Quick question - One of three seedlings already yellowing and very droopy

[Acid]

Hey guys,

So I recently started my new attempt at growing the burning bush. 3 seeds, same breeder, same strain, all at the same time. A first for me!

Also I kept it very simple this time, because I got enough complaints with my other grows about using way too much stuff. Silicate, rhizotonic, cannazym, espom salts, and and and. Please, I gave up. It's simple now.

Substrate is canna coco professional plus, with 30% added perlite. I then added a ~1/4 inch thick layer of pure coco on top for aesthetic reasons, I just hate looking at perlite

I only use a very low dose of Canna Coco A+B and sensi cal mag xtra, and water the nutrient solution down until I reach an EC of 0,5, then PH at around 6.0 in this case. These are 1L fabric starter pots. I watered the substrate before adding the germinated seeds, added the seeds, and then watered around 2 days later again when they popped out. Temps are very stable at a good 77-78°F / 60% humidity, going down to 64-66°F at night, 60-65% humidity. Two fans circulating air around, exhaust smart fan, everything's working as intended.

Today I watered again, and they all seemed fine, but the problematic one drooped even more severely then. I currently only water with a syringe, around 60ml for each plant.

Should I be worried? Seedlings are so flimsy and easily take a hit and die, so I wanna make sure this one survives as it does not look healthy, and these are also my last seeds. The outer tips are yellowing slightly, and the leaves are pointing down severely. The other two seedlings are as happy as they can be, with another autoflower seedling (which you can't see) also being VERY happy right now.

They all get literally the same water / nutrient solution, they're all exactly the same age, and are in the same environment. PPFD is at around 200 for these small girls.

 

[Roy Growin]

No, they are fine

 

[KeithLemon]

I am with Roy they look fine.

 

[Carcass]

I'd try just giving the droopy one just plain water for a week or so- she may not like the added nutes- even though the other 2 are fine with them.
She's not gonna starve- those cotyledons will feed her for a few more weeks.

 

[Acid]

So the newest update - All 3 show signs of yellowing now. Two more obvious, biggest one is slowly yellowing on the tip now too.

Question - Am I feeding not enough? The Canna Coco schedule says to go with 0.8EC of JUST nutrients, or 1.1EC including my tapwater per their calculator, right from the first day onwards. I currently feed with around 0.4-0.5EC, including my tapwaters natural EC of 0.35, so.. not a lot.

I imagine this is the result of my low nutrient dose, or? My last seedling never turned a healthy green with 1.0-1.1EC, it always looked a really light green, so I tried it the other way now

 

[Roy Growin]

Call me a monkey, but I take no notice of EC, ppm and all that jazz
Seedlings in coco need CaMg & 1-2ml/L of A/B and maybe a drop or two of kelp

 

[Acid]

Call me a monkey, but I take no notice of EC, ppm and all that jazz
Seedlings in coco need CaMg & 1-2ml/L of A/B and maybe a drop or two of kelp

Yeah that's probably where I totally went wrong. You see, I currently go with a 0.5L measuring cup, and I went with 0.3ml of a+b each in 500ml of solution, reaching an EC of around 0.5 - Probably way too low.

I'll probably water tomorrow with 1ml a+b each at 0.5L of solution, to reach the desired EC of 1.1-1.3 as recommended by Canna. Would you recommend to let the pot dry first with seedlings, or not? Daily watering even for the seedlings, including some runoff? Or daily watering with just a few syringes worth of solution, no runoff? Of course with coco / perlite

 

[Roy Growin]

Yeah that's probably where I totally went wrong. You see, I currently go with a 0.5L measuring cup, and I went with 0.3ml of a+b each in 500ml of solution, reaching an EC of around 0.5 - Probably way too low.

I'll probably water tomorrow with 1ml a+b each at 0.5L of solution, to reach the desired EC of 1.1-1.3 as recommended by Canna. Would you recommend to let the pot dry first with seedlings, or not? Daily watering even for the seedlings, including some runoff? Or daily watering with just a few syringes worth of solution, no runoff? Of course with coco / perlite

I'd say no, don't let the pot dry and don't water to run-off
My way in coco is to water from the bottom and allow the coco to draw moisture up

 

[Skunksta]

Never water coco with just plain water.
I feel hungry little ladies

 

[Acid]

I have one more question which still bugs my mind - The Canna "Rhizotonic" stuff. It's creating one big question in my mind.

Whenever I mix my nutrient solution, I'd go water -> CalMag -> A+B -> Rhizotonic (If I want to use Rhizotonic). I stir after adding every liquid.

It all goes perfectly fine, until I add the Rhizo stuff. My solution will always instantly turn cloudy whenever I add that stuff, it looks as if I've dropped a few drops of milk into it, even though that stuff is more of an amber brown liquid. Stirring doesn't help, but as soon as I add General Hydroponics PH Down, the milkyness / cloudyness disappears in a few seconds. Leaving CalMag out won't help, it even does it after adding just Canna A+B.

What exactly is going on there? I feel like something's off, it's bugging my mind, and I'd like to know if that's something I should watch out for. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I read that a cloudy nutrient solution is never good, but it also disappears when I add the PH down, so I just wanna ask if someone's familiar with this.

 

[Roy Growin]

I have one more question which still bugs my mind - The Canna "Rhizotonic" stuff. It's creating one big question in my mind.

Whenever I mix my nutrient solution, I'd go water -> CalMag -> A+B -> Rhizotonic (If I want to use Rhizotonic). I stir after adding every liquid.

It all goes perfectly fine, until I add the Rhizo stuff. My solution will always instantly turn cloudy whenever I add that stuff, it looks as if I've dropped a few drops of milk into it, even though that stuff is more of an amber brown liquid. Stirring doesn't help, but as soon as I add General Hydroponics PH Down, the milkyness / cloudyness disappears in a few seconds. Leaving CalMag out won't help, it even does it after adding just Canna A+B.

What exactly is going on there? I feel like something's off, it's bugging my mind, and I'd like to know if that's something I should watch out for. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I read that a cloudy nutrient solution is never good, but it also disappears when I add the PH down, so I just wanna ask if someone's familiar with this.

Yeah, I know what you are talking about
pH down it before you add the Potassium

 

[Acid]

Yeah, I know what you are talking about
pH down it before you add the Potassium

Which potassium? The Rhizotonic? I'm a bit confused. If I add PH down, then Rhizotonic, my Ph would shoot through the roof again as that stuff acts as a really heavy PH up, I'd have to use PH down again then. You meant it like that, or am I confusing something?

 

[SmokingWings]

Am I feeding not enough?

I do not grow in coco but it does look like a slow starvation starting.

Or daily watering with just a few syringes worth of solution, no runoff?

A few syringes of the fertilizing solution does not sound like enough water or fertilizer.

Substrate is canna coco professional plus, with 30% added perlite.

As I mentioned, I do not grow in coco coir but I am curious about it as an ingredient in different types of soil mixes and have tried using it a few times. I am wondering why you added the 30% Perlite to the coco?

 

[Roy Growin]

Which potassium? The Rhizotonic? I'm a bit confused. If I add PH down, then Rhizotonic, my Ph would shoot through the roof again as that stuff acts as a really heavy PH up, I'd have to use PH down again then. You meant it like that, or am I confusing something?

Yes, CaMg > A/B > pH > Rhizo > leave to settle > pH again
Or just skip the Rhizo - I have used it but don't bother with it any more

 

[Nunyabiz]

Coco needs to be kept quite moist.
Water everyday with about 1/2 strength nutrients and I would get them into a bigger pot soon if that's your intentions before the roots get to the fabric.
Need good doses of cal/mag usually with coco.
And don't be afraid to water it, short of tossing it into a swimming pool you can't really overwater in coco.

 

[Acid]

Coco needs to be kept quite moist.
Water everyday with about 1/2 strength nutrients and I would get them into a bigger pot soon if that's your intentions before the roots get to the fabric.
Need good doses of cal/mag usually with coco.
And don't be afraid to water it, short of tossing it into a swimming pool you can't really overwater in coco.

I wish that'd be the case, but whenever I water my coco, one of the seedlings droop heavily for 24 hours and only slowly recovers, and yes I don't understand it too. The other two don't droop when I do that, it's just one of them, but they're all the same strain.

With the pots, yeah, that was a dumb decision on my part with tiny fabric pots as starters, should've done square plastic pots and then switched to final fabric ones. They still seem a bit small for uppotting though, or? It's 1L pots or 1/3 gallon, and I have very bad experience with uppotting into a way bigger pot in coco, my last plant didn't like it at all

 

[Acid]

Third update (sorry for double post):

Two seedlings still look like this, third seedling is a lot larger, healthier, but the leaves are wonky (Don't have pics right now). Is it possible my light was too harsh for them? I just rechecked and apparently my phones display was a bit dirty. It read at 380PPFD this time. Could this cause yellowing seedling leaves with tips turned downwards? They both also seem very slow in growth, compared to their sister. I lowered PPFD to ~250 now, and it should be around 95% precise now, more than enough.

Temps are still wonderful as I finally fixed my problems by throwing sheets over the tent to retain more heat, even with the exhaust running at 20% (More than enough, it's a HUGE inline fan). So considering perfect temps, perfect humidity (78F / 65%), it can just be something with water / nutrients.

Wanna know the worst of all? I changed to full coco because all my plants in organic peat kept dying with the same symptoms. Now both my side projects with organic peat are thriving I hate my life.

 

[Acid]

Tiny update - Possible root rot? They don't seem white anymore, but I could be wrong. It's the smallest / most damaged seedling.