multiple questions and a confused first timer

ok, well i have done alot of research about what im supposed to be doing before i started, mostly here at rollitup

i have 4 plants growing in a 36"X18" area, i have two 120w grow lights that seem to be working great so far.
money is very limited so im trying to do this as natural as possible, but as quickly as possible while trying not to sacrifice too much of my yield.

my plants are all at 8/9 days old, they got off to a great start the first 4 or 5 days, but since then they havent seemed to grow too much. was i wrong in expecting them to keep shooting up?

so far i have not used any fert. or nutes. (as i said before money is really tight) but one of my plants looks to me like it has nutrient burn, or even over fertilization, and i am confused as to how that could be, as i have used none.

one plant is doing very well and if it keeps going on as it has been it will be one fat mother. the other two plants are growing up but not out.



i have done everything exactly the same for all 4 plants, and i done understand how there can be such extreme differences already



that is my first plant, the one that i have the most hope for (if not the only one)


this one is growing up but not out much at all




the first few days they grew like they were on fire, from nothing to almost what they are now, but since they havent grown much at all, maybe 20% of what they did the first 4 days.

the soil the plants are in is not very deep, should i repot into bigger?
would that let them grow faster like they did last week?
(soil is as deep as the plants are tall[within a couple centimeters])


the last plant i have questions about is that one that seems to just be dying while all the others are as healthy as they could be

im not sure what is wrong, but one leaf is half gone, and the other is starting...is there any way i could save it?????

well to start you need to get the lights a lot closer...they are really stretching...how far are your lights away, cuz they should be about 3 or 4 inches away...oh and if the leafs look like they are being eaten or wrinkling it is most likely a problem with your ph...have you been following ph levels?

no, i hardly ever have more money than what it takes to put gas in my car for work. i havent gotten around to getting a ph test kit, and i wouldnt know how to balance it once i did test it.

right now the lights are almost a foot away.
moving them closer will help them grow out instead of up?

i just dont want to have the plants get burned, just because i have high hopes for the biggest of them.




every little bit of advice helps, thanks man. hopefully that will help

leaving the lights close will keep them shorter and grow out farther the further the lights are the higher they will grow and cause streching making the stem to weak to be able to support themselves...what kind of lights exactly are you using?

i know this sounds bad, but i honestly dont know what lights im using. 2 generic 120w grow lights from lowes.

are they the 4 foot ones? the ott-lite i think its called?

I think you should put them in to bigger pots, bring the lights closer, And it looks like you are over watering or under watering. Get some cheap but good organic Fert called PLANT TONE, its only about $7 at homedepot. Dont start feeding nutes until about 2 weeks. Get some blue spectrum CFLs. How many plants are you growing? Put them in a closet or room with flat white paint for reflection and place a small desk fan in there with them. Also it is important to have a thermometer so you can make sure temp stays abou 75-80 in there.