Is my growth stunted?

[daihashi]

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.

[OLDJIMMYBONES]

do you know wat the ph is?

[daihashi]

do you know wat the ph is?

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.

[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

[daihashi]

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

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.

[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

[daihashi]

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

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.

[klondike_bar]

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)

[OLDJIMMYBONES]

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

[daihashi]

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?