Help with Tri-Foliate seedlings! Recirculating DWC

[ARCHER12]

First time grower doing a RDWC grow:

6 site RDWC
Black Widow Strain
Started in rock wool
Fluence Spydrx Plus LED 24/0
RH 65%
Temp 78-84
Water Temp 68
Nestle Pure Life Water ph'd to 5.8
Top watered every other day
No Nutes yet

All 6 seeds were started in rock wool that had been soaked in ph 5.8 water overnight with a small dose of superthrive. Popped after 2 days. In humidity dome for first week with heat mat. When I could see a solid collection of furry roots in bottoms of RW, I put into RDWC with growstones. After 2 days a couple plants had become droopy and after two days they now look like they do. One of the two tri fol has the worst of the problem. I have no clue what could be the problem.

 

[Rider509]

Looks like nutrient burn or light burn. As cool as that SPYDRx Plus is I'd suggest keeping those babies under 6500K CFLs until they are well established regardless the problem. So, what are you feeding them?

As an aside, I lusted over the SPYDRx Plus LEDs and almost pulled the trigger on them. I'm jealous. Very, very jealous.

 

[ARCHER12]

No feed yet as I had troubles with my last seedlings so I was planning on going til the third set or yellowing until I started feeding. Just phd water every other day from the top. I'm hoping to see some roots out of the net pot in the next 5 or so days.

 

[Dr Fish]

This is only a guess, but the rocks look too dry, and the cube too wet... If you're only watering it every other day, i'm assuming the cube gets most of the water... I don't do this type of rdwc, but from what i've read most dwc growers water the hydroton multiple times a day in the begening... Then depend on breaking bubble splash it keep the hydroton wet... How about a side shot of the pot so we can see its condition... Is it sitting partly in water??

 

[Rider509]

Add drip rings to your pots. Drip the rocks, not the rockwool. And bury that rockwool. And I apologize for missing that you weren't feeding them nutes. I blame that on Sailor Jerry.

 

[ARCHER12]

Looks like nutrient burn or light burn. As cool as that SPYDRx Plus is I'd suggest keeping those babies under 6500K CFLs until they are well established regardless the problem. So, what are you feeding them?

As an aside, I lusted over the SPYDRx Plus LEDs and almost pulled the trigger on them. I'm jealous. Very, very jealous. For those of you not familiar with this light here's a link that will shed some light on them.
Fluence Bioengineering Illuminates MedMen Cannabis Vertical Farm in California; Increases Yield 157 Percent - Fluence Bioengineering

I went ahead and rigged a CFL pergola over them with one 23w for each plant since they are too far away to do separately. Unfortunately this hasn't helped. They are looking worse with dead spots on all of the plants. I have been watering the growstones as well as the rock wool, and the net pot is submerged about an inch. I'd say the RW is 2in higher than that, so I can't believe that it would be watering related. They are folding over now too with blackish spots that turn bronzish which sounds like a P deficiency which doesn't make sense to me being that they're this young and haven't received notes yet. I'll work on the ring anyway to make sure, but I'm not sure what to do.

 

[Rider509]

Watering the rockwool may be your problem. Rockwool holds a lot of water and may lead to root rot and/or damping off. Try watering only the rocks and mist the rockwool only enough to keep the top moist. The idea, as I'm sure you know, is to force the roots to reach out and down for water. I hope the plants get happy. If they do and you start seeing new growth don't remove the damaged leaves. Your plants need all the light gathering ability they can get and removing damaged leaves is cosmetic at best. If a leaf isn't viable your plant will drop it of its own accord.

If you look at my pic you can see that I buried the Ready Rooters under a single layer of Hydroton. I never worried about or watered the Ready Rooters after that.

Keep us updated!

 

[ARCHER12]

Thanks for the words of wisdom Rider! I am cautiously optimistic as of today - I made a few changes over the last two days that I'm hoping have cured the problem.

1. I got rid of the growstones altogether. After doing some research, I found that others have had problems keeping a balanced ph with them, and after watering the growstones and checking the runoff I noticed it was almost a full point higher than my water. This is after rinsing growstones twice and soaking in ph'd water for 12 hours, so needless to say I won't be purchasing them again.

2. I switched from Nestle Pure Life RO water that has 80 ppm of mineral added back into it for taste to standard 0 ppm RO water.

3. I added 1ml/L Sensi A/B + 1 ml/g Cal/Mag

They started to perk back up yesterday afternoon, and today some of the green returned to the leaves that had become a pale green/yellow with the brown tips. I'll post pictures tomorrow - hopefully, they will continue to pick up, and I'll post some pictures of the makeshift styrofoam rock wool holders too.

Time for some much deserved GDP.

 

[Fennario]

Yeah, I've struggling with some clones that I got in rock wool when I put them in DWC. They just stayed too damp and rotted the stems. I've steered clear of rock wool now and I root clones in aeroponics and drop them in the hydroton when the roots are long enough to make it to the bottom of the net pot. I use a smaller 2" net pot inverted in the center with hydroton piled around to act as a little open space for the new roots to acclimate until they poke through.

 

[ARCHER12]

Thanks for the knowledge! I'll have to try that next time.. I just posted in my journal that my system got ate up with brown slime so I transplanted to soil since the roots hadn't made it down yet. Time to clean the system out with some physan and work on an aeroponic cloner!