating dark, necrotic (Dead) patches on the ends or tips of the leaf, can also be characterized by yellow/orange spots. Most damage starts at the bottom leaves and moves upward as the damage progresses.

New pot , new soil/perlite mix and no nutes for a couple of weeks until plants new growth is lush and green, then you can give nutes slowly over time.

Don't feel bad, Over fertilizing and overwatering are the 2 top grower mistakes. We have all been there!

That sounds like solid advice. On my way to nursery to get plain old sterilized soil and perilite soon as I post this. I've got 2.5 gallon pots, they'll have to do for now.

What ratio of soil to perilite should I roll?

Huge disaster!

Ok so I went to home depot and got plain topsoil bags and bags of perlite. I cracked them open to find that the topsoil is just the dirt of dirt. It had wood particles, rocks, even a peice of a plastic bag in it. Disgusting. I went ahead with it and tested out transplant with just one plant (my least healthy of my 4). I broke up a gallon of it and mixed it with half a gallon of perlite.

I removed my plant from my 1/2 gallon pot. Amazing root growth, the roots were completely to the bottom of the container and thick spun around the bottom in to the shape of the container. Clearly I need bigger pots, but my problem is that I can't fit 4 large pots under my lights and still get ample coverage, I wasn't planning on moving in to larger pots until I can sex them and narrow down to 2 plants, then put them in huge pots and put them under my 150w HPS. I'm only growing enough for my own personal consumption. Anyway, I really don't want to transplant yet for those reasons but since I sort of need to I think I might want to find a way to determine sex pretty soon then go with it.

Anyway I started trying to 'shake' off the miracle grow soil around my plant. This wasn't doing em any good, the roots had pretty much assimilated with the soil. I took the plant to the bathroom and poured purified water over the dirt to try to flush it off, but still to no progress. During this my plant went limp and still won't stand up straight. Terrified I promptly put it back in to it's old pot and filled with my new shit-soil/perlite mixture, but now it looks limp like it can't stand. I put it back under my CFL light and hope it will be strong enough tomorrow when I have a better plan.

SO! What should I do? I plan on returning the rest of the junk soil I didn't use and getting some much higher quality nute-free soil to go further with. I've had enough gardening tonight and am terrified that my baby might not make it through the drama I just put it through!

I need a better way to get my plants out of the miracle grow soil, and a solution to my small light coverage or a solution to sexing them early. I could raise the light higher for more coverage but at a sacrafice of intensity.

Pros please reply!

Bump for support.

An update. My one plant that I transplanted and was worried about appeared on the next day to be my largest healthiest plant. A day later, though, it had two dying leaves on the bottom and one browing on the top. I think this was because it was in too small a pot, since I transplanted it back in to it's old pot when things started to go down hill and it's roots looked really packed in as it was. My other plants also showed some the same issues.

I decided then to go ahead and replant all four of them in larger pots using the soil I had. I sifted out 10 gallons of this dirt then mixed the refined dirt with some perlite and replanted three of my plants (including the transplant disaster.) The fourth plant I repotted also but in the miracle grow stuff they were already in just in the bigger pot. So there's my controlled variable, and I'll post the results next week.

I also watered them all with 6.1 pH water and adjusted my light to be higher up and give wider coverage. I'm kind of worried though that my CFL may not be intense enough now but there's no other way I can get all 4 plants the coverage they need. Please let me know if there are any suggestions on this! Once I have sexed the plants I will narrow it down to my two healthiest females (hopefully I have at least 2 females!) and then they'll definitely have enough light and I'll switch to my HPS bulb.

I'm also considering building an area to cycle some clones into but am not really sure where I'll have space. Clearly they can't go in my grow room because of the different light cycles. If I just put cardboard or something around a corner of the room would the small amount of escaped light cause a problem to the otherwise bloom room?