Hrm. . .to let live and let live, or to kill and start over lol. ..help!

Hey guys.

I have never started with anything bug vigorous healthy clones. With those I can grow very fine bud.

I have only ever grown in PromixHP with a little extra perilite and dolomite.

This is my first super ghetto grow, had some financial troubles and had to basically start from scratch, this is a grow I put together with 150 bucks, so please be easy on the equipment, I know it's less than ideal.

I started these little guys out and let them sprout and grow for two days just under a regular lite in my bedroom, that was the first mistake. Second mistake was that I kept them 4 feet away from 150 watt HPS due to not understanding how much lite seedlings needed (Bad advice, that I should have double checked online).

Now my little girls have been 2-3 inches away from 3 T5's for three days and this is what they look like. One appears as though in a day or two once her leaves grow larger she'll just fall over. I have a fan on them and they are moving around enough to strengthen (I am giving them as much wind as the worst droppy little girl can handle) the stems.

They are sitting in peat pellets on top of hydoton with a 3/8 line running split four ways from a 180gph pump running just under the peat pellets. The peat pellets are just barely getting moisture from the line in hopes this will cause the roots to stretch out looking for more .
There are two 100gallon fish tank air pumps feeding one 6" air stone each. Total res Volume is 40 litres.

Room temp is 70-80, res temp is 65-75. Chiller and a/c coming next pay cheque. Hopfully not new seeds as well.


What I am wondering is should I just let them be and hope they strengthen up with the wind and the close lights enough to continiue supporting their weight, or should I bury the peat pellets further down into the hydroton and then carefully pile up the hydroton around the plans so that only 1.5" of stem is showing through. Or should I give them just enough support to not fall over??

What do you guys think. This picture is horrible, but all I have is my laptop webcam. If the picture isn't good enough quality I can try to borrow a camera later on this evening.

Let them be? Bury them further down? Squish into a tiny ball and order more seeds? Eat them and make them a part of me Jeffry Dahlmer style?

I know it's lame looking at a lame grow and lame pictures, but I really appreciate the help. My mom had cancer and I sold everything I owned and drained my life savings to pay for her treatment so this is all I can afford for now. 100% of intended profits will go to shiney new equpment

M

ps. Nutes are at 200ppm PH is 6.

The other thing I could do is try to wash away all the peat pellet and carefully place hydroton around them while putting the roots into the flow from the lines coming into the hydroton. . what do you guys think???

keep as is but lower the light

lights 24/7 and see if you can get em burried down a little..if not get a fan blowing on em . and let it ride..I had some strechy ones last batch and i just burried em down to the leaves

Ok, so what I did was - I dug out the peat pellets from the hydroton, dug down the hydroton, cut off the nets around the peat and dunked the stems/roots in water 'till no more of the peat pellet would come off the roots. I managed to tear a large root off one cutting, but now the roots are sitting directly in the flow from the tubes, I hope I didn't kill them or slow them down too much. So I set the plants at approximately the same hight, with about 1" of stem above the hydroton. Now that the lights are super close, the nodes are like on top of eachother, and one seedling is at it's 4th set of leaves after 8 from seed. I am am nearly certain they will all live, and now take off that the roots are directly in the flow from the tube.

I'll show pictures if they live

M

Make sure you start in rw cubes as peat pellets and hydro systems dont mix.