Please help seedlings are 1 week old and are not doing great

Let them dry, they should never be as wet as they are in the pic, leave the plastic sleeves on until or unless you transplant them into another system. Raise the light another foot and cut the nutes in half until they have new growth. You'll know when the cubes are ready to be watered by waiting until they are nearly as light as an unused, completely dry cube.

Not saying this is the reason, but seedlings dont need any major amount of nutes! See on the last pic you posted how the plant has its starter leaves and then its now starting to get its true leaves coming in, when those starter leaves

Start turning yellow on their own thats when they can start taking some nutes, and i wouldnt go no more then 150ppm

A lot of people dont realize a seed has all the nutes and energy to get the seed going for a while

FourthCity said:

Let them dry, they should never be as wet as they are in the pic, leave the plastic sleeves on until or unless you transplant them into another system. Raise the light another foot and cut the nutes in half until they have new growth. You'll know when the cubes are ready to be watered by waiting until they are nearly as light as an unused, completely dry cube.

Click to expand...

Thank you! So you are saying to leave the dome on until I transplant to the DWC? Do you leave the vents open during that time? I jumped the gun earlier and moved them to a small "cloner" I have. It's basically a mini DWC, no top feed, just air stones. I was afraid that I was over-watering. I was hoping that by letting the bubbles water from below I could save them. Should I remove some hydroton from the top to let the RW dry out a bit?

THCMonster said:

Not saying this is the reason, but seedlings dont need any major amount of nutes! See on the last pic you posted how the plant has its starter leaves and then its now starting to get its true leaves coming in, when those starter leavesView attachment 949210

Start turning yellow on their own thats when they can start taking some nutes, and i wouldnt go no more then 150ppm

A lot of people dont realize a seed has all the nutes and energy to get the seed going for a while

Click to expand...

Thank you! Yeah, I think I got too anxious that they were not growing well and thought maybe they needed nutes, because I was using the RW and RO water. I think that I need to be more hands off during the next run of seeds.

I use to soak the rockwool in 5.5 PH water. Then pull them out of the water and let them sit uncover by themselves for a hour or two just to lose some of the excess water they seem to sometimes have in them. I use to get great results germinating using the paper towel method! After I let the rockwool set for a hour or two i would then plant the seed then put on the dome. I would leave the lid vents closed until the seed sprouted out of the rockwool then I would open the vents. I would be careful giving them direct nutrients the roots are sensitive at that stage! Ive ruined A LOT of seeds this way. I use to make up a 100-150ppm micro nute solution for a foliar spray!

As long as you keep the rockwool moist but not wet they should grow great!

I use to be a breeder and popped 100's of seeds through out the years and this was always my go to for sprouting!

Also if you room is 60-70% humidity you could probably easily leave the dome off for a good while without them drying out!

I use to only have 50% and i would leave the dome off for a couple hours each day! Just make sure if the rockwool drys down to mist them with a sprayer, try not to flood them with water!

Hope this helps, good luck

frying n dryin
ph'd ro only
was it ET who freaked n the closet over light... lets call em, ET's... the typical kit, t5, florescent... kicks out 6par-ish... to my dome n clones.
ur distance is... well... u have the right peeps, weighing in. i just stopped readin/catchin up, when i read 450, for linglings... n hadn't seen mention of it, right away.
good luck. what i saw, looked salvageable. i know a guy who oops'd, 200ppm n torched, his own
-infamous killer of seed
eunuchs n dead see scrotes.

you're gonna b fine....
count backwards from 100...
don't mind the bathtub of ice...
ur gonna b fine...

SPARECHANGE said:

frying n dryin
ph'd ro only
was it ET who freaked n the closet over light... lets call em, ET's... the typical kit, t5, florescent... kicks out 6par-ish... to my dome n clones.
ur distance is... well... u have the right peeps, weighing in. i just stopped readin/catchin up, when i read 450, for linglings... n hadn't seen mention of it, right away.
good luck. what i saw, looked salvageable. i know a guy who oops'd, 200ppm n torched, his own
-infamous killer of seed
eunuchs n dead see scrotes.

you're gonna b fine....
count backwards from 100...
don't mind the bathtub of ice...
ur gonna b fine...

Click to expand...

I think I have misread the wattage of the light. It says 450w HID equivalent, but a max 277W. So I'm assuming it's 277?

THCMonster said:

I use to soak the rockwool in 5.5 PH water. Then pull them out of the water and let them sit uncover by themselves for a hour or two just to lose some of the excess water they seem to sometimes have in them. I use to get great results germinating using the paper towel method! After I let the rockwool set for a hour or two i would then plant the seed then put on the dome. I would leave the lid vents closed until the seed sprouted out of the rockwool then I would open the vents. I would be careful giving them direct nutrients the roots are sensitive at that stage! Ive ruined A LOT of seeds this way. I use to make up a 100-150ppm micro nute solution for a foliar spray!

As long as you keep the rockwool moist but not wet they should grow great!

I use to be a breeder and popped 100's of seeds through out the years and this was always my go to for sprouting!

Also if you room is 60-70% humidity you could probably easily leave the dome off for a good while without them drying out!

I use to only have 50% and i would leave the dome off for a couple hours each day! Just make sure if the rockwool drys down to mist them with a sprayer, try not to flood them with water!

Hope this helps, good luck

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I think they're too wet. I have them in the mini dwc/cloner, but even that seems to be keeping the RW too wet. I may pull the plug and start some new seeds. These seem very weak and I don't think they are growing anymore.

Sykemfs said:

Thanks for the advice. I think they're too wet. I have them in the mini dwc/cloner, but even that seems to be keeping the RW too wet. I may pull the plug and start some new seeds. These seem very weak and I don't think they are growing anymore.

Click to expand...

What dwc cloner? The pictures showed them on a germinating tray, did something change?
10 Easy steps to follow for future success:
1. Soak rockwool in plain water with ph of 5.8
2. Wet a paper towel with the same phd water the rockwool is in, remove it and fold in in half once and then place it on your germinating tray
3. Place any seeds you wish to germinate on the wet paper towel and fold half over the seeds (folding for a second time)
4. As soon as the seeds show taproot (usually within 48 hours) remove the rockwool from the water and shake the cubes until NO excess water comes out
5. Place you seeds in the rockwool cubes and leave them in the germinating tray
6. DO NOT WATER the cubes again until they feel even lighter than they did when you first planted the seeds
7. If you are going to be growing dwc, transplant the cubes to that system as soon as you see roots poking out the bottom of the rockwool
8. When you transplant remove the plastic sleeve from the rockwool and make sure you have a roughly one inch layer of hydroton at the bottom of the netpot before you place the rockwool
9. Make sure the water level in the reservoir is no higher than 1-3 inches below the bottom of the netpot but also see that the airstone makes enough bubbles to keep the bottom inch of the netpot wet
10. Grow your plants

Thank you. Yeah, I moved them from the tray before the post. I had a feeling I was overwatering and hoped that if I relied on strictly the bubbles to water them, maybe I can save them.

With that said, cracked open the RW on the weakest plant an I can see that the roots were brown. I think they may be toast, but I'm going to keep at it. In the meantime I am going to germinate 2 new seeds from Mephisto using your method. The rockwool came in a slab, so no plastic collar. As far as watering, do you top water, spray the RW with a mister, pour water in the tray? I appreciate all the help.

Sykemfs said:

With that said, cracked open the RW on the weakest plant an I can see that the roots were brown.

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They will turn brown when they are starved of air which happens when they stay too wet.

Sykemfs said:

As far as watering, do you top water, spray the RW with a mister, pour water in the tray? I appreciate all the help.

Click to expand...

Use a teaspoon, no more than one or two teaspoons of water per feeding directly to the top of the rockwool. The rockwool is designed to slowly let the water drain evenly from the top down, standing water in the tray will stop them from draining properly. If you can, I would recommend either getting individually wrapped rockwool or finding something like a big ice cube tray that you can put your existing rockwool in. The rockwool needs some kind of insulation around the sides so the water drains the way its supposed to, without that barrier the water is more likely to evaporate out the top and sides before reaching the bottom of the cube.

FourthCity said:

They will turn brown when they are starved of air which happens when they stay too wet.


Use a teaspoon, no more than one or two teaspoons of water per feeding directly to the top of the rockwool. The rockwool is designed to slowly let the water drain evenly from the top down, standing water in the tray will stop them from draining properly. If you can, I would recommend either getting individually wrapped rockwool or finding something like a big ice cube tray that you can put your existing rockwool in. The rockwool needs some kind of insulation around the sides so the water drains the way its supposed to, without that barrier the water is more likely to evaporate out the top and sides before reaching the bottom of the cube.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I was having a hard time getting a straight answer about watering. That is definitely much less Water than I was using. I found that they were drying quickly when the lights were on. Probably just evaporating as you mentioned. Do you think a square shot glass would work? It wouldn't be snug against the RW, but there wouldn't be much space.

One more question. Should I scrap my led and use two 2ft T5's at first? Or will the led be ok? I read so many conflicting opinions.

Sykemfs said:

Thank you. I was having a hard time getting a straight answer about watering. That is definitely much less Water than I was using. I found that they were drying quickly when the lights were on. Probably just evaporating as you mentioned. Do you think a square shot glass would work? It wouldn't be snug against the RW, but there wouldn't be much space.

One more question. Should I scrap my led and use two 2ft T5's at first? Or will the led be ok? I read so many conflicting opinions.

Click to expand...

Shot glass wont work, I should have mentioned that you will need to have or create drainage holes in the bottom of whatever you use to hold the rockwool, I think buying the cubes designed for germinating makes the most sense though. Your led should be fine, I wouldn't spend money on other equipment until you are pretty sure you have learned to reach the limit of what you have.

FourthCity said:

Shot glass wont work, I should have mentioned that you will need to have or create drainage holes in the bottom of whatever you use to hold the rockwool, I think buying the cubes designed for germinating makes the most sense though. Your led should be fine, I wouldn't spend money on other equipment until you are pretty sure you have learned to reach the limit of what you have.

Click to expand...

Ok, so I am back with a question. Those other plants didn't make it. I have two new seeds in rockwool. One popped yesterday and the tap root is already coming straight out of the bottom of the Rockwool. Maybe 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Should I keep it in the RW for a bit or put it into the dwc?