First grow and it shows... HELP!

Axeman88 said:

Some preface. These ladies are 14 days old from sprout. this is my first grow, these three ladies are seeds from ilgm. The strain ww auto. The medium is different on all three. all environmental factors temp, light, and humidity have all been the same. The medium is as follows, the blue tag lady is in 100% Ace hardware brand potting mix with perlite and vermiculite added also one quarter cup of epsoma 5-2-6. The yellow tag lady is a 50-50 mix Ace hardware and kelloggs organic potting mix with perlite and vermiculite added and one quarter cup epsoma 5-2-6. The red tag lady is 100% kelloggs organic potting mix with more perlite and vermiculite added, no nutes. The first week all they got for water was ph'd in between 6.5 and 6.8. week two I've been giving them 2.5ml of gh FloraGro and FloraBloom with 1 ml CAL-MAG. PhD to 6.5 to 6.8. the first week I had them under florescent lights but the intensity wasn't enough so I swapped out for my spider farmer 2000. Also they are 24 hrs light. Now at the end of 14 days I feel one they are way too small for their age. And two the yellow tag and red are not as dark Green as the blue tag lady. And the red tag lady seems to be way behind the other two and looks as though she has some deficiency as does the yellow tag. Albeit the yellow tags growth is similar to the blue tag plant. So I decided to test the pH of the run off of the two potting mixes. My experiment was to take a pint of medium and flush it with twice the volume and take a pH. The water used for the flush was ph7.0 my results are as follows ace hardware brand phd to 7.2 and the kelloggs organic phd to 7.4 also the kelloggs does not hold water as well as the ace. I think this is apart of my problem. How can I fix this if this is so. am I to far up shit Creek?

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OldMedUser said:

First off are you watering the whole pot or doing the rookie mistake of only watering a bit around the plants? Are these regular plants started from seed or clone? Or are they autos?

By now if you started them in those big pots they could have a tap root all the way to the bottom but if it's dry down there it's died.

With the soil you're using they shouldn't be needing any nutes yet unless you want to use 1/4 strength to water the pots in with ALL 3 bottles at 1ml/L would give them a good balance of nutes and micro nutes. I use AN 3-part and all the bottles have the same NPK as GH 3-part or did the last time I looked. And skip the CalMag for now even with RO water. There will be plenty in there to keep them going until they are really going.

What are you using for water? I only use RO or distilled just to prevent problems caused by shitty tap water. If using tap water do you know the ppm and pH? I'd get a copy of the water report from your supplier if it's tap water as there are often things like high sodium, iron etc that can cause problems but not this early in the game. It takes a while for problems to develop if they do.

I also use ProMix HP to grow potted plants and it has no nutes so must be fed right from the start. I mainly feed 2ml/L once the plants are growing well with 4 or 5 nodes and lots of leaf growth. It accelerates as the plants get bigger. I only feed every 2nd watering usually but have started feeding half as much each watering to keep a more even level of nutes when the plants get pretty big. If you water those in with 1/4 strength until the pots are saturated you shouldn't need to add any more water for a good 2 weeks or more and then just water good once the pots are feeling light. DO NOT add smaller amounts of water around the plant even if it's dry 3" down unless the pots feel really light then soak it good.

You have to consider the size of plant and the size of pot. A small plant in a big pot can go weeks without water or nutes but the reverse is true for a larger plant in a smaller pot. That might need water every day and food every 2nd watering to stay healthy. I got some going like that right now. The weather is cooling down soon so they won't be drinking so much but need bigger pots too. Was gifting 4 of them to a buddy but found a couple thrips so spraying for that once or twice more before handing them over. Two of the same got put into 4gal pots on July 29th and I just watered them last night for the first time since. I might have fed them too much as well but we'll see. I want to put them into flower in a week or so.

Good luck!

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OldMedUser said:

A more polite description of KISS is Keep It Simple Stoner!

I doubt you've locked anything out yet and this early you're not having any real deficiencies. Shit like that happens later on when the soil is getting depleted and possibly hard water has driven the pH up over 7.5 and then it's most likely that immobile micronutrients will be the first to get locked out.

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