kids are sick ...

[dubble-oh]

The kids are about two weeks old now and they're looking a little wilted.

About their home:
- DWC bubbler (4 x 6" airstones)
- 6 x T8 fluorescent lights (warm and cool mix)
- nutes: General Hydroponics flora series mixed to the correct ratio (or so I believe) for seedlings
- pH is at 6.0
- room temp is 75

They took off like crazy when they were put in but the leaves are looking a bit unhappy of late.
Any thoughts? Would peroxide help?
Thanks in advance!

dubble-oh Reviewed by dubble-oh on 10-03-2006. kids are sick ... The kids are about two weeks old now and they're looking a little wilted. About their home: - DWC bubbler (4 x 6" airstones) - 6 x T8 fluorescent lights (warm and cool mix) - nutes: General Hydroponics flora series mixed to the correct ratio (or so I believe) for seedlings - pH is at 6.0 - room temp is 75 They took off like crazy when they were put in but the leaves are looking a bit unhappy of late. Rating: 5

[Tommygirl]

Well, the ph is a little high for hydro. You wanna keep it between 5.6 and 5.8. I'm not really sure what you're problem is because there are so many things that could cause leaves to wilt. Try adjusting your ph down a little and see if that helps. It might be something as simple as them not getting quite enough of some nutrient or other because of the ph being a skoash too high.

About your lights. How many watts do you have? You need a bare minimum of 35w per square foot, and 50w would be a lot better. How close do you have them from the tops of the plants? Those little guys look a bit stretched to me. Being florecents they ought to be about 2 inches from them to keep the plants from stretching.

[dubble-oh]

thanks for the comments:
- you noted correctly that the lights were a little far away. I set them up and went away for a week ... when I came back I noted the stretch (didn't expect them to grow so fast!) but I fixed the height a couple of days ago (about 2" away now) so hopefully that'll help stop the stretch
- the bulbs are 34 w each
- I'll drop the ph a little and see if that helps.
cheers!

[Weedhound]

Are you spraying anything on them? They do look droopy. I let the ph of my hydro climb to 6.2 before I do anything to change it so I don't see that being the problem being only 0.2 off. Did they droop before you went away and still grow or just droop lately? Are they still growing now?

[dubble-oh]

The kids seem to be doing a bit better... I didn't finish up adjusting the ph, but I did put them in a new nutrient solution. If they don't continue to improve I'll look into lowering the ph a bit.

Growth is still occurring.

I haven't been spraying them at all. They have fairly good roots dangling into the nutes and I'm sure they're getting "enough" nutes through the them.
I had never noted that sort of droop before (previously I had been a dirt farmer) and the wilt looked a lot like they were thirsty which really can't be the case.
I'll post a couple of pix later.
Peace everyone.