First grow, potential sick babies

Hey guys, so I'm on my first grow, and I think I may have an issue. I have searched high and low and can't find any images that look like my plants, so it's time to ask for help. My babies are still essentially sprouts (about 3 weeks old) I am currently running them under 2, 400 watt 5500k, CFLs and one 3200k. I use soil tabs (half tab per pot) for nutes and they are currently residing in 1 gallon pots with organic soil (worm cast/bat guano/perilite). This is a small stealth grow.

A few days ago I noticed the older leaves were beginning to look darker, in contrast to the stems, stalks and new leaves being a vibrant bright green. 2 of the plants had leaves that were twisting, not under, but more like a horizontal twist. On one plant, the whole top of it twisted underneath itself. I changed the distance of the light and it actually straightened out perfectly.

Could all of this be a light issue? I started with lights about a foot and a half from the plants then moved them down to about 9 inches. I can touch the bulbs, they are not even hot to the touch, however, I have noticed the temp in the enclosed space is a good 5-8 degrees higher than the rest of the room (no temp gauge but it's probably around 76-80 most days), so heat is building in the grow space even though I can touch the lights. Even though I've moved the lights, the darkened leaves don't appear to be getting healthier, the new leaves look ok. Part of the confusion is I'm not sure how they should actually look. I may have over watered as well, I sprayed them daily and also watered the soil directly daily with about 4 oz of purified water. I have since read that I should only water every 2-3 days with enough water for it to drain out of the bottom and have been doing that for the last week.

Also, even tho it's only 3 weeks in the stalks on the plants seem very thin and bendy almost like daisies or something, when should I expect them to harden? Lots of conflicting info on the web.



Edited to ad images. Thanks for reading!

They look a little stretched, lower your lights if you can, do you have a fan blowing on them? that will help to strengthen the stem, the fan should ( jiggle ) the plant a little, be carful not to overfertilize your seedlings, your soil should be enough for now without the soil tabs, that's the best I can do, I'm not a soil man myself but I'm sure someone will hop on and help better than me.

Don't water daily. Sounds like you have a shit ton of reading to do... put your lights as close to the plants as you can without heat from the bulb reaching the plant. water no more than every 3 days but don't water every 3 unless needed. less is more, keep it simple...

Check out this site
www.growweedeasy.com

Here's my 3 week olds for comparison, they're a little stunted and still a world apart from yours.

Also dark green is a healthy colour, unless its extremely dark but you're far from that...

what kind of soil you are using ?
i think too much nutes in the soil for those babies

Illegal Wonder said:

Don't water daily. Sounds like you have a shit ton of reading to do... put your lights as close to the plants as you can without heat from the bulb reaching the plant. water no more than every 3 days but don't water every 3 unless needed. less is more, keep it simple...

Check out this site
www.growweedeasy.com

Here's my 3 week olds for comparison, they're a little stunted and still a world apart from yours.
View attachment 2725370

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wow, yea, I guess I do. Thanks for the pic for comparison.

That soil looks terrible and there is no way you should be feeding a plant that small nutes ( assuming you used a decent soil ) yet. Spend $20 and get a bag of Happy Frog, a bag of Ocean Forest and a bag of perlite. Mix 'em all together, no nutes needed for 30 days. Easiest way to get healthy plants started, period.

DeeTee said:

They look a little stretched, lower your lights if you can, do you have a fan blowing on them? that will help to strengthen the stem, the fan should ( jiggle ) the plant a little, be carful not to overfertilize your seedlings, your soil should be enough for now without the soil tabs, that's the best I can do, I'm not a soil man myself but I'm sure someone will hop on and help better than me.

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hey, thanks. Using organic soil, Fox Farms. I probably overdid it being a newbie with the tabs

greenlikemoney said:

That soil looks terrible and there is no way you should be feeding a plant that small nutes ( assuming you used a decent soil ) yet. Spend $20 and get a bag of Happy Frog, a bag of Ocean Forest and a bag of perlite. Mix 'em all together, no nutes needed for 30 days. Easiest way to get healthy plants started, period.

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yea, using fox farms ocean floor, but I did use soil tabs. should I remove the tabs and flush or just remove the tabs?

dude get rid of those soil tabs ,there loaded with nitrogen and like lllegal wonder said less is more, you have guano(nitrogen) and soil tabs(nitrogen) worm castings (nitrogen).. it's a baby there in 1 gallon pots and half the crap in there is NITROGEN yes it needs it but damn ease up on the juice hoss.. you need to just take them things and transplant into just a standard fox farms and water it when it dries out thats it.. bury the soil close to the base of the thing so it don't fall over.. and just WATER no nutes until it tells you its hungry.. and it will,,if your concerned about the lil changes its making as a stunted burning sprout then take that and turn it to the medium that your plant is being planted.. read about nutrients and then after you have giving the sprout a better medium then just water it.. after you have learned about how much nutrients a seed needs vs a plant then you can start feeding the plant some light nutes.. never over do it right off the bat,,, its a baby give it baby food.. lol not trying to rip ya or sound like an ass but u planted a baby in an adult environment.. baby's need room to breath and grow.. good luck and KEEP ON GROWIN..

bass1014 said:

dude get rid of those soil tabs ,there loaded with nitrogen and like lllegal wonder said less is more, you have guano(nitrogen) and soil tabs(nitrogen) worm castings (nitrogen).. it's a baby there in 1 gallon pots and half the crap in there is NITROGEN yes it needs it but damn ease up on the juice hoss.. you need to just take them things and transplant into just a standard fox farms and water it when it dries out thats it.. bury the soil close to the base of the thing so it don't fall over.. and just WATER no nutes until it tells you its hungry.. and it will,,if your concerned about the lil changes its making as a stunted burning sprout then take that and turn it to the medium that your plant is being planted.. read about nutrients and then after you have giving the sprout a better medium then just water it.. after you have learned about how much nutrients a seed needs vs a plant then you can start feeding the plant some light nutes.. never over do it right off the bat,,, its a baby give it baby food.. lol not trying to rip ya or sound like an ass but u planted a baby in an adult environment.. baby's need room to breath and grow.. good luck and KEEP ON GROWIN..

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As I read the first paragraph, I was thinking exactly what Bass said.
Worm, bat, and feeding? Way too much.
Get a fan on them to strengthen the stems, get the light closer, and rotate your pots so they don't stretch towards the light.
Discontinue feeding for at least another week.

how often u water they look way to wet?
if u water to much u flush soil to much

DONNYS said:

how often u water they look way to wet?
if u water to much u flush soil to much

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I was watering them daily with very little water, then I switched to every 2-3 days with enough water that it drains out of the bottom of the pots. I believe it was too much, some one advised me to do it because they thought the roots may be lacking water.

You guys probably saved my harvest, thanks!

Ok, so I transplanted into smaller pots with fresh soil and no tabs, lights are at 6 inches above. Should I use some root stimulator to help with shock or leave them be? I was lucky and no roots broke but they were super tiny.

bass1014 said:

dude get rid of those soil tabs ,there loaded with nitrogen and like lllegal wonder said less is more, you have guano(nitrogen) and soil tabs(nitrogen) worm castings (nitrogen).. it's a baby there in 1 gallon pots and half the crap in there is NITROGEN yes it needs it but damn ease up on the juice hoss.. you need to just take them things and transplant into just a standard fox farms and water it when it dries out thats it.. bury the soil close to the base of the thing so it don't fall over.. and just WATER no nutes until it tells you its hungry.. and it will,,if your concerned about the lil changes its making as a stunted burning sprout then take that and turn it to the medium that your plant is being planted.. read about nutrients and then after you have giving the sprout a better medium then just water it.. after you have learned about how much nutrients a seed needs vs a plant then you can start feeding the plant some light nutes.. never over do it right off the bat,,, its a baby give it baby food.. lol not trying to rip ya or sound like an ass but u planted a baby in an adult environment.. baby's need room to breath and grow.. good luck and KEEP ON GROWIN..

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hahaha thanks for keeping it real! It's all good, gotta start somewhere, I appreciate the advice =)

lol one for me one for you.. it's all good orange i just read SO many post on here about newbies starting seeds and buying or having the supplies that a friend said to to get or they hear ,read or seen something cool and the first thing the newbies do is load up there first grow with all the new cool stuff they have and kill everything they have.. so i didn't mean to trip out or anything like that..so sounds like the babies are back to normal and as long as you just take your time and read and think before you leap it will be a great grow.. so were here to help those who help themselves ... good luck n KEEP ON GROWIN..

OrangeHaze said:

hahaha thanks for keeping it real! It's all good, gotta start somewhere, I appreciate the advice =)

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A little super thrive is good when transplanting. Mine are 24 days I've watered 4 or 5 times and fed them practically nothing. Im constantly reading on shit as this is my first grow. Thats the only really good bit of advice I can give read read read.

Yep, I gave em some Thrive, organic root stimulator. 3 watering sessions later, they have CRAZY roots. Going into the 4th week now, it was actually only two weeks when I posted previously. I transplanted 3 of the 4 and left the 4th alone. All are doing well, transplant was ultimately not needed, but no biggie. Over watering and heat were my issues. Got temps to a stable 76-82 and started watering twice a week with Thrive mixture and they are bouncing back like champs.




Love that seedling setup btw District