These seedlings dont look right to me...

[SavageSiren420]

I usually grow in coco but I'm growing in Ocean forest potting soil this time around. And I'm already regretting it. Am I stressing over nothing or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Greenjourneyman]

Nope.

is the soil hot at all with nutrients? Seedlings need only soil.

 

[mysticepipedon]

Looks like there might be some improper watering going on — overwatering + not properly watering.

When you are done watering, if ALL THE SOIL in the container isn't wet, you're not doing it right. Don't just water around the stem, or you will only have roots around the stem. The plants will ignore the rest of the pot of soil.

After watering, do not water again until the soil is almost completely dry. Check the weight of the pot to help determine this. If you water every day or every few days, without regard to the amount of water already in the soil, you will have sickly plants that don't produce.

I have not had a problem putting seedling directly into FFOF, but there may be some variability in FFOF, so this bag may be hot for seedlings.

 

[quirk]

@mysticepipedon has a good point. The space between the container and the medium as well as well as the cracks indicates uneven moisture content.

 

[Edinburgh]

Raise your light.

 

[SavageSiren420]

Raise your light.

I lowered my lights cuz they where stretching at first. Ill move them back up a little bit.

 

[SavageSiren420]

Not watering correctly is my biggest concern thats why I previously did coco. I have only watered them a once or twice and did a root drench with worm casting tea right before I took then pictures. Because some of them are auto I wanted to put them in the final pot. But the bigger pots don't dry out fast enough.

 

[SavageSiren420]

@mysticepipedon has a good point. The space between the container and the medium as well as well as the cracks indicates uneven moisture content.

The one photo I had just added some soil onto of it but since I had just done the root drench I didn't want to add water.

 

[Backyard_Boogie]

Its overwatering happens all the time. I'm a pretty advanced grower and even I fuck this one up sometimes. Its hard not to overwater sometimes because you forget how little moisture these plants actually need. In the smaller containers like that its easy to overwater only takes a split second on the pour and you can accidentally flood it. This is why I strongly recommend using solo cups for seedlings. Because if you get your soil too wet you can get a knife and cut some slits all around this way the soil can breathe better. You need to add aeration so that the soil and roots can breathe and start to dry out. Its the lack of oxygen that makes them turn yellow and die.

 

[Bullmark69]

It’s hard to get the watering exactly right when u have small seedlings in a big pot. I’ve never had a problem starting in a solo cup size container and carefully moving to the final 3/5 gal pot once they are well rooted and looking healthy.
Since you’re already in bigger pots, you kinda have to guess where your root zone is, and expand watering accordingly.
U don’t want the roots to dry out but do want them searching for water, thus expanding and making the most of your growing medium.
Good luck.

 

[SavageSiren420]

Also the one plant that looks sickly i had one of the same strain that died.

 

[Backyard_Boogie]

Also the one plant that looks sickly i had one of the same strain that died.

Its overwatering for sure. Check it out, you should open up the sidewalls of the pot. This is why solos are perfect cuz they are small and the correct size plus they are cheap so if you need to punch holes in it you can. Also is it gets root-bound in there you can just cut the solo cup open...

 

[Backyard_Boogie]

The fabric pot is fine leave that one alone. However your other pots are thick plastic so a regular knife might not cut it. I would get a brand new tiny drill bit. A super sharp and fresh one and put it in an electric drill. Then very CAREFULLY punch some breathing holes all around those pots. Make them look like swiss cheese. But DO NOT let the drill bit punch in deep. Push the bit deep into the chuck so its only sticking out a little bit. This way once you punch through you can stop it and pull it back out immediately. If you don't start getting oxygen to those roots soon they will all die. Also don't water anymore for a while. like a whole dam week that shit needs to air out bad especially the small plastic ones.

 

[Blastfact]

All they need is plain water ph to 6.3 to 6.5. They need only tiny amounts of water. They need no food,,, no tea's,,, nothing but small amounts of ph'ed water. No feedings or any of that stuff until at least 3 weeks old. Your soil has all the food the seedlings need in it already. Fox Farm Ocean Forrest and Nectar of The Gods #8 are what we call fortified soils and are hands down the two best and most common soils on the market. People bag on them because they haven't a clue what or how to do things. And I don't know what it is with pot farmers but they love to over water, over feed, under light and go cheap and do everything possible to kill a plant we call a weed. I water my seedlings with 2 oz. syringes I buy at the local farm and ranch supply. I mix up a quart jar of filtered plain old tap and ph to 6.3 to 6.5 and fill up one or two of my syringes and keep them in the tent with the seedlings. I apply 1 oz. to the seedlings when they pop thru the dirt. And they get no more than 1 oz. of water once or twice a day or every other day for the first week. Second week they go to 2 oz. a day watering's every other or third day. Third week I'm at pint watering every third day or so a watering but I do at this point introduce a feeding at like 1/8th to 1/4 strength. Fourth week I'm watering a pint at a time maybe twice a week or every other day. I transplant at two weeks or maybe three weeks depending on how the plants are doing. If autos grow seedlings out in there permeant pots,,, no transplanting of autos. Here are some pics of my current grow from helmet head seedlings to 6 weeks flipped to flower. You also need to keep your humidity high the first 3 weeks or so. I run mine at 80% or so for the first three weeks.

New helmet head seedlings,,, day 1...

Week two after transplant with a 2 oz. water in.

Week 3 after first 1 pint watering with 1/4 strenght feeding.

Six weeks and flipped to flower. Pic taken at 44 days. Plants have been topped twice and are on one quart watering's each at every three days or so. All thats been used on this grow to date is water, small amounts of cal-mag, silica, molasses, and Bloom City dry ferts. With foliar sprays of Bloom Khoas and Mad Farmer silicate.

Keep it simple,,, mange temps/humidity and don't over water and you will have a great grow!

 

[Deadstill]

This is why most seasoned growers start out in size-appropriate pots and transplant as needed. When you start out with a huge pot and a tiny plant you're going to end up with issues. There are not enough roots yet to soak up all the water and nutrients, so essentially you're ending up with spots in your pot that are dry and spots that are still wet. Root rot, lack of oxygen, etc. will occur in a couple weeks. Maybe it's just the angle in the pictures but it looks like you might want to make sure your pots have plenty of drainage. Maybe amend with some extra perlite. If you're using FFOF be careful adding nutes. I would only use pH adjusted water maybe a little cal-mag for now, the soil should have everything you need up till flower time.

 

[TSD]

The fabric pot is fine leave that one alone. However your other pots are thick plastic so a regular knife might not cut it. I would get a brand new tiny drill bit. A super sharp and fresh one and put it in an electric drill. Then very CAREFULLY punch some breathing holes all around those pots. Make them look like swiss cheese. But DO NOT let the drill bit punch in deep. Push the bit deep into the chuck so its only sticking out a little bit. This way once you punch through you can stop it and pull it back out immediately. If you don't start getting oxygen to those roots soon they will all die. Also don't water anymore for a while. like a whole dam week that shit needs to air out bad especially the small plastic ones.

My hillbilly method when I decided I needed more air at the soil was to heat a screwdriver up on my gas range and melt little holes so I didn't stab any roots... but I use nursery pots and they're pretty thin.

 

[Blastfact]

You don't need airpots and cloth pots at all for a terrestrial plant. Airpots and cloth pots were developed for space travel and growing on the moon and mars. Cloth pots won out only because of portability. And then a wall was hit because air and cloth pots waste water.

 

[Backyard_Boogie]

You don't need airpots and cloth pots at all for a terrestrial plant. Airpots and cloth pots were developed for space travel and growing on the moon and mars. Cloth pots won out only because of portability. And then a wall was hit because air and cloth pots waste water.

I agree with you that its not necessary to use airpots or fabric pots the traditional plastic pots work just as good if you use them correctly. However I generally recommend pots that breathe because they are more forgiving to mistakes. Beginners make a lot of mistakes. I have been growing for years but I too will sometimes mess up and overwater. This is why I prefer fabric however sometimes I use reg plastic too I still have some of those I will use both.

 

[SavageSiren420]

I always start my seeds in paper towel and plant into those small nursery cups after they have a tap root an inch or 2 long. Then they go into one gallon fabric pots when I start seeing signs they are out growing the nursery pots. My fabric bags have velcro down the side. Make transplant a little easier. From there they go into 3 gallon pots and then finally 5 gallon pots. Sometimes they stay in the 3 gallons if I want to keep them small. Part of the reason I use the air pots is root pruning. Allowing me to keep the plants small without them getting root bound. I only have a 2x4 tent. From the time I put the seeds in medium I put cloches(plastic domes that hold in humidity) over them untill they are to big to fit under it. The reason for the root drench was to ad beneficial bacteria. I also add mycorrhizea.

I completely have decided I like coco way better then soil. My coco plants are always beautiful. Never had a problem yet. Not media related anyhow. I like being able to control and know how much nutrients they are getting all the time cuz I use frequent fertigation in coco so they never lose less then 20% moisture in the coco medium. I have an automated system that waters them 2 to 4 times a day ( obv not for this grow) from a premixed reservoir which i check the ph and ppm of daily.. i also measure the ppm of my run off water.
Maybe this plant it and forget about it thing ain't my thing lol.

 

[SavageSiren420]

This is why most seasoned growers start out in size-appropriate pots and transplant as needed. When you start out with a huge pot and a tiny plant you're going to end up with issues. There are not enough roots yet to soak up all the water and nutrients, so essentially you're ending up with spots in your pot that are dry and spots that are still wet. Root rot, lack of oxygen, etc. will occur in a couple weeks. Maybe it's just the angle in the pictures but it looks like you might want to make sure your pots have plenty of drainage. Maybe amend with some extra perlite. If you're using FFOF be careful adding nutes. I would only use pH adjusted water maybe a little cal-mag for now, the soil should have everything you need up till flower time.

I usually do start in small pots that's why some of them are in small ones But that's cause I usually grow photoperiod plants. the ones that are planted in large containers are auto flower plants and every single thing i have seen read or heard is to plant autos in their final container from the jump.