1st timer, week 2 veg, no growth

Hello all. I've been on the board for about 3 months now reading on growing. So I decided to finally try it out. I started with some bag seed (didnt wanna waste money on good seeds and mess up). so I got 4 GE 6500k daylight 100w equiv, 8 inch self watering pots, expert care organic potting soil. I see alot of growers on the board with their seedlings at 2 weeks and their plants are full. Short height and a 4 sets of good leaves. Well my babies are alot taller than everyone's I see. You would definitely say they stretched. Well my babes have been above the soil for 14 days today. I want to start giving them nutes but everyone says for the 5th node. I just want them to grow, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I water every 2 days, making sure to keep the top soil nice and moist. I feel like I'm very behind far as growth. I have no clue what I'm doing wong. Any ideas. Sorry for the pics. My girlfriend broke the lcd on the cam, so I'm just snapping and having no clue what it looks like.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SmokinAce23

I want to start giving them nutes but everyone says for the 5th node. I just want them to grow, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I water every 2 days, making sure to keep the top soil nice and moist.

---

you can start using nutes safely after 3 alternating internodes. that's usually around 2 weeks. i start with 1/4 strength. you are prob. watering too much. let them dry up between watering/feeding. i'd mix 10-20 perlite in that soil too. you seem to be stretching too. move the light closer.

I was having some similiar problems as yours...LESS light too, and letting them dry DEFINETLY helped. Mine sprouted on 11/17 so they are a LIL older than yours. I got my temps down a little, and had to leave town last weekend for a meeting, and I stayed to visit family. I flushed them a little with distilled water(67c a gal), got em all nice and happy looking, left town worried, and came back to MUCH different plants.

They now have like 6 nodes each, lower leaves are getting lighter though...but now I am using just a tad superthrive (like 1/8 or something) and some molasses, and still battling with temp some.

Im kinda wakeNbake rambling, just giving you my personal exp so far...1st grow too.

OH I also added more light before I went out of town...forgot to mention. I have 5 of those same GE bulbs you have, and some 40w Sylvanias...4 of those(?)
The sylvanias seem to be better quality...

Overwatering is the main problem- get them out of those self-watering pots and let them dry out! I learned that lesson myself. Get the lights as close as possible to your babies- don't make them stretch!

Thanks guys, I'm gonna ease off the water a little bit and see what happens. When I saw these self watering pots, I thought of the hempy bucket method. I was gonna go for the perlite/vermiculite mix but ended up going soil. Thanks for all your help