Wilted Seedlings, Pictures, Please Help!

Hey guys,

(Pics at Bottom) I dropped these guys in rockwool cubes last Thursday after soaking overnight in tap water. Within three days they were all above ground and happy. I sprayed them with water once, and watered twice since then. Last night was the second watering, the cubes had suddenly become very dry. I was under the impression rockwool typically only needed water every 3-5 days. I PH'd the water to 5.5 (or thereabouts) and soaked each cube for 3-5 seconds in the water. After a quick shake I put the plants back into their tent under their CFL lighting.

They are G13 Labs NL auto. I have been running them 18/6 the last two days. 24hr light before that, as I researched pretty thoroughly before this grow, but evidently missed that nugget of info. No nutes yet. I have used tap water that has sat out for a minimum of 24 hours (to dechlorinate) or distilled water for each watering. Temps have gotten to 84 for a high, but are typically about 74. For some reason I decided not to turn my inline fan on until today, so that should help to lower overall tent temperatures.


Last night the plants were slightly droopy, but I figured the water would fix that. This morning the cubes were BONE dry, and the plants are now all withered and fallen over. I have had purple stems most of the way up for the entirety of the seedlings lives, the purple seems slight more evident now. There is browning at the base of 2 of the seedlings stems, and it looks to me like the stem gets thinner right where it meets the rockwool. The leaves are growing, however today they are all very wilted, hanging, and all but 1 of the plants is lying sideways on the grow medium.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I watered them a few minutes ago, to get some moisture back to the roots. PH 5.4, quick soak and back in the prop tray. I am wondering if perhaps I need to try giving them nutes now, as the true leaves were starting to take off, water more or less, raise my lights, etc. (Lighting is 6 30wt CFL mounted above the seedlings, mix of bright and normal bulbs.)

Thank you for the time and any help is GREATLY appreciated!!!!!!

Well from the looks I would say overwatering but from your information & would definitely say underwatering.
I used to use Rockwool & I had to water every 3 hours because I was too lazy to set up the drip system.
Rockwool tends to dry quick.

Also the PH of rockwool is already preset to 5.5 which is fine right now, but in time I would recommend watering in at a 5.8 - 6.0.
Oh, & are they under a dome?
I would recommend plenty of humidity at least for the first week.
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Thank you for your reply!

I had the dome on them up until a couple days ago, I will try upping the PH of the water a little and putting that back on. I guess they are just drying out faster under the light than at first. Also, any chance I got too much light in there for them? Wondering if I went overkill.

Your water is too acidick, you should not go lower than 5.8. not sure light is a problem aside from to hot and cause burning. distilled water has no minerals and plants need minerals. dump the distilled water. you could give it a small amt of nutes, no more that 80 to 100ppm.

That was an interesting read. I am going to move the two that have fallen over away from the healthy girls. If they they are damping off, hopefully it doesn't spread, these were most of my beans. But oh well, I am going to go pull a couple lights out, check the temps, and let things be. If they don't pick up, I'll ditch em and start again.

DeeTee
You're absolutely right about the water. Read the same thing in my book earlier and forgot it . Once they dry up I"ll give em some better water. Thank you!