light color seedlings

Hi Everyone !

I'm first week into my first growth thus I would like to hear your opinions on what to my experienced eye appear to be pale seedlings.
I have 4 power flower and 1 critical seedling planted in 7 gallon pots under 400 watt hps, which is placed about 1 meter above the plants and is running on 18/6 schedule. They are being watered twice a day with regular tap water and the temperature in the tent is maintained at around 20-25*C. No nutrients were added yet.

First 3 days after the germination the growth was fast and everything seemed ok. Now the growth has slowed down and the leaves appear to be light green. Should I start feeding them with any nutrients or adjust any of the details mentioned above ? Any advice is highly appreciated. Below you can see a pis of one of the seedlings and nutrients I have at my disposal.

Additionally, I would like to know your opinion of having a mixture of power flower (sativa dominant ) and critical (indica dominant) plants in the same tent.

Thanks !

A seedling in a 7 gallon pot being watered twice a day would be the problem, not sure there is a fix for that ?

If you overwater a plant it won't be able to uptake Nitrogen and the roots can't get oxygen and the plant starts to yellow. Don't nutrient it. My guess would be to let the soil dry out quite a bit, check with your finger at least an inch or two down, then start off watering it again slowly. Small amounts of water at first, like a shot glass or two, then increase the amount of water over the next couple waterings until your back to normal. Sounds tedious but it will give the little guy a chance.

Don't water twice a day. Once every 3 or 4 days while they're really young at the most. In a big pot you will need to be careful with the amount of water you apply until the root system is established and the plant is bigger.

it would be a risky transplant this young. but ya, i agree w both of the above. next time start way smaller. id probably water it in with about a cup and a half in a circle around the sprout so you get dampness to get to the sprout without damping off the stem. also if thats soiless like promix or sunshine, id give it a tiny amount of nutes. theres no nutrients in soiless, like zero. if its organic dirt theres some, better yet in soiless if you could give it some root stimulator you'd probably see it improve, something like rizotonic will work wonders.

Thanks a lot to all 3 of you. I have probably over watered them, so I'm waiting for the soil to dry out and from there I will follow your advice on watering. I could move them to smaller pots or cups if necessary but I guess it's too risky at this stage, will know better next time.

Today I've noticed a little growth but the stems seem to be too weak to carry the leaves. A semi-experienced friend of mine told me it's due to the lamps being too high, which is causing them to grow too tall, so I've lowered the light a little bit. Now it's about 60 cm away form the plants. I've also installed a fan to simulate an air flow to get the stems stronger. The color remains light green. No nutrients were fed. They were planted in an organic dirt mix.

Should I let the fan run at all time or schedule it? it's a rather small weak fan.
When is the right time to feed them nutrients for the first time?

All the seedlings are falling flat on their faces now. They look very pale and weak. I had to turn the fan off as they couldn't withstand any air flow without falling down. The soil is drying up slowly, however I can still feel some moist when I stick my finger in. No water or nutrients were supplied. Is there any way I can salvage them?

Yes! You can do it. Throw some lighter soil on them and bury the stems up to the leaves so that the leaves do not touch the soil. Treat them like clones. Spray ph'd water until the roots get settled in, and then start feeding and watering.

They will pop back and recover, very possible. U can prop em with a small stick if u want. I would have some airflow just not on them directly at all.

what kind of soil? besides overwatering, u sure they arent getting cooked?

Also that seedling pic looks stretched too much. U can put some new soil on top and mound it around the stem. It will also draw some moisture out doing that. Just don't pack the soil hardly on top if u do.

Thanks a lot guys. I will do my best to save these little guys, they are very meaningful to me. The soil is a regular organic dirt mix from a grow shop, don't think that's the problem. I've certainly made some rookie mistakes; having the lamp hanging too high, overwatering and a lack of fan in the first few days are now biting me in the ass.

The color looks darker now, but certainly not healthy yet. The growth has slowed down to almost nothing. Stems are very weak, they tip over immediately without supporting sticks.

I'm keeping the 400 watt hps lamp about 50 cm (20 inch) away from them. I move the pots around so each plant gets even exposure to light. The light schedule remains on 18/6. The soil is almost dried up. A small fan is gently blowing on them at least 12 hours a day. No water supplied in two days, no nutrients were fed yet.

I'm gonna gently sprinkle some new soil on top of them to cover a big part of that stretched out them, and water them in very small doses as you guys advised. I can't wait for them to recover.

Thanks.

Sounds good. Back on track for sure. I had to fix my mistakes too. Good wishes to our plants.

warble said:

Yes! You can do it. Throw some lighter soil on them and bury the stems up to the leaves so that the leaves do not touch the soil. Treat them like clones. Spray ph'd water until the roots get settled in, and then start feeding and watering.

Click to expand...

Do what Warbler said ! Peace

I've let the soil dry up and thrown some new soil around the stem per your advice. They are already showing some signs of recovery and growth. Thanks a lot guys !!!

However they are still not fully recovered and some kind of deficiency is still present. I only gave them a cup of tap water of about 7 PH value recently after 3 days of no watering. So I guess it's a lack of water, but I'm not sure. No nutrients were fed.

What do you think?

They'll still act a little wonky at first.. watch the new growth and see if it's coming healthy. The defeciency is probably nitrogen. They're getting their processes started again. If they look better now it's probably best to be patient with the watering. Give it 2 or 3 more days like u did and probably give em 2 cups next time or a normal watering even would probably be fine. They look much better and I don't see anything wrong. Stick your finger in the soil an inch or two to check for dampness if your worried it wasn't enough water but I'm guessing that's not the case.

Thanks Fease !

Yes, the new growth looks very healthy. I guess the damage on the leaves was caused by too much airflow. I've adjusted the fan so It doesn't blow directly on them. Done many mistakes, but I'm learning every day and enjoying the process. I'm being patient with the watering per your advice and letting them fully recover. When do you think is the right time to start feeding them nutrients, considering I've added a lot of new soil just few days ago?

What kind of soil is it? You can add nutes to try and boost growth the watering after the next(a few drops of root booster won't hurt the next watering, like 1/4 strength or less, unnecessary though) but most soil has enough nutrients for 3 weeks and growth will stay pretty steady and nice. ....and LOL MISTAKES. Gawd, I still overwatered my 2nd set of seedlings after "learning" from the first haha. Just transplanted the little guys. Roots balls weren't big enough to upcan so I shocked em a little, waiting for a recover :/

Hey Fease !
The soil I'm giving them is called grow mix by company called Plagron. It should provide my plans with all the nuts they need. However, tomorrow I'm planning on giving them their first tiny dosage of general organics, biothrive - bloom. Unfortunately that's all I have the atm. But I also heard that's all I really need.

Mine are now pumping out the 4th set of nodes, so I'll be topping the next one that comes out. Hope it works out well. I'll probably just do 1 plant at first and see the reaction.

How are your little fellas doing?

Id advise starting with CFLs on seedlings. Then you can keep them within 1" and keep the plants from stretching, to build stem growth. I kept mine under CFLs in veg, then move to HPS to flower. Any if anything you should get MH bulb for veg.

Yo!,

That's cool, I'm going to update my cheesy titled grow journal soon. Here's the link:
https://www.rollitup.org/t/lucy-and-the-search-for-cbd-first-grow-wild-times-fun-times.855241/
I'm going to update it tomorrow or the next day as the plants have and are growing alot.

Cool, a new soil I haven't heard of I'm using roots 707 organic in smart pots. I also have that same bloom nute. Idk if I need it, I just bought it the first time I went shopping when I was kind of confused about how much stuff there is out there lol. Even following some guys simple blurb guide on the soil I was like wth, so much product. Also got roots organic buddha grow 2-0.25-1.5, some free root 1-1-1 stuff I got, and CalMag 2-0-0(which is the only one the guide calls for at first). I've used tiny doses of Cal mag once, root stuff twice, and buddha stuff once, randomly by themselves and together at 1/4 strength or less. I water plain in between uses.

I was going to top and then I read about LST which sounds cool. This La Confidential CBD cross I have is a slow grower in the first place; I would try both if I wanted the biggest hugest yield. I'm going to LST once and flower pretty soon after. I'll probably LST two plants first to see what they do heh

I will say, plants need N, from soil or nutes. probably wouldn't go heavy on the bloom stuff at all just cuz it's technically a little unbalanced for the plant especially before flower. Idk though who knows, maybe it is all you need. And the plants will tell us that.