First grow and my seedlings are lookin unhealthy and I cannot figure out what it is... *(FIXED IMAGE

[Nam80232]

Your a treasure trove of info yw! Best canna site EVER! You killed it. Holy Moly

 

[Animatey]

Hello my friend, I hope after your issue is resolved you stick around and stay! Welcome to AFN! Thank you for taking the time to fill out the form! That's awesome and makes this a lot easier!!

Let's start off by saying that autos have a time sensitive veg period, there's not often a "bounce back" - there's a very small chance thees plants are going to get very large at all now being ~14-16 days old (18 days from seed), but if you have any chance of a bounce back it's going to be in a hydro set-up.

The plants are hungry. In hempy, you usually want to give a light feed as soon as the seed starter cubes are put in. I usually do around 100-150PPM as soon as I transplant into my Hempy. At the very least, CalMag that's nitrogen based. This gives the plant calcium, magnesium and nitrogen which are essential to getting it started. If you don't have CalMag use dechlorinated tap water with a touch of Lucas.

You're feeding with an automatic lockout pH of 5.5, this is too low. 5.8 is the sweet spot for Hempy and you can fluctuate up to 6.2 and still get good nutrient absorption. 5.5 though, is too low. While most of your nutrients can still be absorbed this is at the low end of the spectrum.. so it's not ideal.

You're using distilled water. This water has all trace minerals removed from it and isn't it a good choice if you're going to use "just plain water". You'd of had better results using dechlorinated tap because it has some trace minerals in it. You see that huge rusty spot on the leaf? That's the plant trying to absorb calcium that isn't available in the root zone. Distilled water needs nutrients added to it in hydro applications, from day one.

Did you soak your rockwool to 5.8-6.0 pH? You say they were sick prior to moving them.

They look a bit over watered as well (droopy, crinkled) - when you water, are you letting the water run out of the reservoir hole every time? This is not necessary, you just need to water until you feel that they're "heavier" than they were. If you've watered before they were ready and watered to the reservoir drain.. then they're definitely a little soaked down there.

It will take a few days for them to "perk back up" especially if your root zone is saturated right now. While Hempy is a passive wick system, the vermiculite does have water retention - so watering before they need it will suffocate the roots some until the water is gone.

6.5pH is too high for Hempy in most conditions.

What is your tap ppm? Do you know?

With all of that said, I offer this resolution to you -

Draw up a nutrient solution that has Calcium, Magnesium and Nitrogen in it - if you do not have these nutrients available, use your tap water - let it sit and air out for 24 hours then add 80-100ppm of Lucas solution on top of your tap waters ppm. Do not water to the reservoir hole but water lightly around the plant, use your judgement - if they're 2L hempys, no more than 4-6oz of water around the stalk of the plant. This puts the nutrients in the root zone but doesn't flood it further.

Try to get the heat up to the mid 80s in your grow room, this will help the plant transpire faster and use up some of the water in the nutrient zone. You said 84 was your high temperature, try to maintain this with lights on for awhile until they perk up a bit.


This image shows you how absorption starts to taper off @ 5.5 a lot more so than 6.0 (5.8 in your situation), I know it sounds crazy but 0.3-0.5 is quite the swing in a hydro application.

First off, thank you very much for the very detailed reply. It is awesome to see a thriving and generous community surrounding something I find highly interesting.

I both appreciate, and will make good use of this info!

I did approximately what you had suggested. I am using Lucas + a little flora gro and I used 1ml/gal of CaliMagic by gen hydro also....
I am not sure if that is enough cal/mag for the feeding, the overall ppm was just over 200.

I did soak the rockwool in 5.5 PH for 30-45 mins before the seeds went int. That is I think why I kept watering with 5.5.

So you are saying that it is best to use some trace nutrients if using distilled water, starting as soon as transplant?
So at what point do you know the plant is ready for transplant?
Could I transplant them as soon as they sprout and the cotyledons are facing the light?

I have heard people say they add a tsp of calimagic to each gallon of water. Would I want to do that even to water the seeds before they germ, or just start adding calmag after they sprout?

Honestly feeding schedules have started to confuse me because I have read mixed information on when a plant is no longer considered a seedling, and when it should be considered in week 1 and week 2 and then on top of that autos are notorious for not liking real high ppm so trying to be careful of that....

My plan was to use 100ppm on week 1 and 200ppm on week 2 etc. increasing 100 until week 5 where I would stop at 500ppm until harvest.
The thing is, I didn't think week 1 was going to happen for a while and I didn't know I would need calimagic when using Lucas.



Also, I have 5 other plants germing right now and a few have sprouted so hopefully I now have this right

Here is my new plan based on this previous failure:

0. Rinse rockwool in 5.5 ph water 0ppm for 30 mins
1. Germ in rockwool and Feed them pure distilled at 5.8-6.2 with 3ml calimagic per gallon
2. Once they hit that second set of leaves on top I will call that week 1 and start at 100ppm (general hydro 3 part) and then proceed as described above adding 100ppm every week
3. The nutrients used will be GH 3 part flora + calimagic with 3ml calimagic used in every gallon of distilled water and the GH 3 part taking up the remaining ppm



As far as my current plants... One of them looks reasonably healthy still. I understand like you said as autos they only have one shot to get the veg phase right, and I think that I have definitely stunted them.
Should I just continue to try my best with them, or like maybe trim off the dead stuff or anything? Or seriously, maybe I should throw them out to make room for plants that I hopefully don't treat so horribly :X ?

Again, thank you so much for the help. It is truly appreciated! I find autoflowers fascinating and this has been an amazing experience so far !

 

[wg]

I typed out a reply and this happened - The webpage at https://www.autoflower.org/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=22870 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

Give me a minute and I'll put another one up, but don't trim anything !!

 

[wg]

First off, thank you very much for the very detailed reply. It is awesome to see a thriving and generous community surrounding something I find highly interesting.

This is one of the best (yes I'm a bit biased) cannabis cultivation forums I've ever been a part of. It's great here! I really hope you stick around.

I did approximately what you had suggested. I am using Lucas + a little flora gro and I used 1ml/gal of CaliMagic by gen hydro also....
I am not sure if that is enough cal/mag for the feeding, the overall ppm was just over 200.

That's plenty! The plants should have no issues with that at all.

I did soak the rockwool in 5.5 PH for 30-45 mins before the seeds went int. That is I think why I kept watering with 5.5.

The reason for this is because rockwool is spun rock, it's often limestone which innately has a very high pH of 7.5-8.0 So they suggest you soak it to drop the pH and kind of stabilize it. Even though you're soaking @ 5.5 the true pH of the rockwool would come up to about 6.1-6.3 if you were able to measure it I bet. Once you do the 30 minute soak, start doing 5.8pH waterings IMO.

So you are saying that it is best to use some trace nutrients if using distilled water, starting as soon as transplant?

Yessir, if you're going to use distilled, you need some sort of trace nutrients at the start after the cotyeldon leaves are established. I say this because there's no nutrients AT ALL in distilled water, so the plant will immediately start eating itself from the few nutrients it got out of the seed.

So at what point do you know the plant is ready for transplant?
Could I transplant them as soon as they sprout and the cotyledons are facing the light?

Yes, that's what I do and what I'd suggest - because again the vegetative time is limited so you don't want to take anything away from the taproot. Let it search and let it search fast. As soon as my plant is above my media and the cotyledons have escaped the shell I put it into it's final container. No better way to do it. :thumbs:

I have heard people say they add a tsp of calimagic to each gallon of water. Would I want to do that even to water the seeds before they germ, or just start adding calmag after they sprout?

No, don't add chemicals to a germinating seed. I strongly believe this causes detriment to the plant because there's enough nutrients in the seeds to get the taproot started and to get the cotyledons spread. At that point then, you can add ~50-100PPM worth of nutrients until the plant is more established (1-2 sets of true leaves, then start the increments)

Honestly feeding schedules have started to confuse me because I have read mixed information on when a plant is no longer considered a seedling, and when it should be considered in week 1 and week 2 and then on top of that autos are notorious for not liking real high ppm so trying to be careful of that....

Start low and build it up is the best way to handle it. I've had some autos take ~900PPM and not bat an eye.. I've had some take ~500 ppm and start to burn the tips. It's hard to follow a feeding schedule out there because of the fact that they're mad for photo period plants. General rule of thumb is to use 25-50% of the recommended feeding schedule amount. I.E: 1TSP per gallon = 1/2 TSP per gallon for autos.

My plan was to use 100ppm on week 1 and 200ppm on week 2 etc. increasing 100 until week 5 where I would stop at 500ppm until harvest.
The thing is, I didn't think week 1 was going to happen for a while and I didn't know I would need calimagic when using Lucas.

Yeah, but don't forget - CaliMagic is Calcium Nitrate and Magnesium Nitrate so they have added nitrogen. You can reduce some of your GH3Part and accommodate with the CaliMagic. I'd say this will still work, you don't need more than 30-45PPM of CaliMagic early on anyways.

0. Rinse rockwool in 5.5 ph water 0ppm for 30 mins
1. Germ in rockwool and Feed them pure distilled at 5.8-6.2 with 3ml calimagic per gallon
2. Once they hit that second set of leaves on top I will call that week 1 and start at 100ppm (general hydro 3 part) and then proceed as described above adding 100ppm every week
3. The nutrients used will be GH 3 part flora + calimagic with 3ml calimagic used in every gallon of distilled water and the GH 3 part taking up the remaining ppm

Sounds good! Don't feed them until the coteyldons are exposed though. And then keep the feed @ <= 100PPM. Anything more is probably "too much". Always start with less and look for signs of hunger (fading/paling leaves) if your pH is in the correct spot then absorption won't be an issue. You sound like you're on top of your pH so no worries there. :dance:

100 PPM per week should be fine, do it over the course of the week though, let's say you start with 100PPM, then the next feeding is 115-120 or so.. then the next is 125-145 or so.. then the next week get up to 200.. this way the plant is slowly preparing for it, it's why you try to start with a lower ppm and work your way up.

Should I just continue to try my best with them, or like maybe trim off the dead stuff or anything? Or seriously, maybe I should throw them out to make room for plants that I hopefully don't treat so horribly :X ?

Don't trim anything off, learn from them - see if these things fix the problems and if they do, then you know in the future how to avoid them. When I first started growing I'd try and learn from my plants that had issues. Now that I've been growing awhile if a plant starts to go bad or looks funny while the rest of my plants look great, I will toss it because it's in the way.

Again, don't trim anything off! This will cause more stress and the fixes we're trying to do won't take much effect because the plant will still be generating hormones in response to the stress. Keep the temperatures up in the mid 80 while the lights are on to increase perspiration of the plant and get the nutrients it needs taken up faster.

Anything else, let us know! As well I'll see if I can get toke in here as he uses the GH 3 Part and Hempy.. Glad to have another Hempy grower here!

 

[Animatey]

This is one of the best (yes I'm a bit biased) cannabis cultivation forums I've ever been a part of. It's great here! I really hope you stick around.




That's plenty! The plants should have no issues with that at all.



The reason for this is because rockwool is spun rock, it's often limestone which innately has a very high pH of 7.5-8.0 So they suggest you soak it to drop the pH and kind of stabilize it. Even though you're soaking @ 5.5 the true pH of the rockwool would come up to about 6.1-6.3 if you were able to measure it I bet. Once you do the 30 minute soak, start doing 5.8pH waterings IMO.



Yessir, if you're going to use distilled, you need some sort of trace nutrients at the start after the cotyeldon leaves are established. I say this because there's no nutrients AT ALL in distilled water, so the plant will immediately start eating itself from the few nutrients it got out of the seed.



Yes, that's what I do and what I'd suggest - because again the vegetative time is limited so you don't want to take anything away from the taproot. Let it search and let it search fast. As soon as my plant is above my media and the cotyledons have escaped the shell I put it into it's final container. No better way to do it. :thumbs:



No, don't add chemicals to a germinating seed. I strongly believe this causes detriment to the plant because there's enough nutrients in the seeds to get the taproot started and to get the cotyledons spread. At that point then, you can add ~50-100PPM worth of nutrients until the plant is more established (1-2 sets of true leaves, then start the increments)



Start low and build it up is the best way to handle it. I've had some autos take ~900PPM and not bat an eye.. I've had some take ~500 ppm and start to burn the tips. It's hard to follow a feeding schedule out there because of the fact that they're mad for photo period plants. General rule of thumb is to use 25-50% of the recommended feeding schedule amount. I.E: 1TSP per gallon = 1/2 TSP per gallon for autos.



Yeah, but don't forget - CaliMagic is Calcium Nitrate and Magnesium Nitrate so they have added nitrogen. You can reduce some of your GH3Part and accommodate with the CaliMagic. I'd say this will still work, you don't need more than 30-45PPM of CaliMagic early on anyways.





Sounds good! Don't feed them until the coteyldons are exposed though. And then keep the feed @ <= 100PPM. Anything more is probably "too much". Always start with less and look for signs of hunger (fading/paling leaves) if your pH is in the correct spot then absorption won't be an issue. You sound like you're on top of your pH so no worries there. :dance:

100 PPM per week should be fine, do it over the course of the week though, let's say you start with 100PPM, then the next feeding is 115-120 or so.. then the next is 125-145 or so.. then the next week get up to 200.. this way the plant is slowly preparing for it, it's why you try to start with a lower ppm and work your way up.



Don't trim anything off, learn from them - see if these things fix the problems and if they do, then you know in the future how to avoid them. When I first started growing I'd try and learn from my plants that had issues. Now that I've been growing awhile if a plant starts to go bad or looks funny while the rest of my plants look great, I will toss it because it's in the way.

Again, don't trim anything off! This will cause more stress and the fixes we're trying to do won't take much effect because the plant will still be generating hormones in response to the stress. Keep the temperatures up in the mid 80 while the lights are on to increase perspiration of the plant and get the nutrients it needs taken up faster.

Anything else, let us know! As well I'll see if I can get toke in here as he uses the GH 3 Part and Hempy.. Glad to have another Hempy grower here!

Thanks a bunch for all the clarification. I think I have a much better grasp now, and just in time because I have 2 sprouts that are ready to get transplanted :O !

Regarding the calimagic, I am not hellbent on using it or anything. Would I be better off using just GH 3 part or Lucas and just start once the cotyledons are setup (instead of waiting two weeks after they were established..)? I also have kangaroots by fox farm on hand because I heard autos like that kind of thing, but I don't know if I am ready to mess with it yet...

Last question... for real...

I am thinking that restricting the autos to 2L should keep them short and hopefully not too fat... I am hoping to grow 6 2 liters all pretty much right up against each other (maybe a 2 inch diameter around each at most) because I have access to a lot of seeds but not a lot of space, and so right now I have about 6 plants germed. 1 is an afghan kush ryder and the others are a similar strain by a different breeder that should finish faster but yield significantly less (cream of the crop narcotic kush auto). I realize it may be wasteful in terms of seeds, but will it be efficient in terms of space?

Thanks again so much for taking all the time to help me out man!

 

[Roark]

here is what my trans Siberians jack herer and white widow looked like at 22 days from soaking the seed. they all looked like this, for two weeks. I hadd them on 400 ppm. I talked to the local hydro and said i was thinking of scrapping them. I had already lost 4 out of 9 seeds. I upped the feed to 800 ppm and the floodin of my table to every 2 hours. they took off. check my thread. mj is resilient.I agree some plants like more nutrients then others. I lucked out.
Good luck. will be following along

 

[Animatey]

here is what my trans Siberians jack herer and white widow looked like at 22 days from soaking the seed. View attachment 247678 they all looked like this, for two weeks. I hadd them on 400 ppm. I talked to the local hydro and said i was thinking of scrapping them. I had already lost 4 out of 9 seeds. I upped the feed to 800 ppm and the floodin of my table to every 2 hours. they took off. check my thread. mj is resilient.I agree some plants like more nutrients then others. I lucked out.
Good luck. will be following along

Thanks for the encouraging share bro! I'll be sure and check out your grow

 

[Duck Commander]

Welcome to AFN and dont worry about the link you posted shit happends bro Hop digity

 

[Animatey]

Update with prehavest images

Hey guys,

I know it has been a while, but I carried these sick little dudes through to the (near) end, and wanted to share the results

I just harvested Mapple, the most stunted of the 2. She never fully recovered from the mistreatment, but she managed to produce a giant wopping 3 grams lol ;D

The bag weed here is not great, so this isn't saying a lot, but man... even though the plant didn't yield much, it was the best pot I have gotten in my current location by about 10X. My wife liked it so much, she became much more enthusiastic about growing. It had only cured about a day or 2 when we vaped it, but holy shit man... ultra couch locking body high goodness...

Anyways, that's boring, pictures are interesting.

Here is Mapple, my first ever plant


You can see she got pretty heavily covered in trichs, which would be a lot cooler if she was more than a foot tall and not covered in disease...

So anyways... Here is plant 2: PJ

PJ has not been harvested yet, but is nearing flushing (I think). She was not as stunted, but pictures will show that it took a long time for me to get her stable, and all of my first time grow mistakes are evident all over her poor little leaves



Here is a pic of the 4 I started right after this thread. They are coming along OK, sadly I didn't have much time to journal about what I learned with the following 4.


These guys are doing OK, much less stress on their leaves (some of them), but new problems emerged when I switched to an LED. The pic is a little old, but right now these guys are nearing pre-harvest flushing.


Lastly, I need your help!

I just started a new fresh grow, and could use occasional guidance from the kind-hearted and wise AFNers. I have some big updates planned for this weekend, with lots of pictures taken last night. So far there are only 2 posts, but more regular updates are planned. I am going to use this one as a learning experience:

Here is a link, thanks so much for reading, and all the help you have provided in this time!

 

[Animatey]

Just to close the loop, PJ yielded a quarter oz dried. So a total of about 10g out of the sad little plants ;D PJ is curing for 2 weeks and will have smoke report then.