Hey, long time browser of this site, and member of a few others. However. i have encountered an issue that seems to have a majoirty of people stumped.
i just made the switch from soil, to hydro with rockwool/hydroton. and am encountering a frustrating problem.
the seedlings are 2 weeks old (started in the rockwool) and have no vigor. They are on their second set of true leaves, however, the first set of true leaves are only slightly larger than the cotyledons, and the second set, about the size of a tip on a ball point pen. As of today they are starting to show some pale colors in the first set of leaves. the cotyledons are still green, and they are about an inch tall.
so, im going to describe the past 2 weeks, and see if anyone has any sugestions.
day 1- prepared a liter of RO water with 80ppm calmax, and 1 drop of superthrive. Ph'd to 5.5, and soaked rockwool cubes in this solution over night.
day 2- gave the cubes a few hearty shakes to get rid of a lot of the water, and dropped my seeds into them and closed them up. placed them in a zip lock bag that was slightly open, and placed them on a 76F heat mat.
day 5 - cotyledons broke through the surface (not yet open)
day 6 - cotyledons open, but stems are laying over, (coming about 1/4" out of the rockwool, then laying down, but not quite touching the rockwool
Moved them under a single 200 (acutal) watt CFL , 6500k. (about 4 inches away) with a light fan breeze
day 7&8 - no change - let them be
day9 - prepared another batch of the same water used to soak the rockwool. and flushed the rockwool throughly with it (half a liter each) gave them a gentle shake to remove excess water
day 10 - stems now straight, and leaves pointed at the light, first set of true leaves are about the size of the cotyledons
days 11&12 - no changes. no growth - let them be
day 13 - rockwool is pretty dry today... feels just as light as fresh rockwool.
gave them about 5ml of same solution as before and put them into the dwc container.
the dwc res. containes the exact same solution as described, but has some 29% hydrogen peroxide added. (2.5ml per 4 liters)
day 14 - "explosion of growth" doubled in size.. true leaves are now twice the size of the cotyledons after almost no growth since they sprouted.
day 15-17 - nothing. except slight discoloration of the first set of true leaves and pin head size second set of true leaves starting. all in all the leaves span about the size of my thumb nail.
this is where i am currently at. i pulled the cubes out of the hydroton, and they are damp, not wet, not dry, but damp. and no roots even poking from the rockwool.
i got a suggestion to turn off my res, and top feed plain RO water once a day.
watered them a couple hours ago with plain RO, and going to see if i notice anything in the next while.
in the mean time, if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or anything really. i'm all ears.
i have never encountered this problem in soil. and am getting worried that im going to loose my first hydro batch as i just can't get this problem figured out.
im thinking it might just be the fact im using rockwool , a lot of people say they hate rockwool for seedlings, and only use it for clones. but who knows.
any insight would be greatly appreciated.
edit reason: spelling
i just made the switch from soil, to hydro with rockwool/hydroton. and am encountering a frustrating problem.
the seedlings are 2 weeks old (started in the rockwool) and have no vigor. They are on their second set of true leaves, however, the first set of true leaves are only slightly larger than the cotyledons, and the second set, about the size of a tip on a ball point pen. As of today they are starting to show some pale colors in the first set of leaves. the cotyledons are still green, and they are about an inch tall.
so, im going to describe the past 2 weeks, and see if anyone has any sugestions.
day 1- prepared a liter of RO water with 80ppm calmax, and 1 drop of superthrive. Ph'd to 5.5, and soaked rockwool cubes in this solution over night.
day 2- gave the cubes a few hearty shakes to get rid of a lot of the water, and dropped my seeds into them and closed them up. placed them in a zip lock bag that was slightly open, and placed them on a 76F heat mat.
day 5 - cotyledons broke through the surface (not yet open)
day 6 - cotyledons open, but stems are laying over, (coming about 1/4" out of the rockwool, then laying down, but not quite touching the rockwool
Moved them under a single 200 (acutal) watt CFL , 6500k. (about 4 inches away) with a light fan breeze
day 7&8 - no change - let them be
day9 - prepared another batch of the same water used to soak the rockwool. and flushed the rockwool throughly with it (half a liter each) gave them a gentle shake to remove excess water
day 10 - stems now straight, and leaves pointed at the light, first set of true leaves are about the size of the cotyledons
days 11&12 - no changes. no growth - let them be
day 13 - rockwool is pretty dry today... feels just as light as fresh rockwool.
gave them about 5ml of same solution as before and put them into the dwc container.
the dwc res. containes the exact same solution as described, but has some 29% hydrogen peroxide added. (2.5ml per 4 liters)
day 14 - "explosion of growth" doubled in size.. true leaves are now twice the size of the cotyledons after almost no growth since they sprouted.
day 15-17 - nothing. except slight discoloration of the first set of true leaves and pin head size second set of true leaves starting. all in all the leaves span about the size of my thumb nail.
this is where i am currently at. i pulled the cubes out of the hydroton, and they are damp, not wet, not dry, but damp. and no roots even poking from the rockwool.
i got a suggestion to turn off my res, and top feed plain RO water once a day.
watered them a couple hours ago with plain RO, and going to see if i notice anything in the next while.
in the mean time, if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or anything really. i'm all ears.
i have never encountered this problem in soil. and am getting worried that im going to loose my first hydro batch as i just can't get this problem figured out.
im thinking it might just be the fact im using rockwool , a lot of people say they hate rockwool for seedlings, and only use it for clones. but who knows.
any insight would be greatly appreciated.
edit reason: spelling
