Grow Mediums First Grow - Emily's Garden DWC / Mars Hydro 144x3 LED

I have been growing in DWC for a long time and IMO I would see if new growth appears in the next 2 or 3 days on the most affected plant(s) if not drop new beans and watch how much better they do now that you know what to watch out for.
 
Okay cool thanks everyone, I've noticed two are starting again to grow so I think flushing out the nutes and maintaining the proper ph is helping. Is it normal for ph to raise from 6 to 7 over a few days? I wonder if hydroton leaches stuff into the water?

and my third and more severely affected seedling (pics 2 and 4) still looks horrible, I wonder if it will even recover. Is it wise starting more seeds now to grow them staggered multiple weeks apart? Or will that mess with my potential flowering cycle and whatnot?

excuse typos, on my phone

I'm glad jackmc was able to step in and answer your question about the PPM's. Listen to what he has to say, give it a go and report back.

Regarding the hydroton (clay pebbles or whatever you want to call them) YES it does raise pH!

This is because they have a naturally high pH. If you put half a bucket of water, test the pH, add a few handfuls of hydroton/clay pebbles and test the pH again, you'll see... most likely... the pH has risen noticeably!

What you need to do before using hydroton is WASH it and get all the dust off it. Wash it and then wash it some more. I have a mesh waster paper bucket like you'd see in an office that I put my stones into and wash them that way. You could use a plastic laundry basket or even a kitchen strainer for smaller amounts.

After you wash your hydroton you want to SOAK it... generally I will soak my hydroton in pH 5.5 water for 3 days before I use it. Although I read recently you should use even lower pH water for soaking it.

EDIT: You want to check the pH of the water in the bucket your stones are in and if it's raising above 6.0 you want to add a touch more pH down. You want it so if you add water, it sits level at around 5.8. Anywhere between 5.5 - 6.2 is fine, but 5.8 is in the middle and it's kinda the 'safest' pH to aim for in hydro. /end edit.

Now you can't really do feck all right now because your plants are already growing, you're just going to have to keep adding pH down. However don't pH your water more than once in any 48 hour period. I would pH it down to 5.5 and let it drift back up to 6.2 and repeat that every at least 2 days.

Hope I'm being clear in all of that, any questions and fire back. Cheers! p.s. glad to hear you're making some progress. It's okay, lots to learn the first few times but once you have it right I swear to god they'll explode in size. If you keep posting lots of info here I'll keep helping you. (private message me if you don't hear back from me quickly enough)
 
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They are growing more, even the bad one is starting to put out new growth. When should I add nutes? After the tiny initial leaves have turned yellow?
 

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They are growing more, even the bad one is starting to put out new growth. When should I add nutes? After the tiny initial leaves have turned yellow?

First let me know what you've been doing differently lately which has been helping them starting to grow?

You need to tell us what's been happening / what's changed, before we can offer more advice :)
 
I have flushed the res with tap water at 6 ph (hard to get 5.8 on liquid tester) and have poured tap over the hydroton in a circle around the rockwool trying not to saturate the rockwool. Res temp is 69-70 with lots of air pumping in. Tent ambient temps range from 64-76 and that small white clip fan is on 24/24

Maybe I should wait a couple more days to add nutes, and when I do add only a couple ml of my GH Grow solution? Also should I put the air pump outside of the tent?
 
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It looks like the plant in picture 1 is doing much better, the other two still look a little rough(not to say they won't bounce back) I would not add any nutes at this point because those plants are very stressed, in the last pics how old are they? If you fix the pH you should start to see some new growth like in picture 1 and once you see it is on the right track start with 1/8th strength nutes and watch very closely for nute burn. Sending good grow Karma your way and I hope that all of the little ladies pull through!
 
Personally I would feed them 1/8th strength now.

I dunno though, I've never had to deal with such sick plants when they're so small so really not sure what to do.

All I know is if properly flushed clay pellets have no nutrition so how is the plant supposed to recover without any food what so ever?

The lowest I'd ever feed any plant would be 0.4 EC
 
It looks like the plant in picture 1 is doing much better, the other two still look a little rough(not to say they won't bounce back) I would not add any nutes at this point because those plants are very stressed, in the last pics how old are they? If you fix the pH you should start to see some new growth like in picture 1 and once you see it is on the right track start with 1/8th strength nutes and watch very closely for nute burn. Sending good grow Karma your way and I hope that all of the little ladies pull through!


They are about 3 weeks old, plant 1 (best one) was sprouted a couple days after the others because one of the first batch didn't pop
 
3 weeks and plants are looking like that... boy... I'd be thinking about popping 3 new seeds and starting over if I were you :)

I've been in your situation before trying a new system and babies just not taking off and have had to start over, so I feel your pain. I'm not saying you should do it, or you have to do it, but something to consider. It would only take a few days to germinate some seeds and a few days for them to get that big. They would be healthier from the beginning and you'd get bigger plants and bigger buds from it.
 
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