Light/Heat Burn? Should I trim leaves?

First Grow Ever,

I have a 24 inch tall grow box with one plant (4 inch) in a small DWC hydroponic unit. I am using 3 CFL lights. I keep the box at about 87 degrees F. The plant is on Day 16 and is pretty short and bushy.

I had the light bulbs about 3-4 inches away from my plant for several days, and yesterday I noticed some spots on some of the leaves. It appeared as if something had dripped on it.

After some research, I'm pretty convinced it's Light or Heat burn. I run a relatively high temperature (87 F) and the lights were pretty close (3-4 in).

My 2 main questions are:

(1) Should I trim the leaves where I notice these burn spots, if the spots are, let's say, toward the ends of the leaf blades?

(2) Additionally, the plant is getting bushy and the larger fan leaves are folding down as they grow into the sides of the box. Would it be worth it to trim these down too?

.

1. No, unless it is blocking something then you can crinkle the dead part off with your hand so you don't accidentally cut into live leaf 2. No, never trim leaves unless they are highly i'm the way of a bud or two or you have a huge over abundance due to pulled branches..I try to cut Very few off if any

Spots on leafage? Could be deficient possibly. It's not easy to burn a plant with cfls...
^^^and what this says^^^

Didn't look at the pics I thought you knew what you had going...that looks more like splash burn, you may have splashed some nutes on the leaf feeding the plant, def not nute burn either contact burn or heat stress

Or the leaf may simply have been squashed..don't cut it and don't worry, overall the plant looks great and I don't see any actual problems just a damaged leaf

Agreed. Looks like a splash...and certainly not a deficiency imo

Thanks kermit and sworth, I had no idea that could happen!

If you can imagine the six holes on the box (not my design) the hole in front of it is where I've been watching the roots grow and taking water with a dropper to check pH. That's where I've also been adding the nutrients and acid/base. Yes, and as you can imagine for a first time grower, I spent a lot of time looking at the plant and the roots coming through But I'll definitely get over that, for the sake of my plant's health!

From now on, I'll use one of the holes at the far end of the unit to treat my water culture!
Thanks

Yup that will do it lol np

I just checked on it this morning and the problem seems to be worse. The plant overall looks "droopier." Even more leaves seem to look like something dripped on it, but I guarantee you I did not splash nutrients on it. Of the couple times I've given it nuts, I always use a dropper and put the dropper into the reservoir before squeezing.

I was trying to find this problem with others, and maybe found it can be caused by me touching the leaves with my hands. I've definitely rubbed the leaves before with my thumb/fingers. It would make sense now if the leaves were extremely sensitive to oils and salt from one's hands. But no one has ever said or written about this precaution from the hours upon hours of reading I've done!

It's been a week since I've given it nutrients and changed the water. Should I give it a half dose of nutrients and change out the water today or would that be too stressful?

As youre growing dwc youll have to give her nutes and half strength would be a good place to start

Also,check your air pump,make sure theres plenty bubbles