First grow ever - Are my plants healthy?

[weejus]

I have 4 plants under 4 cfls (100w eq each) 3 are seedlings still and one has recently entered veg. 3 are unknown strains including the larger one in veg and one is "BlackJack (strong indica and strong sativa blend). There's a lot to say but i'll do my best to describe the setup and early life. i had been watering with tap water and seaweed extract until a day or so ago with no ph tester or ph down solution so i've been feeding them @ roughly 8 till now but they seem rather healthy minus some burn early in the larger plants life. They are all in fox farm ocean forest soil now and have been under 24 hours of light. I am seeing some of the lower leaves getting crispy and going a little darker green with some lighter spots. (refer to pictures.) almost all of the plants appear to have some kind of crisping or contorting of the leaves. From what i've read it looks like that could be due to poor ph and subsequent nute deficiency but i thought i'd come to some experienced growers for some insight. I do have a ph pen, tds meter, and made my own ph down with sulfuric acid. I also noticed some "washed out" looking parts of the leaves, not sure if that could also be due to the possible lack of nutrients from poor ph control.

 

[OldMedUser]

Sounds like you're burning them. Straight FF soil is too strong for most sprouts and seedlings as it is so the seaweed extract is only going to make things worse.

Any idea what's in your tap water? Get a report from your town or whoever supplies your water to find out. Tap water causes most problems I see people seeking help for here.

How to upload pics.

 

[weejus]

the shorter seedling that's very leafy is the BlackJack strain and the other two are unknown along with the larger one that's now in veg

 

[weejus]

Damn I saw so many posts of people using foxfarm from seedling to flower i figured it would be fine but i guess not. I started the first off in miracle grow (shows how little i knew not that i know much now) but that was only the larger one. I guess i'll stop with the seaweed for now. is this going to be a problem or should i amend the soil? Edit: our water is chlorinated i ppm tested it at ~250 if that means anything. I also just switched to watering with distilled water and have just started making sure everything is ph'ed to 6.6

 

[OldMedUser]

At 250ppm your tap water has quite a bit of minerals in it but it doesn't tell you what those minerals are. High sodium, iron, manganese and chloride are just some that like calcium and magnesium get left over in the pots after every watering and eventually mess up your plants. Think of the crust that you get in your coffee maker or kettle after a while. That's what builds up in your root zone and throws everything off. As it builds up it doesn't matter if you pH the water to 5 as there is so much alkali in the pot that the pH stays too high all the time.

At this stage you shouldn't have much build up and if the plants are surviving with the rich soil now they should be OK with the distilled water.

Now that I can see the pictures it looks like they had a little trouble with the higher nutes at first but all the new growth is looking good so they should be fine.

 

[weejus]

At 250ppm your tap water has quite a bit of minerals in it but it doesn't tell you what those minerals are. High sodium, iron, manganese and chloride are just some that like calcium and magnesium get left over in the pots after every watering and eventually mess up your plants. Think of the crust that you get in your coffee maker or kettle after a while. That's what builds up in your root zone and throws everything off. As it builds up it doesn't matter if you pH the water to 5 as there is so much alkali in the pot that the pH stays too high all the time.

At this stage you shouldn't have much build up and if the plants are surviving with the rich soil now they should be OK with the distilled water.

Now that I can see the pictures it looks like they had a little trouble with the higher nutes at first but all the new growth is looking good so they should be fine.

Thanks so much for the reply, that puts my mind at ease. Should I trim those lower crispy leaves off or does that risk stressing the plant out too much? Also I noticed chlorine and sodium were the biggest parts of it looking at the water report, but no matter they'll be getting the clean stuff now. Is the seaweed extract still okay for the larger plant?