first time coco grower in need of help

[Anxo]

What Strain is it? HSO Blue Dream
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Sativa
How Many Plants? 4
Is it in Vegetative or Flowering Stage? Veg
If in Vegetative Stage... How Long? 11 days
Indoor or Outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Hydro
If Hydro, what type of Medium? Coco
Size (Wattage) of Light? How Many? 2x24w t5
Is it Air Cooled? Yes
Temperature of Room/Cabinet? 69-73
RH of Room/Cabinet? 45-50
PH of Medium or Reservoir? 5.8
Any Pests? No
How Often are you Watering? Once a day
Type and Strength of Fertilizers used? Canna A&B, Cannazyme, and Rapid Start. Week 1: A&B 1ml/g, Rapid Start 2ml/g
Week 2: A&B 4ml/g, Rapid Start 1ml/g, Cannazyme 5ml/g

PPM - Week 1: 150ppm, Week 2: 350ppm
PH - 5.8
RH - 45-50
Room Temperature - 69-73
Solution Temperature - 65
Pests - None Known

Problem: the seedlings are light green almost yellow. I have been using RO water that is 5ppm since day 1. I am thinking that the problem is caused by the RO water. Would calmag fix this issue? Also there is a single brown dot on one leaf.Any help would be awesome.

 

[Budddyy]

When using r/o water cal-mag is a must mate as the r/o system takes everything out the water hence the ppm of 5, i always add silicon then cal-mag before i add any other nutrients or addatives. When their young i think about 50 ppm of cal-mag is about right then work your way up but please check this first. Also your seed has enough nutrient in it to support its self for a week or two they might be getting hungry now, once again please check

 

[Budddyy]

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[Hiker]

they MIGHT be a little hungry, but it's hard to tell. First, questions...

You fed them the first 2 weeks? Probably not a good thing.

What do the cotyledons (the little round leaves that first appear) look like? If they are brown and shriveled, that's OK. It means the plant has eaten all the food stored in those. Are they green still?

What did you do to prepare the coco. Did you ph balance it first? soak with nutrients?
Have you measured the ph of the runoff?


If the cotyledons are still green, stop feeding. I usually won't feed a seedling until at least the 3rd set of real leaves, ie cotyledons don't count. Since you're using soiless, you can always flush when you're not sure what's wrong. I've done some growing in coco. I'm not an expert, but I think you want the ph to be 6.0-6.5 in coco.

Get your media to the right ph, and then let it dry out a little between waterings. Coco holds water well, so you need to let it dry a little bit so fresh air can get down there. As the water is sucked up, that draws in more air. It's easy to drown the babies. I'm not saying you're doing this, but it's common for new growers to over water.

Your babies actually look OK. Sometimes a lightness at the main growth points isn't as bad as you think. It can indicate the plant is growing vigorously and just needs to eat. That's why I said it depends. I think you may have fed too early, but they could also be hungry. They look pretty green in the pictures.

 

[Antics]

Here's a rundown of what I do with my coco (and some things I've recently learned)

Approx 4:1 ratio Coco to Perlite

At that age, go light on nutes.
when they get older, I feed nutes 2x a day, morning and a little in evening.

Ph of nutes/water should be 5.8 for coco.
Ignore the runoff PH.
I see no calcium or magnesium deficiencies at this time with your plants.

You will need CalMag definitely in the future.

Tap water is fine to use from most municipalities.

 

[Anxo]

they MIGHT be a little hungry, but it's hard to tell. First, questions...

You fed them the first 2 weeks? Probably not a good thing.

What do the cotyledons (the little round leaves that first appear) look like? If they are brown and shriveled, that's OK. It means the plant has eaten all the food stored in those. Are they green still?

What did you do to prepare the coco. Did you ph balance it first? soak with nutrients?
Have you measured the ph of the runoff?


If the cotyledons are still green, stop feeding. I usually won't feed a seedling until at least the 3rd set of real leaves, ie cotyledons don't count. Since you're using soiless, you can always flush when you're not sure what's wrong. I've done some growing in coco. I'm not an expert, but I think you want the ph to be 6.0-6.5 in coco.

Get your media to the right ph, and then let it dry out a little between waterings. Coco holds water well, so you need to let it dry a little bit so fresh air can get down there. As the water is sucked up, that draws in more air. It's easy to drown the babies. I'm not saying you're doing this, but it's common for new growers to over water.

Your babies actually look OK. Sometimes a lightness at the main growth points isn't as bad as you think. It can indicate the plant is growing vigorously and just needs to eat. That's why I said it depends. I think you may have fed too early, but they could also be hungry. They look pretty green in the pictures.

Yes, I fed them since like day 4-5. The cotyledons are still green. I was conflicted on feeding this early, some people would say to feed since the real leaves show and some people said to wait like you mentioned.

 

[Anxo]

I will upload better pictures in the am. I have read that this strain has a high tolerance for nutrients. Could it be that they are just hungry for more? I ph my water to 5.8 and it comes out at around the same give or take 0.1. Should I flush my plants and give them stronger dosage of nutrients or flush and just give them tap water until the cotyledons yellow up?

 

[Anxo]

Alright guys thanks for the help, I looked into things that can be wrong and this video came up and these plants look exactly like mine do, I watched the video and he said it was caused because he didn't feed them (also in 100% coco). He fed them and they looked better a few days later. So I am pretty sure that these little girls are hungry for more. Do you guys agree?

 

[Antics]

If you found strain specific information that states they like a higher level of nutrients, it's worth a try. I would just increase slowly, not a ton all at once.

You shouldn't need a flush at this point. Just water until you get a healthy level of runoff every time.
Your PH and everything seems solid, so I would look at nutes also at this point.

And that guy needs to move his light closer too
How far are YOUR lights from the plants?

 

[Anxo]

If you found strain specific information that states they like a higher level of nutrients, it's worth a try. I would just increase slowly, not a ton all at once.

You shouldn't need a flush at this point. Just water until you get a healthy level of runoff every time.
Your PH and everything seems solid, so I would look at nutes also at this point.

And that guy needs to move his light closer too
How far are YOUR lights from the plants?

They are about 3 inches away from the t5 bulbs.

 

[Hiker]

If your ph is 5.8 in and out, you're good there. No need to flush.

You can try to feed them. Coco has some quirks, and is a relatively new media (we didn't have it back in the 90's). Perhaps some of the old rules of thumb need to be adjusted for coco.

If your seedlings are stretching like that too, then I agree, get your lights closer. If your at 3-5", you should be OK.

Regardless of how the cotyledons look, if you have 5 sets of leaves, you should be feeding.

Start with a very dilute feeding. I always cut the vendor's recipe by at least 50%. For a seedling, I would cut their seedling recipe to about 25% strength to start and then watch.

The most common problems with new growers usually relate to loving the plants to death.
That's why I said to make sure you're not drowning the roots. Many people, and I agree, think coco should be kept a little wetter than regular soil, but new growers tend to err on the side of too wet when they might be better served to err on the dry side. IMHO, a thirsty plant is easier to diagnose than one that is drowning. Drowning roots can look like so many other things. A limp plant is pretty easy to identify