Is my growth stunted?

I'm a first time grower and searched the forum for stunted growth threads, though none of them seem to match my particular issue. At least not at the stage of growth I'm at.

I'm going on day 14 and the growth of my plant is still stuck on it's second set of leaves. I'm not sure what the deal is. One plant is yellowing at the edges of the leaves. The other plant is drooping. Meaning the leaves aren't arched slightly upward toward the light.

I have 6 plants right now that. 2 that are 14 days old (mentioned above) and 4 that have just sprouted their first set of leaves (day 2 after taking them from germination to soil).

The first 2 just don't seem to be growing. I've seen pictures with lots of foliage around day 16. However my plant doesn't seem to be growing at all, but at the same time it's not dying either.

Here are some pictures of one of the plants. It will show the yellowing edges and the very small amount of growth. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Also a quick rundown of the setup:

2 shelf system.
2 ballasts w/ 4 40watt cool white lights.
Lights are on 24hours a day.
Water about once every 2 days or so. using minimal water but watering directly where I see the stem go into the ground.
Unfertilized potting soil mixed with perlite. I mixed them both myself about an 80/20 mix.
Been watering them with distilled water up till this point.

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9743/plant2qf2.jpg
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/9743/plant1gx1.jpg

edit: note that these are only 4 inch pots. Just so you get an idea of size. Thanks.

the second link on that was bad. Use this one instead

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/2669/plant1bk7.jpg

it looks fine, how often you watering? ur not addin nutes or anything rite?

no nutrients, I know you're supposed to give it a month before giving nutrients.

I water it about once every 2 days.. I probably give each plant 1/3 of a cup of water every 2 days. My concern is that 1, this particular plant is getting yellow edges, and 2 that growth has stopped completely.

How do I check for that. I checked the roots and they're still strong. The plant doesn't fall over if I dig below where the root meets the stem.

I'm going to give it 4 days between watering and see if maybe it is getting too much water and that's why the edges are yellowing.

As far as the growth. Considering that's a 4 inch pot and this is day 14 don't you think my leave should be a bit larger and maybe a third set branching out somewhere?

I need a ph meter. I'll probably go pick one up this friday and see what the ph of my the distilled water is and the soil. They just started off growing incredibly fast and then just came to a strong halt. Compared to people's week 3 or week 4 pictures.. my plant looks really really far off and I'm concerned and want to correct my problem for future knowledge.

Bro I am sort of in the same boat. But yours is off the hook stunted. Check out my thread I just started "Whats up with this Plant" That one is like 20 days. Doesnt sound like you are over watering. Different strains grow different. I think I am experiencing that. My first hydro grow was with some freebies NLX and they took off like a bolt and never looked back. The grow was worry free but this one is making me wonder "WTF" All you can really do is try things like you said backing off the water a bit and see what happens. This is a science and practice is the key I have learned. Yeah we all want the dank dookie buds our 1st and 2nd grows but sometimes it just doesnt turn out that way. School of hard knocks! I will keep an eye on your thread as ours are somewhat similiar!

Peace

yeah I saw your thread, but mine was so stunted I figured our problems were different. I would love my plant to look like yours right now.

I'm hoping the other 4 come out ok. In the meantime I've started germinating 15 more seeds as I seem to be having problems, and I'm sure I'll encounter more plants that i might have to toss in the process. Better for me to have more than less. These are all bag seeds btw. I didn't want to mess up on good seeds or clones my first time growing.

Also I don't have a fan blowing in there, but I figured these plants are at such an early stage they don't need one blowing right now. Am I wrong? Could lack of flowing air be stunting my plants?

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction or just have a flat out simple answer for this.

Yeah bro you need to get some air movement regardless of age. Ventalation is very important too. Fresh air from outside would be idea using a duct system but that doesnt always permit so you have to use fans but definitly get some air movement by your plants. Im going to just stick it out with this one and dial in on it. I couldnt keep tabs on multiple plants especially if several are exhibiting problems. Doing what your doing is the numbers game win some lose some but nonetheless good idea using schwaaaag instead of the Sweet Beans. I am growing some beans I got from the Netherlands so I am hoping for the best if I lose then I will just plant another bean. I think I am just paranoid about thinking something is wrong when its probably something minor and it will turn out just fine. We will see.

Best of luck!

use no nutes yet. or if its liquid nutes use about 1/5th the reg. dose.

id check ph, since thats usually the main cause in growth problems that arent due to impatience

just let them grow. its called weed for a reason, and will usually be better off with too little attention then with too much

Update:

Been reading alot on this forum, and I've read elsewhere that it's ok to use foil as long as you use the dull side out. I'm going to take it off on advice of the next post or 2, but for the mean time it's staying on. There is no heat problem in that room. I don't have a temp guage in there or anything but it feels about the same ambient tempature in the rest of my house.

The room is in a closet 2' depth x 9' Height x 10-12' width. I have it setup on a 2 shelf system right now. Lower shelf to get seedlings started and veg. Top will be used for flowering.

Later I'm going to divide the closet in half somehow. Maybe using black out cloth in the middle or something. Eventually the bottom shelf will be used for clones, the top shelf will be used for veg and the divided room will be for flowering.

I still haven't decided where to put the mother, but this is all at least 2 months in the future from now. I'll worry about it in a few weeks.

I'll post pictures of the room it's currently in. The blower or something for the A/C unit for the apartment (Central air) is in my closet
so it stays pretty close to ambient temp in that room (comparitively to the rest of the house). I keep the apartment about 75-80.

I'll get pics up soon and you can tell me what you think about the foil.

tin foil? on the walss as reflectors or over the soil?

dont cover the soil, its stupid, pointless, and could starve it of oxygen

on the walls. I figured the soil still needed air flowing over it of some sort.

Again, dull side of the aluminum foil is facing the plants. Soil is not covered.

Ok. Plant that I showed the picture of is looking better. It's standing further straight (leaves pointed even more upwards) Yellowing seems to have stopped, and I think it may have grown 1-2mm. I don't know for sure because I didn't measure it before, but even a little growth is good growth.

My other plant that's having problems is still drooping really bad. Leaves are dark green and lush looking (still only 2 sets of leaves). To be fair I kept watering this plant on the schedule I had going (once every other day). I did this so that way I would know for sure that it was the watering (watch one get worse, watch one get better).

I will leave the main plant completely dry for a day or two. I suspect there's still some moisture in there (going to buy a few meters and a soil test kit today).


I also had an idea. If you look at my pictures below that's my current setup. You can't tell from the pic, but the shelf is about 6 feet across. The lower shelf is 2 feet high. The upper shelf can go all the way up to the ceiling if needed.

If you look at the picture you'll see 2 ballasts with 2 40 watt cool lights in them each.. 160watts of light. I also have a third ballast that I have not hung because it just didn't fit in the lower shelf.

What I was thinking of was drilling a small hole on the side of the ballast (there's a lip that curves out to the side similar to a reflector) and hanging the ballast side ways to face the plants. Then I can use my third ballast to do the same on the other side of the plant.. effectively hitting it with light from 3 directions.

I know I'll only be able to do this for a short amount of time, Until the side leaves grow out to be < 1" away from the lights, but my idea is that this would kind of act as a sort of LST without having to tie it down all the time.

Really my concern is using fluorescents and the lumen output, but for me heat is an issue I'm trying to avoid since the closet is in such a small space and it would be hard to vent so I can't get MH (when combine with HPS I will use for flowering the heat may be too much for me to control cost effectively). Currently there's 6400 lumens shining from the 4 40watt lights (by my calculations). And it's not direct light, only 3200 of that is direct.

By my calculations 160watts of flouro's put out aboe sideways that would be 9600 lumens hitting the plants directly. Still not alot I know, but it's better than nothing at all. Sort've like an LST but without having to actually tie anything down?

Thoughts on this?




http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6069/img2311ql1.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/2262/img2312ej9.jpg

Your lighting is just fine. No need to change it. Keep the lights less than 2" from the plant tops.
Aluminum foil really is kinda pointless in a grow area. If you want to increase light, add mylar emergency blankets, or put up white card or paint.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

Your lighting is just fine. No need to change it. Keep the lights less than 2" from the plant tops.
Aluminum foil really is kinda pointless in a grow area. If you want to increase light, add mylar emergency blankets, or put up white card or paint.

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I keep the light about 1 inch away from the tallest plant top. I am just concerned that since a 150 watt MH would produce about 19000 lumens, that my 160watts of fluoro's aren't making enough light for them at a mere 1/3 of a MH bulb does, a total of 6400 lumens.

I'm going to home depot now actually. I'll see if I can find some Mylar for a good price.

Ok, I think I found the problem.

Bought a few things today. Digital humidity/temp guage. Soil test kit, and moisture meter.

Well the moisture meter I bought was a total piece of crap. I put the thing in a cup of water and it only read level 2 on the guage.. the guage goes up to 4.

That aside. The ph of my soil appears to be about 6.8-7.0. Also I'm letting my thermometer sit in the room for an hour before I take a reading to post up here, but after sitting in there for 10 min the tempature was 77.5F and the humidity was at 55%.

Now the following is where I'm pretty sure my problem lies. I did a nitrogen test just to be sure. Even though my bag of potting soil didn't have any nutrients listed on the bag.

Well this test doesn't tell me the actual amount of nitrogen in there but it appears to be between "Nitrogen Adequate" and "Nitrogen Deficient" which means that there are some nutes in this soil.

Again I did not add these nutrients. Are these plants too young to be transplanted into new soil/plants?

Does anyone have a particular brand they'd like to recommend that I can just go pick up at Home Depot/Lowes/Walmart?

Thanks.

Temp/Humidity guage has been in the room for over an hour. Final Temperature in there is 82F and 43% humidity.

Ok, I want to transplant these plants, but I don't want any of the soil to go with them. I want to put them in fresh soil that I've PH tested and NPK tested. I've read the transplant threads on here but they all seem to be about transplanting while keeping the soil around the roots.

How would I go about it if I wanted to get rid of the soil around my roots. I was thinking about doing it in a dark room, with room tempature PH balanced water and picking most of it off (roots can't be that large yet) and using the water to wash off the rest... Then using the rest of the steps from the "Stress Less Tranplanting" thread with the rooting hormone and super thrive, Using water to fill the dirt in around the roots.

Again all this in the dark with as little air movement as possible.

Does this sound feasible. I'm about to head out in the freezing rain to attempt to find some nute free soil.

I just found the real nursery around here that is worth a damn, hopefully they'll have something good there for me.

Any input on transfering a plant while removing the existing soil would be appreciated.

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Ok, I want to transplant these plants, but I don't want any of the soil to go with them. I want to put them in fresh soil that I've PH tested and NPK tested. I've read the transplant threads on here but they all seem to be about transplanting while keeping the soil around the roots.

How would I go about it if I wanted to get rid of the soil around my roots. I was thinking about doing it in a dark room, with room tempature PH balanced water and picking most of it off (roots can't be that large yet) and using the water to wash off the rest... Then using the rest of the steps from the "Stress Less Tranplanting" thread with the rooting hormone and super thrive, Using water to fill the dirt in around the roots.

Again all this in the dark with as little air movement as possible.

Does this sound feasible. I'm about to head out in the freezing rain to attempt to find some nute free soil.

I just found the real nursery around here that is worth a damn, hopefully they'll have something good there for me.

Any input on transfering a plant while removing the existing soil would be appreciated.

Thanks

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You will probably kill the plants doing this. You would be much better off just flushing the pot. You need to get something to test the pH of your water - a pH meter, liquid test kit or litmus paper - then properly pH the water then water with 3x the volume of your pot. As the last of your flushing water is draining from your pot, save some and test the pH of the runoff.

When you get back to normal watering, don't water around the base of the plant. Water a few inches away from the plant - make your roots grow to get the water they need. Next time you grow, start your seeds in smaller cups. Then, when you water, let the soil dry more in between waterings. The top soil will dry first and so the roots will have to grow to chase the water. Starting in a smaller cup is not absolutely necessary and some people use only one pot all the way through the grow. But something just isn't right with the way you are doing things, so you might as well get a little more basic and eliminate any problems you can until you figure out exactly what it is you're doing wrong.

PC :smokin:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PharmaCan

You will probably kill the plants doing this. You would be much better off just flushing the pot. You need to get something to test the pH of your water - a pH meter, liquid test kit or litmus paper - then properly pH the water then water with 3x the volume of your pot. As the last of your flushing water is draining from your pot, save some and test the pH of the runoff.

When you get back to normal watering, don't water around the base of the plant. Water a few inches away from the plant - make your roots grow to get the water they need. Next time you grow, start your seeds in smaller cups. Then, when you water, let the soil dry more in between waterings. The top soil will dry first and so the roots will have to grow to chase the water. Starting in a smaller cup is not absolutely necessary and some people use only one pot all the way through the grow. But something just isn't right with the way you are doing things, so you might as well get a little more basic and eliminate any problems you can until you figure out exactly what it is you're doing wrong.

PC :smokin:

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I've already ph tested everything, as well as nute tested everything.

The new soil I got is about ph 6.8 with no nutes in it.

The ph of my water is about 6.8-7.0.

I will begin flushing the old pots as you suggested. Going to search the forums to see the proper way of doing that.

Thanks. I would've killed these plants otherwise

I'm fairly confident now that a number of my plants are going to meet their inevitable death. So incase anyone is interested... I'm 99% sure that the problem is the soil.

These plants started off super fast.. had it's second node of leave by like the 4th day.. then everything halted.

I'm hoping the new soil will grow better. I'll keep everyone updated just incase someone searches the forums and finds this thread later in the future. Not that it probably hasn't been covered alot, but It never hurts.

do you know wat the ph is?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OLDJIMMYBONES

do you know wat the ph is?

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It was 6.8. The problem was that there was nutes in the soil even though I was told there were no nutes in the soil.

Plants started out really fast.. and then just stopped growing all together.

Hopefully the seedlings I put in the new soil wont stop growing.
We'll see.

its probbly some ph issues...try to lower slightly and see if you can bump up the humidity a little, these girls wanna get sweaty

Quote:

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Originally Posted by klondike_bar

its probbly some ph issues...try to lower slightly and see if you can bump up the humidity a little, these girls wanna get sweaty

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Why would I lower the ph when it should be fine. 6.8 is fine for soil from everything I've read on this forum and others.

Secondly, why would I bump the ph when I know the soil was loaded with nutes and my first plant showed signs of nitrogen burn (all of this in restrospect of realizing my soil did indeed have nutes in it). If I change too much at once I won't know how I fixed it. I the soil for nutes with a test kit.

Humidity stays around 40% or so, which should be plenty and it wouldn't explain the stunted growth.

I've already flushed the soil; Which shocked the plants which were already in shock from the nute burn. So far they're really droopy and just don't seem to be bouncing back. I'm fairly confident one of them is already dead. I'm back to regular watering now and am trying to use super thrive and a little rooting hormone mixed in with the water to help them recover. So far no luck. I think it was just too much stress for them.

I've already counted these plants as goners but am going to hold on to them until they just wither away completely. See if I can learn something more from this expierence.

well, im thinkin its a ph issue and so does klondike_bar, and if there are dying anyway i would make a little ph down adjustment. prity sure thats your prob

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OLDJIMMYBONES

well, im thinkin its a ph issue and so does klondike_bar, and if there are dying anyway i would make a little ph down adjustment. prity sure thats your prob

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You're right, they are dying so I guess it doesn't make a difference. I just think I got to them too late. They've basically been sitting in nuted soil for 3 weeks.

Any suggestion on how far down I should adjust it. It seems most people have been adjusting their soil to about 6.8 or so; which is where mine is at right now.

anywhere from 5.8 to 6.6ph is good. use something acidic to drop it slightly (add some lemon juice to watering as a lowtech method)

i would try a 6.4, and btw i had some really fucked up plants from ph probs and revived them

I couldn't find any dolemite lime to lower the PH so I'm going to use the low tech method Klondike suggested. I'm hesitant to drop it below 6.4 so I will probably drop it to exactly 6.4 and watch it from there.

I also went ahead and swapped out my flouro's.. I was usin t12 lights which I've found out suck really bad. I've replaced them with CFL's and will contemplate swaping out for high output t5's in the future.

For now I have 8 23 watt 1500 Lumen Bright White bulbs and 2 30 watt 2000 Lumen Bright Whites.

Total Lumens is 16000 over a 15" x 15" area. I still need to isolate it better now that I'm using a smaller space.

Here are some pictures; How much better is this setup over the 4 40watt T12's I had going?

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7845/img2313fb1.jpg

It defintely burns my eyes out (it's much brighter than the picture suggests. I turned down the apeture and shutter speed of the camera all the way to be able to take the pic). I have to go in there with sunglasses on now. If I had a reflector or something it wouldn't hurt my eyes so much.

Anyone have any good ideas on how I can make a reflector for this? I already got creative with how to actually hang and mount the lights. Now need ideas for a reflector.

And anything else I can use aside from Lemon or dolemite lime to lower the PH in the soil?

the only good this to use as reflectors is those solar emergency blankets

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OLDJIMMYBONES

the only good this to use as reflectors is those solar emergency blankets

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Aren't those the same as just Mylar Sheets. Are they more rigid so they keep their shape easier?

If not then I'll just use Mylar and cardboard I guess to build a ghetto reflector.

Do you think this was money wasted, going from T-12 to the CFLs? Watt usage is the same, just more lumens concentrated over a smaller space.

Total Cost was about $70.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by daihashi

Aren't those the same as just Mylar Sheets. Are they more rigid so they keep their shape easier?

If not then I'll just use Mylar and cardboard I guess to build a ghetto reflector.

Do you think this was money wasted, going from T-12 to the CFLs? Watt usage is the same, just more lumens concentrated over a smaller space.

Total Cost was about $70.

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grr.. think I screwed up again. After more searching I probably should've bought the Daylight bulbs instead of these bright whites. They're not in the optimal color tempature range.

I figured they would be the same as the cool whites, but they're actually only 3500 on the color scale.

Daylights are closer with 5500. Going to see if I can exchange these even though I've opened them :(

Replaced all lights with "daylight" CFL's.. Lumens are lower though, only 13000, but this is spread out over a 15" x 15" area.

I plan on buying some mylar (saw some at the hydro store for 19 bucks.. massive roll) and make a reflector as well as completely enclose the 15"x15" area to make sure I'm getting the most out of my light.

Estimated Lumen output is 13000 now instead of 16000, estimated color is 6000-6500. Luckily home depot took back the open packaged lights and let me exchange them.

These lights are pretty blue. Going to search the forums to see how close to keep cfl's to plant tops, but if someone wants to post a quick reply I'd appreciate it.

they are the same as mylar