Im just about ready to give up.

After three weeks of slow growth I'm starting to get a little frustrated and worried. I have read tons of info and tried to do everything "by the book". I spent a ton of money on good equipment. Unfortunately, my little guys are growing very slowly, with curled leaves. At first I though it was overwatering but letting the rockwool dry out completely did not solve the problem. Too little nutes? First I went from 0 ppm to 420 ppm. No improvement. I tried upping it to 800 ppm for two days, still, nothing. Now Im back to not flooding the table at all (the rockwool is almost dry) and foliar feeding with distilled water every 3-4 hours, if the cubes is very, very light I pour a couple of ounces onto the cube. My ph is good, so is my temp and humidity. Ive got great ventilation, a 240 cfm fan for a 200 cubic foot room. I had been using a 600w AgroSon bulb. Today I went and got a Pulse start Metal Halide. It was expensive but I really, really want these plants to do well. Any advice would be great. I have a small collection of photos at

SeattlePot - SeattlePotÂ*

These plants are almost three weeks old and so small!! I wish I knew what to do to make them happy!

The last four photos are from today and yesterday. In the second to the last you can see some spots on a leaf. ??. You can also click on the photos to zoom in, and click a second time to zoom even further. Thanks for your help!


Cheers, SeattlePot

Put them in some Hydro tanks and let them do what they have to do. I used a 1-1-1 liquid nute for seedlings in my bubbleponic tanks under 400W HPS. Flourished. I wish mine were going slow. I have height problems, with training.

wish I could give you some advice on your plants. I know that I would not be spraying the leaves though.
Looks like you have a great camera for taking pics with... but on the last three pics you are focused on the rock wool and not the plant itself . so, when we zoom in all we see is a blurry plant and a sharp image of your rock wool. It took me a while to learn how to use the half shutter focus (I'm sure thats not what it's called) on my camera to get good close up pictures focused on what I wanted . Sometimes I will press the shutter button half way down on an object that is about the same distance away from my camera as the object I'm trying to take a picture of and them move the camera over and take the pic. It makes it a lot easier when my camera is being stubborn and not focusing on a tiny object.

Thanks AverageJoe,
I bought this camera a few months ago, my first one. I guess I never really learned how to use it and was lazy/sloppy with my photos. Thanks for pointing it out, I'm sure ill have a better journal now. Here is a new shot of the black stuff on leaf. This has only happened too two leaves on two different plants, out of twenty. The black spots, curled leaves and slow growth is really starting too worry me. But I'm pretty sure that if I don't correct whatever is wrong it will spread. Anyone recognize this?

damn pat u say those r 3 weeks old?

thats mold bro...nasty black mold...you can go to like wal-mart or i seen it at home depot. Its a plant friendly spray, you can spray on the leaves specifically for mold...i have never had mold yet but i saw that on one of the pictures on the bottle...its in a blue like spray bottle...you might have mold on the roots causing slow growth too if its on the leaves...

i would transplant them also

Hey Seattle good question, what are you growing?

I'm having about the same prob Seattle, mine are only about 2 weeks old though, and both are in a DWC, droopy as hell.

I really don't think that it is mold. The blackness is inside of the leaf itself, and there is nothing growing on it. The effected plant had the blackness on the first set of true leaves, which i cut off a few days ago. After the leaves where removed, blackening occurred on the second set. I also have a freshly painted, clean grow room with all new equipment. I really doubt that mold could have gotten a foot hold in the two weeks since I set it up. The room has tremendous air flow, the room is exhausted by a 270 cfm fan and the room is under 200 cf. The air is being exchanged at least once a minute. The strains are White Widow and Big Bud. Although both strains are droopy the blackening of the leaves is only effecting the Big Bud.

This is pretty simple Id say but first Ill ask some questions also.You did presoak the rockwool in ph 5.5 water for a day then shake them off to get rid of the excess wtare right? Both the 2 inch and 4x4 cubes.Next thing you know of course is that light is too much at that small stage of life and the wrong spectrum. Your were heating these to death and causing toxic light shock and then by misting int made it humid promoting mold and root rot slowing the plants down greatly. You dont wanna mist them.You made sure the roots were coming through well in the small rockwool before going into the larger cubes right? At this point no nutes should be being used at all just ph 5.5-5.8 water.Dont use distilled or artesian bottle water.You want a florescen shop light right on top of them touching the tops and in the blue spectrum as you see you got mad stretching going on. Do you have a fan lightly blowing across the table and the plant tops? Whats the temps and humidity?Heres a few shot of 3 week old plants first 2 at day 1 and then at about 3 weeks old..

FilthyFletch,
I did condition my rockwool and wait until roots where coming through tho bottoms of the small cubes before putting them in the larger cubes. I finally did realize that the 600watt hps was too much light and switched to a mh yesterday, they already seem to be doing better. I started with 20 seeds and right now about eight of them seem to be recovering and doing well. After they show sex ill hopefully have 3-5 females. This was less than I expected so I am thinking about transplanting them into 5 gallon buckets of soil. This way I can utilize more of my vertical space (the hydro tables wont be taking up 2 1/2 feet of vertical space). Do you think that transplanting the 5" rockwool cubes in to 5 gallon soils pots at the start of flowering would be a bad idea? I have read that it is fine to put the smaller, 1 inch plugs into soil, people do it all the time. But what about the larger 5" cubes. Will they stay too wet or dry buried in the soil? Will the change from hydro to soil after vegging for 6 weeks be too much for the plants too handle. I probably should have started with soil in the first place, since this is my first grow. I might be more successful if I had less systems to monitor.

Here is a pic of my healthiest plant at 19 days from seed.

You can put them in dirt in the cubes just use a no nute soil with plenty or perlite so the roots and cube can breathe.When you water just dont water right arond the stalk so the cube doesnt soak to much and make sure the cube is under the dirt. Youll have to ease the nutes til the plant takes to the soil but the plus side is if you do this a week or 2 before going to flower you can pull some clones for your table or next grow then the plants will be adjusted and you can flower away

dont give up bud,be patient & things will improve.Good luck

FilthyFletch,
Thanks for the help. What exactly do you mean by "no nute soil". Many people on Rollitup speak highly of Foxfarms, would this be alright? Also, you say to make sure the rockwool cubes are covered in soil; I have read that when tranplanting, many people will bury the plant nearly up to the first set of leaves, potentially covering up several inches of previously exposed stem. Is this an acceptable practice?

Note: After two weeks of trying to figure out what is causing the slow growth, drooping, and dead leaves I believe I have figured out what was wrong. I adjusted ph up and down. Calibrated and re-calibrated my ph meter. Adjusted temperatures, fan speeds, ventilation, and humidity. I replaced and adjusted my nute sollution many times. After all of this, switching out the 6oo watt Agroson hps for a Pulse Start Metal Halide has had an immediate and striking effect on the plants. In under two days over half of the seedlings have made a turnaround and showed marked improvement. A quarter of them bounced back fully and look great. The remaining half are at least not looking any worse and I expect them to show improvement in the following days.

Well, you hit the nail on the head Filthyfletch, two days after switching out the hps for a metal halide my lil guys are looking so much better. Heres a couple of pics, what a huge difference.

Good, SP! Good.

how do the roots look. could be a problem of to much light. 600 watts is way to much for seedlings that size. i would suggest putting a screen between the plants and the light

hey seattle when i see the roots popping out of the bottom of the rockwool i immediatly plant them. use whatever method you are going to use be it hydro or soil but i would say that that is your prob the second thoes babies pop roots they are on a mission and need as much spread space as they can recieve/.