Many weeks, sooo tiny

I have 3 plants that I started about 4 weeks ago. They started in soil, under cfl's, in the attic, yada yada bad conditions to the hilt, but they are now in a perfect fog system. They grow very little each day, hardly any new roots and now that they have been in a most very ideal environment for over a week now, they are barely 1/4 inch taller. I must have stunted them severely or something, what with all my learning curve shanigans and such. Currently they are this environment:

pure fog 24 hours
500 ppm
5.8 to 6.8 ph
600 MH 18/6 timer with panda film
temps differ slightly but are in the ranges of 69 to 77. Hard to keep the temp steady in their current spot but its well insulated and ventilated.

I have talked to dozens of people trying to figure out what's wrong with my system, but it's obviously the plants that are damaged. Oh, I forgot that I put a hydrgrow something or another for the roots. The guy at the store said to just dump about 50ml's in my res which is about 20gal at the moment. He said I should see something very cool in a matter of 24 hours and guess what, it's been 24 hours! Gosh darn plants!@@!

The roots just look so terrible to me. Very thin DRY strands that don't look like they could feed a pea pod let alone anything else.

There is new growth up top, but the leaves don't get that big, maybe an inch at best and now there are maybe 6 to 12 leaves all so very tiny, bless their heart.

Tell me what to do plz. Oh, and in a few days I should have some more seeds sprouted so that should tell me for sure whether I have a system issue or those plants were focked because I was a poor daddy.

Hommie you got the basics down, well for hydro atleast. Im hoping for the pics so you could show us. But look depending weather it sativa or idnica growth take time b4 it busts out

Prodaytrader,

Photos would be great!! But if you are getting new growth, I wouldn't worry too much.

It just takes time :)

Good luck :thumbsup:

I have a pic of the room. It's nearly at 100% finished state. I have not installed an intake vent yet so in the mean time I just leave the front door cracked to allow the exit vent to work properly. Now I fully understand that the plants show conflicting issues since at this point they are about a month old. The very first leaves at finally about to fall off. The plants lived in a pretty bad environment for the first 3 weeks or so, but they managed to stay alive long enough for me to get them into their current home which is the first pic. They have been in this room for the past 10 days now.

Today for the first time I am starting to see new roots poke through the hydroton. They look nothing like the roots as seen in the 2nd pic below. You can see in the 2nd pic those long thin roots. They are bunched together and look like a single root in the pic but in reality there are 4 or 5 thin roots bunched. Also in the second pic you can barely see the start of a new healthier root starting to take hold. The longest roots were possibly soil roots, which might be different then hydro roots??? They were much thinner and stringy looking compared to the roots starting to poke out that are fatter and thicker, maybe 1/16" wide for the old ones and 1/4" for the newer ones. It's obvious to me that what I thought were healthy roots were not. As someone pointed out, I continue to see new growth on top especially where the old brown leaves are falling off. At the stalk, on either side of the leaf stem, there are two tiny leafs poking through. This is the same on all plants and on all the lowest leafs that are falling off. This is in addition to all the new green leafs up top, even though they are so tiny. Did I create a Bonzi or something by accident?

For reference purposes, I stuck a Pansie (front right) from my wife's garden in one of the net baskets to get an idea of how it would do.

Some of the things you cant see in the pic:
1) there is a tiny 5 volt fan hanging under the front left net basket to provide additional fog movement
2) 2 x 18" bubblers / 3 head aeromist fogger in res
3) 2 x timer's just above the hood that are for the fogger and light
4) the 4" aluminum duct runs through the attic and connects to a 4" vortex fan.
5) the door is opened at the moment, but it will seal the room shut, pretty flush with the front of the res and it (the door) is insulated and lined with panda as well.

Should I just keep on keeping on and see what happens or what? I believe that at this point I am confident in saying that the roots are getting proper moisture at least during the day. I'm still having issues with my timer though as it had a light sensor on it and when the light turned off it would only run the fogger for 9 seconds before turning back off for at least 5 minutes. I only discovered that last night. For a while I wasn't so sure that the roots were getting enough fog, but I think I have that licked now.

dude..... those plants are underwatered severly.... you need to filll that res more (till the water hits the nets pots almost for now... (drop water level as roots grow.)

you dont need a fogger.. lose it as its a very advanced form of hydro. (because it atomizes water and air much better .. nute feeding must be on par and perfect or you will swing those plants to death.)

set your thing up as a DWC unit with airpump for aeration. that growth is just makin me sad..

Your plants aren't growing because they are being burned alive. You should be feeding only water for about the first 2-3 weeks of growth from seed. And even then I would start lower than 500 PPM. Switch to clean water only and let them recover for a week or two. Also, lower your pH to around 5.5, and try to keep it under 5.9 and over 5.2.

ohhhhh....see I didn't know about water only for the first few weeks. Well the good news is that tonight I see a lot more root growth then ever before. There are now 2 or 3 new roots poking out the bottom, but then again I think they are getting much more water then they have been. My PPM's keep lowering as I continue to get the solution right, the timer has been fixed and is now fogging correctly and I have a new fan in there. I check them about 10 times a day and at no point over the last few days have I seen the roots dry which is good news. Additionally the root hormone has been on for 2/3 days which is probably helping as well. They may pop yet.

Thanks for the DWC tips but it's fog or aero for me right now.

Using fog and aero means your going to need to know a lot about feeding schedules, and nute strength. he suggest doing something easier because u don't seem to have much knowledge on nute strength, something that is going to play a huge role in the technique u would like to use. Trust me, it can be a challenge all in its own doing it the easy way, doing it the hard way will not only waste your time and produce, but your not likely to learn much about your mistakes, unless you understand and correct what your doing, but i would get good growing the conventional way, and then switch to something advanced.

Just switch to pure water until growth normalizes, and choose whatever method you want. Fogging may be harder than DWC for beginners, but if you wanna do it more power to you. There is a learning curve no matter what method you choose.