Seedling not taking water and falling over

[funnypharm]

Hello, I would appreciate any help here. I have 9 Mephisto Sour Stompers. I am growing in BioBizz light mix. I mixed the soil with RO water before planting the cracked seeds. They all sprouted 2-3 days ago. Last night I gave all the plants a tiny drink of water. 3-10 ml depending on how light the plant was and I was careful to only water on the edges of the cup. I was tired and I now realize that probably wouldn't affect anything either way. Now, 20 hours later, 8 of the plants are doing fine and 1 seems like it hasn't used any of that water and I think it's falling over slowly.
About 5 hours before this photos I scraped some dirt out of the whole in the bottom of the solo cup of the problem plant and it was dry so I placed each cup in a small dish of RO water to wet the bottom and hopefully get the root shooting for the bottom of the cup. I didn't soak them, each plant gained about 20 grams in weight after the soak.
The light I am using is a 1000w PanthrX and I have the dimmers installed and I think they are on the lowest setting but I see no difference so I think the dimmer might be shit and I'm just blasting these seedlings with 1000w of LED from 3 feet away from the tops of the seedlings. But the other 8 are looking fine, if anything they are stretching more than I would like....any input would be awesome. Thank you

One more thing, I checked the ph of the RO water a few times and it was 5.9-6.5 each time and I think that should be fine with the light mix.

 

[AFNG]

Stretching sounds like your answer. I'm new and my first which hopefully I'll harvest in couple weeks fell over too.

Long story short sounds like you need to move light closer. Does light manufacturer have recommended distance?

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Don't be afraid to water the whole pot to ~15% run-off just like a big pot. Then do not water again until ~50% water loss.

What you need to learn about watering will come with practice. Here are the basic rules: Never let the soil dry out. Soil and or coco can become hydrophobic if allowed to dry. This means it repels water. This in turn will create dry pockets in the soil and roots there will die. If your soil - coco have accidentally dried out use a surfactant to help re-wet it. I like yucca powder. Don't let soil remain soggy by watering too much too often. Root rot, damping off, molds, fungus gnats and other problems start in soggy soil. When you do water water the entire pot. How to learn when to water starts before you plant the seed. Fill your container with fresh soil/coco and weigh it (heft it) this is the lightest weight and consider it a dry pot. Now slowly water until the soil/coco will no longer absorb the water and run-off begins; weigh the pot (heft it) this is the maximum water, the wettest the pot can get. The difference between wettest and driest is the maximum water weight, for ease of explanation lets just say the water weighs 20 pounds. When the pot loses 10 pounds (half of the water weight) it is time to water again. There is an art to watering.



I don't see anything wrong with the plant. It won't be using much water it is so small! If they start to stretch too much move the light closer or turn it up.

 

[funnypharm]

Stretching sounds like your answer. I'm new and my first which hopefully I'll harvest in couple weeks fell over too.

Long story short sounds like you need to move light closer. Does light manufacturer have recommended distance?

The only problem is I'm still not 100% sure the dimmers are actually working. If they are not working then the plants are getting like 750 PAR which is double what I wanted for seedlings.
If the dimmer is working then it should be about half of that but I don't have a PAR meter so I'm really not sure. I can't see a difference when I change the dimmer setting. I recorded the light for a half hour and switched it all the way up and all the way down a few times and it didn't look any different. Also I used one of those laser temperature guns and the bulb was reading about the same thing the entire time and the plants were the same temp as well. I don't know enough about LEDs to know if that definitely means the dimmers are not working.
I forgot to mention my lights were like 4' above the cups for the first 2 days because I didn't have the dimmers yet but I think that might have been too high. The seedlings are all getting close to 3" high now.
PAR chart for my light

 

[funnypharm]

Don't be afraid to water the whole pot to ~15% run-off just like a big pot. Then do not water again until ~50% water loss.

What you need to learn about watering will come with practice. Here are the basic rules: Never let the soil dry out. Soil and or coco can become hydrophobic if allowed to dry. This means it repels water. This in turn will create dry pockets in the soil and roots there will die. If your soil - coco have accidentally dried out use a surfactant to help re-wet it. I like yucca powder. Don't let soil remain soggy by watering too much too often. Root rot, damping off, molds, fungus gnats and other problems start in soggy soil. When you do water water the entire pot. How to learn when to water starts before you plant the seed. Fill your container with fresh soil/coco and weigh it (heft it) this is the lightest weight and consider it a dry pot. Now slowly water until the soil/coco will no longer absorb the water and run-off begins; weigh the pot (heft it) this is the maximum water, the wettest the pot can get. The difference between wettest and driest is the maximum water weight, for ease of explanation lets just say the water weighs 20 pounds. When the pot loses 10 pounds (half of the water weight) it is time to water again. There is an art to watering.



I don't see anything wrong with the plant. It won't be using much water it is so small! If they start to stretch too much move the light closer or turn it up.

Thank you very much for the detailed reply. I have only grown in coco so I was worried about over watering in soil. I'll look into yucca powder right now. Would you recommend watering the plant until there is runoff right now or should I wait until I get yucca powder or whatever wetting agent I can find tomorrow?

 

[funnypharm]

The humidity is only 35% but the other 8 seedlings are ok... does anybody recommend putting a plastic bag over the problem plant to get the humidity up? I would spray the inside of the bag.

 

[AFNG]

If your seedling is stretching it needs more light.

I water pot before planting seeds. After that I just spritz lightly soil every day until it germinates. Then still spritz lightly most days until it had a few nodes then water every few days.

My opinion is use some more soil in cups to support plant and move light closer. If these are autos it's my understanding they should be in final container to start.

Good luck

 

[funnypharm]

Don't be afraid to water the whole pot to ~15% run-off just like a big pot. Then do not water again until ~50% water loss.

What you need to learn about watering will come with practice. Here are the basic rules: Never let the soil dry out. Soil and or coco can become hydrophobic if allowed to dry. This means it repels water. This in turn will create dry pockets in the soil and roots there will die. If your soil - coco have accidentally dried out use a surfactant to help re-wet it. I like yucca powder. Don't let soil remain soggy by watering too much too often. Root rot, damping off, molds, fungus gnats and other problems start in soggy soil. When you do water water the entire pot. How to learn when to water starts before you plant the seed. Fill your container with fresh soil/coco and weigh it (heft it) this is the lightest weight and consider it a dry pot. Now slowly water until the soil/coco will no longer absorb the water and run-off begins; weigh the pot (heft it) this is the maximum water, the wettest the pot can get. The difference between wettest and driest is the maximum water weight, for ease of explanation lets just say the water weighs 20 pounds. When the pot loses 10 pounds (half of the water weight) it is time to water again. There is an art to watering.



I don't see anything wrong with the plant. It won't be using much water it is so small! If they start to stretch too much move the light closer or turn it up.

Sorry dude, I am high and tired right now, I forgot to mention I will follow the other advice. I am weighing the dry soil in a cup right now then I am watering it until runoff then I will divide it in 2 and make sure all my plants are at least that heavy.. Thank you very much for simplifying it like that, it helps a lot.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

The humidity is only 35% but the other 8 seedlings are ok... does anybody recommend putting a plastic bag over the problem plant to get the humidity up? I would spray the inside of the bag.

The danger of that is a collapse of the bag taking out the seedling. Some peeps use cups with holes side and top. But these can cause problems getting too hot or too humid. Hang wet towels up in the tent. you can stick one end in a bucket of water and it will wick the water.

This hobby can be expensive. This is what I use:

Then of course you have to have a dehumidifier

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

The only problem is I'm still not 100% sure the dimmers are actually working. If they are not working then the plants are getting like 750 PAR which is double what I wanted for seedlings.
If the dimmer is working then it should be about half of that but I don't have a PAR meter so I'm really not sure. I can't see a difference when I change the dimmer setting. I recorded the light for a half hour and switched it all the way up and all the way down a few times and it didn't look any different. Also I used one of those laser temperature guns and the bulb was reading about the same thing the entire time and the plants were the same temp as well. I don't know enough about LEDs to know if that definitely means the dimmers are not working.
I forgot to mention my lights were like 4' above the cups for the first 2 days because I didn't have the dimmers yet but I think that might have been too high. The seedlings are all getting close to 3" high now.
PAR chart for my light

If you can see a difference in the light the dimmer is working there is just no way to know the PAR. I cannot believe I am going to say this but some peeps are using LUX meter Apps on their cell phones to extrapolate a PAR value. while I don't believe the numbers are accurate they can give you a power level rating. 25,000 Lux is 50% of 50,000 Lux.

The other thing you could do is measure the watts at the wall for the light.