Having some minor seedling issues and would love some advice/feedback.

I've been having some difficulty keeping all these seedlings happy. A few days ago, many of them looked quite limey / yellowish, especially the new growth. They had more stretch than I would like. Also some waviness and curling of the leaves. Since then I raised the EC from 0.8 to 0.9, and added a little extra sprinkle of spirulina powder to the feed, and also gave them a foliar spray with some very low EC solution of silica, sea kelp & seaweed, humic & fulvic acid, spirulina powder, and aloe vera juice as a wetting agent.- now their colour is much better. I also moved them closer to the CFL's (23w cool white) and they have since stopped stretching, as far as I can tell.

They still look a little funky and unhappy though, most of them continue to have sort of papery, wavy, curled leaves and I don't know why.

There are 5 different strains, 2x Jack Herer, 2x Blueberry, 2x White Widow, 2x Afghan Kush, 1x Alaskan Purple. About 9-10 days old. Germinated in jiffy pellets, moved to cups and fertigated once the root appeared below the pellets.

One of the white widows (#1, picture ending in 041048 had stunted leaves that looked to have been burned earlier on @ 0.8, but seems to be happy now @ 0.6, and one of the blueberries (#2) had no true leaves at all even as the others are onto their 2nd/3rd set, I thought she might also have been burned, so I dropped her feed down to @ 0.6-0.8 two days ago along with WW#1, and Bl#2 has now started growing new leaves, but they still look tiny and funky. I'm wondering when/if I should give up on it and keep the tent space for the others.

I don't want to fill this thread up with TMI so here's a link to one from the other day with more info about nutes, temps, etc if you need https://www.rollitup.org/t/an-update-slimy-res-water-and-mostly-minor-seedling-issues-but-doing-alright-so-far.1076046/

Will be grateful for any advice or feedback, thanks.

Im not sure about Coco but I don't give my seedlings any feeds for two weeks to a month in soil. I know you need to feed earlier in coco as you don't have stored nutrients but that sounds high to me for seedlings that young as far as EC. I'm guessing it's burn or lockout from too high of an EC at such a young age but hopefully we'll get a coco user to chime in.

They look fine......relax.

They need more light..

FirstCavApache64 said:

Im not sure about Coco but I don't give my seedlings any feeds for two weeks to a month in soil. I know you need to feed earlier in coco as you don't have stored nutrients but that sounds high to me for seedlings that young as far as EC. I'm guessing it's burn or lockout from too high of an EC at such a young age but hopefully we'll get a coco user to chime in.

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I agree that 0.8-0.9 seems like a lot for this early stage. Some of my nutrient water comes out of the tap @ 0.9 without anything added, So I mix it with low EC spring water and distilled water, which could be one reason why it's so high. I'm not adding much nutrient, the EC would probably be lower if I was using only RO or distilled water.

I hope it's not lockout, if it is it could be whatever is in the tap that causes an EC 0.9 locking something out. I had this in the back of my mind when they were limey/yellow and I upped their N and Fe a tiny bit with spirulina and bull kelp, but they greened right up and responded well to it.

Can lockout happen without tip burn?

MickFoster said:

They look fine......relax.

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That's good to hear, the leaf curling and the waviness was getting to me. I still wonder why they might be doing that, I look at other experienced growers here and see seedlings that look lush and perfect, and figured there's something I could be doing better.

HydoDan said:

They need more light..

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Ok, I'll give them more light. Thank you!

I originally had them about 2 inches away from the globes, and a red/bloom only chinese blurple turned on above them a few feet, but thought they were getting light stressed even though they were stretched a bit. The leaves looked funky, curly, skinny, and yellowish. I also wondered if the red light from the blurple was causing the stretch. When I turned the blurple off, and moved them a bit further away from the CFL's, they seemed to bounce back. Maybe that was because of the foliar and extra N and Fe, not less light.

I will find another lamp and give them an extra 23w CFL globe for now, and try to place them closer. I don't have lighting options other than the red/bloom chinese blurple (the blue/veg switch is broken), or firing up the 600W metal halide dimmed to 250W.

Do you think the red/bloom blurple should be switched back on? Or when should I fire up the MH? I was going to keep them under CFL until they graduated to larger pots when the roots filled out the cups more.

The wavy leaf curling and tacoing is getting worse. Does anyone know why this could be happening?

Temps stay between 22C-25C, humidity stays around 60-65%. Very gentle breeze from a fan, not pointed directly at the seedlings. EC was 0.8 and they were yellow/limey, upped to 0.9 with a tiny bit of extra N and now they look more green.

@HydoDan I'm not able to get any brighter lights at the moment. I might be able to pick up something in a few days. All I have is a dimmable 600w MH lowest setting 250w, or this chinese blurple. Should I use this to give them some more light in the meantime? The "veg" switch is broken, only red light.

Id get a cfl or a 2 ft t5 before either of those for seedlings but…..

bam0813 said:

Id get a cfl or a 2 ft t5 before either of those for seedlings but…..

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Right, thank you. I'll keep looking for something like t5's. In the meantime I'll stick to cfl and try to add a couple more lamps, or look for globes higher than 23w.

Btw would you have any idea why my leaves are curling and tacoing?