New Grower First grow, humbled by the experience I seek help!

[natty_dreadie]

Hello everyone! Great forum full of useful info and awesome community spirit..

I just started my first grow ever and, even though I did my homework before getting started, I have a few doubts about how my ladies are growing..

To give you a little background: I have a 120x120x200 cm secret jardin grow room with a 600w HPS lamp, fan and filter always running. The seeds I started with are 3x Pandora, 7x Auto-Maria and 10x Whiteberry all from Paradise seeds. The fertilizer kit is the Atami Bloombox.

I germinated last friday and right off the bat I managed to loose 5 of them (3 never cracked, 2 it was my fault for inserting the seed poorly in the jiffy thinghy). The rest came up just fine so 4 days later I moved them to 2.5l pots and started the 18/6 cycle.

Right now they've been going for almost a week and they're coming up very well, at least I think.. I realized 15 plants are way too many in such a small space, some of them are stretching looking for more light, but I decided to keep them going so that if I make mistakes I still have some backup..
The temperature sits at a constant 30 degrees C and drops to 19/20 at the end of the 6 dark hours (I have to keep the box in a cellar which is not heated) and the humidity is constantly at 42% (I tried to raise it but no luck so far, maybe I need a humidifier?).

Most of the plants are growing healthy, the second set of leaves is starting to show on most of them, but two are really worrying me. They happen to be both Pandoras (the third one being already KIA) and even though they are growing fast the leaves are starting to curl up (see pics for reference). I did some research and I think it has something to do with the water.. I've watered them 3 times so far, the water was at 20/25 degrees ph 6.5 with 2ml x l of Terra Leaves and Root Fast. I gave each about 750ml every time and drained whatever was left under the pot.

Maybe too much?

Any help and feedback would be greatly appreciated, thank you much!!

natty dreadie

ps

sorry for poor pic quality but the lamp messes with my camera and I don't want to pull the plants out of the box because the temperature drops..



View attachment 138160View attachment 138161

 

[Muddy]

Welcome to AFN. I've moved your thread over to the New Growers forum where we can better help you.

The curling on your leaves is most likely heat stress. I suspect you may have your light a bit too low. How high above the seedlings do you have it? Your temperature is also a bit high. Ideally you want to be about 79 - 80 with the light on. While your lights off temperature isn't too bad, you may want to put a small space heater in, especially if temperatures continue to drop as we get into winter. I wouldn't be too concerned about the humidity. While 42% is a bit low for veg, it will be fine for flowering. It's now so low that it's really much of an issue.

 

[natty_dreadie]

Thank you Muddy! Sorry about the confusion, I hadn't found this sub-forum yet..

The light is about 20/25 cm away from the top leaves (I know it's a bit approximated but I'm not near the plants now, I will update tomorrow). Also, maybe I should mention I have a winged reflector which focuses the light towards the center a bit..

The weird thing is that the one which is curling up the most is also sitting on the side and receiving much less heat than the others in the center, which are doing fine.

Below a pic of a healthy one growing right under the light for reference.

Could it be that the roots are having trouble piercing through the jiffy bag?

As for the heat issue I'm working to insulate the room in the next few days, so it shouldn't be an issue anymore..

Thanks for the great feedback Muddy, very much appreciated!

nattyView attachment 138190

 

[Muddy]

Not all plants will respond the same, or at the same time, to stress conditions. You do have your light too low. A 600 watt HPS light puts out a lot of heat. Place your hand, palm down, at the top of the plants and hold it there for about 30 seconds. If it feels too hot on the back of your hand, it's too hot for the plants. I would suggest raising your light up to about 20" and then watch your node spacing, the space between the leaf sets. Raise or lower your light to keep that spacing at about 1". Once your plants go into full flower, usually around week 6, you should then be able to lower it back down a bit.

 

[natty_dreadie]

I ran back to my lair to check on them. A few of the other leaves were starting to curl, I immediately lifted the lamp to 20" above the plants. The temperature dropped to 75F with the door open, so it should go up a bit. Thanks for the good advice Muddy, I hope the damage isn't irreversible.. I'll keep an eye on the nodes, the second set of leaves is growing strong on most of them.

One more thing, I'm a little confused by the watering part.. Usually I wait until the soil is getting lighter in color but still humid, not brittle or dusty before watering them again. I start from the edges of the pot and end up pouring right on the base of the stem, usually 750ml. Then I remove the excess water from under the pot. Am I doing this right? Or perhaps I should wait until the soil gets really dry?

Thank you, sorry for the noob questions!

natty

 

[Muddy]

Weed prefers to go through wet/dry cycles, rather than being constantly wet or moist. Get a feel for your pots when they are almost dry and only water when they feel that way. When you do water, given enough so that about 10% runs out the bottom of the pots. Since your plants are still pretty small and aren't drinking much yet, I wouldn't be surprised if you only need to water once a week, maybe longer. Once they get bigger you'll probably have to water them every 3-4 days.

 

[natty_dreadie]

Good to know, thank you. I was definitely over-watering them.. Now I raised the light and the temperature is just perfect at 27 C. Some of the plants seem to be stretching a bit for light, but the curling is slowly getting better. I'll also lay off the water for a couple days (last watering was last saturday) to get the wet/dry cycle going on.

Also, funny thing.. One of the seeds that I believed to be dead fell into one of the pots and a few days later the plant came out all by itself! So now I have two plants in one pot.. I'll wait a couple days for the first leaves to form and then try to move it to its own pot, hopefully it wont kill it, but if you have any advice it's welcome as usual!!

have a great day

-natty

 

[greenthumper]

Hey natty, 2 plants can grow in the same pot no problem :smokebuds:

 

[natty_dreadie]

Hi Greenthumper,

thanks for stopping by!

I'll let them grow together and see what happens then.. the new one is much smaller than the old one so I'm afraid it might cut off the light soon.. Let's see what happens!

Muddy, I've raised the light and the temperature dropped a bit but the curling is still there.. It looks like it might be getting better but it's still hard to tell. Is there any other plausible reason why it might be happening?

Other than that my ladies are doing great, I'll post some pics later today..

Thank you all for the great help and feedback, much appreciated!

-natty

 

[Muddy]

The curling on the leaves probably won't go away. As long as it's not getting any worse you're fine.

Regarding the two plants in one pot, are they the same strain? If not, you may want to transplant one of them. Different strains can have different nutrients requirements, making it difficult to grow them in the same pot.