Help Diagnosing youngsters hydro

I just recently started a small hydro project in a temporary computer case. I have 4 plants under a 125 watt full spectrum compact fluorescent. The plants leaves seem to be drooping, i have them in rockwool and hydroton in a bubbler setup. I have an airstone and all seems to be running fine. As of now i have an extremely low concentration of noots in from the 3 part flora series. By this i mean that i have like 1/8th concentration, and i've been leaving the light on 24/7. I will attach pics, tell me what you guys think might be going on. They are 5 days old. Thanks

they look 100 percent fine, i wouldnt worry about a thing, thats what theyre supposed to look like, let that rockwool dry out though dont get crazy with that

It looks to me like your pH is off.

Could be you didn't flush the cubes enough. If so, you could take your chances and let them dry for a couple days then flush the cube by running ph 5.5 water through it for a minute or two. Or they are still small. You could ph a new cube correctly and split it apart, transplant the seedling and put it together again and drop it back in the hydroton.

It looks like you have salt buildup already, are you using tap water?

I've actually been using distilled water, i'm not sure how the salt is there. There are only a little noots in the hydroponic solution. Thanks for the help.

Well nutrients are salts, that may have been it.
Thing is, plants can not absorb nutrients correctly if the Ph is off.

You have your nutrients salts, the Ph is off so the plant gives off its own salts

Tough thing is all ppm meters only measure the amount of the total so you don't know whats what.

Starting with a fresh res every week once they get larger and feeding half strength with a Ph of around 5.8 will assure you the reading you get will be nutrients.

As the res water level drops the ppms drop with it. You know where your at.

All starts with proper Ph though.


Be sure you have at least 200 ppm in distilled before you use a Ph meter in the water. You can damage the electrode at 0 ppms