seedlings weak spindly stems

I've been having problems with my seedlings. the stems always get spindly after a while, it's like something sucked the juice out of the stems and they end up falling over.

if it stretches too much i sometimes replant them

I was thinking it could be the substrate? (60/40 coco-perlite)

maybe ants?





saw a thread about damping off. is it correct?

doesn't look far enough down... try using a jiffy pop or some rapid rooters

vostok said:

I suspect way too much red light, add some cool whit light
study up kelvin, balance you light colors
and remember

More blue- shorter with tight inter-nodes

More red- taller with longer inter-nodes

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oh, this lil one is by my windowsill, so it's getting sunlight. sorry for the confusion

I think its stretching for light, to no avail. I just had one similar that I threw away. it was way humid and died after I took from a community pot. I think you are right with damping off. im still fairly new tho

I have issues too with those fragile seedlings. The bluer lights helps and I try to water from the bottom. To me this is the worse time getting the little fuckers going. Mine fall over too so I use a bent paper clip to hold them up. Some times I'll add more soil (dry) and keep the plant digging for moisture. I hardly ever water from the top unless it's really dried out.

Either your soil is too wet or you have gnat larvae eating the stem.

okay, thanks guys. i've never encountered this problem before. i mostly think it's the new substrate coco perlite and im not used to it yet. :/

I'm using aqua flakes a and b. i feed, wait 4-5 days feed, wait 4-5 days water from top to wash through a little and manage that ppm count against your others. So far so good and you can see what buildup you wash out.
I have a lot of time so I have 4 plants, and I water/feed one each day, rotating them (so i have only 2 drip trays). and end up skipping 1 or 2 days somewhere in there if not dry. coco holds the moisture so the top will stay wet for a while, that's why i bottom feed also.

moonstar45 said:

oh, this lil one is by my windowsill, so it's getting sunlight. sorry for the confusion

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and

greenthumb412 said:

I think its stretching for light, to no avail. I just had one similar that I threw away. it was way humid and died after I took from a community pot. I think you are right with damping off. im still fairly new tho

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This is so obvious even the newbs on this thread get it. Seriously people ask for help, get their answer, then basically say idk afterwards?

moonstar45 said:

okay, thanks guys. i've never encountered this problem before. i mostly think it's the new substrate coco perlite and im not used to it yet. :/

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What a waste of time and energy. I am 99.99999% sure that your window just like everyone elses is not designed specifically for plants and does not let enough light to grow even the second set of true leaves. 1 23 watt cfl will fix your problems for a week and a half at best.

And yes that is damping off. It can still be treated as a cutting/clone though even after "death"

hey I have 2 seedlings now and other than a dome for like 2 days above ground, that's it, no dome and limited air from fan and not too cold