Problems with 3 Week-Old Seedlings--First Grow

Hi everybody, I've been lurking on RIU and a bunch of other forums for months, and finally started my first grow a couple of weeks ago. Here's what I'm working with:

13 plants: 3 ak48 feminized, 10 rando's (BuyDutchSeeds free Indica/Sativa mix--not sexed)
Closet: ~3.5x2.5x5 Lights: 1x600w MH/HPS w/ dimmable ballast (currently running @ 100%), 2x 105 w (400w equiv.) Fluorescent (Photography) Bulbs.
Temp: ~83/72*F (Lights on/off, plants directly under MH), ~74.5/72*F (Lights on/off, plants under FL's)
RH: ~38-40% (lights on), ~48-58% (lights off)
Ventilation: 1x 4" 190 CFM inline fan, pulling through a 4" carbon scrubber, and venting through a dual window fan switched to exhaust(intake fan is blowing cool, fresh air into my bedroom), 2x 4in. computer fans active intake, tons of passive intakes/passive exhaust out of the top of the closet (plus a 4in. oscillating fan on low blowing from a slight distance on the plants).

Soil: 50/50 mix of FFOF and FFHF (recommended to me by the eternally persisting and thoroughly ubiquitous hydro store guy [everybody (or, almost everybody) has one, but how could we ever know that it's not just one sucka, like brother Santa Claus??])//(I should be writing my thesis instead of growing marijuana......fuck)

Nutes: So far, just FF Grow Big.

Ok, so, I'm gonna try to paintcha guys a pittcher, here, of what's going on, as quickly as possible. 13 plants, germed in rapid rooters, transplanted after a week (I'm impatient, forget about it. Actually, though, they all had roots, multiple roots, son, that's why I used the plural, poking through the bottom of the RR plugs). 4 2gallon smart pots, 4 solo cupz, 5 1 gallon pots. watering every other day--soil gets dry fast relative to relatively low relative humidity, methinks. The first time I watered them after transplant, I added nutes, on some forum advice shit, and I think my current problems may be due to this (?)mistake(?) of mine. I have watered them once since that initial force feeding, just water (pH'd to about 6.2 before hitting Oma(rijuana)ha beach), and they look like they might need to be watered again tomorrow--my plan is plain water again. The plants look small for 3 weeks (comin' up this Friday) since popping the seeds into my cupawata.What's more, on some plants, several leaves were taco-ing on me (though they've relaxed a lot since I moved the oscillating fan back). On all of the plants the new growth is coming in very slowly, and some of the new leaves look a bit deformed on the aforementioned sickish plants). There are also a couple of plants that look a bit too dark to be perfectly healthy. There's also one plant with a couple of spots (I'm assuming it's nute burn) After reading this a guide to diseases/deficiencies/etc found on this site (can't find it, it was recommended by many), I'm thinking that these problems may be due to a deficiency/lockout (due to that fateful virgin nuting) of at least one of the following: sulphur, zinc, calcium. I've been rotating the plants daily, so that they all get a bit of MH, and a bit of FL (13 plants was too many for the first go, this is certain), as well as getting a chance to cool down a bit after being in 83* weather for 9 hrs. (oh yeah, light schedj is 18/6). It's also possible that I'm just silly worrying sally (but, if I'm being honest, I think I'm just blowing it big time). I'm gonna work on throwing up (wait, ya gotta keep reading) some pictures (see?) on the ol' forum (gimme like 30 mins, I've gotta smoke, then take 'em, then figure out how to upload them). That's a ton of shit to have read, thanks a lot for sticking it out. Gosh, fuck, I need to get back to my thesis, ok, ok. Pics are coming, I'm staying tuned, I hope you're staying tuned, that way we'll all be staying tuned.

Thanks guys!

dont know if these will help or not, good luck, can you post pics?...im a newbie so cant answer your quest. this is the best help I can give is stuff I already have read and
the sites are legit for info...
http://www.kindgreenbuds.com/marijuana-grow-guide/plant-abuse.html
http://www.growweedeasy.com/marijuana-symptoms
http://www.1stmarijuanagrowerspage.com/cannabis-growing-problems-mistakes-solutions/fertilizers-ph-nutrients-problem-overdose-defficiency.html

http://www.weedguru.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=27907

Alright, so , here are the pictures. I labeled them all individually, but I don't know if the labels made it through the upload process. Basically, I took some shots of my healthier looking plants, as well as some questionable ones. Honestly, since finnicking with my lights and vents a bit, and after the other day's watering, the plants are all relatively the same shade of healthy (not-dark-but-not-too-light) green...On a coupla the photos it looks like the leaves have white edges, or a patch of white--that's just the dumb camera picking up the dumb glare from the dumb mylar. There's one closeup shot of the obviously nute-burned plant, it's a really siiiiiiiiiiiick plant.

Totalyclipse said:

dont know if these will help or not, good luck, can you post pics?...im a newbie so cant answer your quest. this is the best help I can give is stuff I already have read and
the sites are legit for info...

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Thanks all the same, man. I appreciate the traffic.

bump-truck

quick update, I 'm pretty sure that I need to get that RH up a little bit, but I'm already running a humidifier....

Any thoughts percolating out there? Very nearly anything is appreciated!

Thanks!

sorry to say this but you should be near flowering... i promise you this your plant WILL grow faster if you water not as much as you are now. let your soil dry out but not too much. when the top of the soil is dry that doesnt mean the whole medium is, guaranteed poke your finger down the soil and you will find moisture.extend the watering days and your plant will be fine. hope this helps somewhat and good luck

I'm extending my watering, but only cause I'm using MG soil, which everybody says, don't do, except some pros that say it's a good newbie or lazy way to grow. If I were to water too much I'd be feeding it too much and get root burn very easily. But typically, yes, you don't want to over water, and I like using the finger method too.

good show us how your crop is doing in a week or so

Thanks thanks thanks, guys. Yes, I think you're right, and that I'm over-watering a bit. I switched my light setup a bit (threw the fl's on a tension rod, dropped 'em down closer to the plants (I don't think they need to be as far from their clientele as the MH), and I added 7 CFLs. I'm growing 3 ak48's and 10 randoms (free mix sampler the seed bank sent me), but I'm a real bungus and threw all of the seeds into the same cup of water without thinking, so I have no idea what's what. I'll check back in a couple of days with an update. I also think that they may have looked particular frail for a couple of days because I had just transplanted them. For what it's worth, I'm much less concerned now than I was when I first posted. This forum seems like a really great resource, though, so I'd love to continue posting my progress to this post, for those interested/willing to slang some verbiage, and help out a newboob.

Congrats to those in Colorado and Washington--enjoy responsibly so the rest of the country can follow suit (I'm tired of being a smooth thug criminal nahmean?)!

Thanks again, I greatly appreciate the help.

First post is a bit much to take in... one thing I was curious about is when the pictures you posted were taken, are those recent? Three weeks in should be considerably further along than that.

Rapid rooters are awesome for cuttings but for starting cannabis seeds you should really do it in a container that is about 4" deep at least. Happy Frog is fine for that, all by itself. Ocean Forest by itself already has a good amount of nutrients (hotter than HF) and can sustain plants for a couple weeks at least. They definitely wouldn't be need any Grow Big.
I feel bad that you're having problems especially because it doesn't seem to me like you have to be having them. You shouldn't have to be fussing with pH and worried about nutrient lockup. The key is really in how you set the soil up. For example, I have used both Happy Frog and Ocean Forest frequently, never having to pH anything at all. One of the major keys to that is simply adding more dolomite limestone to the soil (also provides Ca and Mg). The other is microbial activity in the root zone.

The FF potting mixes are totally organic and they are also living. When you use pH up and synthetic fertilizer like Grow Big you tend to complicate things for yourself. I know because I used to use the FF liquid products when I first started growing. Upon switching to an organic liquid nutrient (Earth Juice) for any imminent needs and learning over time to tweak a soil to sustain itself I did much better.

Still, hope this grow looks up for you.

Nullis said:

First post is a bit much to take in... one thing I was curious about is when the pictures you posted were taken, are those recent? Three weeks in should be considerably further along than that.

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The photos were taken this afternoon; and I'm sorry about the first post I just picked up today, and guess what I did right before I jumped on the internet. Using the grow big this early was a huge mistake, but it seems like most of the rest of the plants have perked up considerably and are looking a lot better. I'm going to go a bit easier on the watering as well. I did a bunch of research and I guess I got freaked out about nutrient lockups and overcompensated. Thanks for the well wishes, I'm crossing my fingers as well.

Things have been looking much better over the past couple of days. It seems like they're really bouncing back! I've added an oscillating fan, and the stems are now a lush, light green, getting beef-status, and they're starting to grow a lot faster. I haven't watered them in about 4 days (I think I over-watered during the first week, so the soil had a fair amount of drying-out to do), and I wanted to let the roots stretch out in search of water (obviously nothing extreme). I'll have some pictures up soon.

Thank you everyone that's responded so far. Roll it up and other forums have proven much more valuable (and reliable) as resources for me than my local hydro shop (guy told me to nute at 1/2 strength the moment I transplanted--I think this is what stunted my growth). I'm new to growing and to the forum, but I'd like to become more of a part of this community.

Thanks again,

Pubeydangus

Hey guys,

Just got back from a weekend trip, and it looks like everything ran like it was supposed to (all timers functioning--had roommates pop in to make sure lights were turning on/off at the right times, conditions of grow room maintained, etc), which is a relief because I'm going to have to leave them for at least 10 days around xmas time to visit my family.

I realized the other day that I hadn't filled the pots up with enough soil when I was getting ready to transplant the seedlings from the rapid rooter plugs (first time growing anything), so I'm going to spend some time adding more to each 1 and 2 gallon pot (already did this to the solo cups). Several online sources suggested removing the plant/soil from the pot (as if I were going to transplant), adding more soil to the bottom of the pot, and then replacing the plant/soil on top of the new stuff. Is this the best (least stressful for the plants) way to do this? I'm also going to reconfigure my grow room a bit today. I have much more vertical space in my closet than I am currently employing, and I think that I could get the temps cooler (1x600w MH, 2x105w/400 eq. fluoros, 7x26w/100w eq.cfl means that when the light's at 100%, temps hover around 86, so I've been running it mostly at 75% or 450w.), and better dispersion/penetration of light by mounting it a little bit higher up. Plus, my plants are starting to bush nicely for the most part (wish I knew what was what in there), though there are a couple which are distinctly branchier. Ayo some dude swag be from Cartier, mine from Branchier nahmean. We'll see what happens. If I am making any obvious mistakes, or overlooking possible improvements, please lemme know.


Pictures by tonight.

So the grow turned around! All the plants started to grow nicely; I pulled the males, and transplanted everybody into either 1g pots or 2g smart pots. There are 9 females, and all are looking healthy, except one. I just got some calmag plus and some lime yesterday, and I watered with both (pH has been pretty low). Tomorrow will be 4 weeks since the flip to 12/12, and all of the indica-dominant strains are in full bloom (they've probably been flowering for about 2 1/2 weeks), with a couple of the sativa-doms blossoming and a couple getting ready to start. Also, there's an ak48 fem that I've been lst'ing and growing under 12/12 from seed. It threw its first full pistils the other day, so I'm expecting a serious grow-down over the next couple of weeks. Here are some shitty cell pics.

Some more pics; I tried to add shots of the closet for perspective--I keep trying to move my light closer, but I'm battling high temps...For what it's worth, the depth of field on the camera makes it look like the light is further from the plants than it in fact is.

I also have a new fan (204 CFM) coming in the mail today, which should help things a bit.

some nugglets right after lights-out; my camera sucks

If there's anything obvious that I am getting wrong, please let me know. Any/all input is appreciated!