Curling/twisting leaves

Hello there fellow enthusiasts- I'm brand new to the site (but I have been creepin awhile trying to find answers.) I'm new at this, my very first grow. I'm growing 2 different strains, blue dream auto and blue cheese. Same tent, same water, same light schedule (20/4) , with the exact same growing medium. The blue cheese seems happy as can be, however the blue dream is being a little cranky. lol. This morning I noticed the curling leaves feel almost like tissue paper, and I'm worried for her
She seems to be asking for help. I'm wondering if the water softener is causing the problems for this plant and just not affecting the other? Could this be that I need to add Cal/Mag? I haven't added any nutes at all yet, as they won't even be 3 weeks old until this Sat. I've googled light burn, and it doesn't seem to be that. I'm at a loss. Does this look familiar to anyone? Ugh!

• Growing from Seed- Blue Dream Auto
• Plants are 2 weeks 5 days. Their birthday is Sat. they will be 3 weeks old.
• Plants are approx 4.5”
• Went from germinated seed direct to 5 gal. smart pot
• Potted in Fox Farms Ocean Forest, with earthworm castings
• Watered bout every 3-4 days? As needed really. I have well water with a water softener.
• Water is Ph'd to 6.0-6.5
• I have not used any fertilizer on them at all yet.
• I may mist the leaves with ph’ed water from time to time
• I use one LED only. The light treads as follows:

SPIDER-60LED-Dim
Power Consumption: 139W (+/- 5%)
Flux:8188Lm
Voltage:85-265V
Frequency: 56/60Hz
Amp: 1.262A/110V

• Light is about 12" from plants
• Grow space is 20 Sq. ft. (2’x2’x5’)
• Temperature lingers in the 70’s and humidity ranges from 50-65.
• Have seen no real evidence of insect activity- 2 or 3 gnats. Nothing major
• No growing experience, but sure hoping to learn!

(The healthy looking one is the other strain "blue cheese")

Looks like you're watering too much.

macsnax, Thanks. So in the shit ton of reading I've done on this your not supposed to give a 'seedling' much water. Therefore, I have not given more than 24oz at once. Never even watered enough to have 'run off', like I guess your supposed to when the plant matures. So this could still be overwatering? All the overwatered pic.'s I found the leaves just looked clawed, not curling completely in.
As I mentioned above they are in 5 gal smart pots- perhaps she seems dry to me when she's not cause she's kind of over-potted right now? I last gave her 24oz. of water on Tues. So I'll wait for awhile now and see how she looks. I also moved the LED to 18" away.
Thanks much!

If your water softener is salt based, don't use the water, it will be high in salt ions and eventually kill your plant. Good luck!

yup.. if you've got sulfur water and using a salt filter that's the problem

its the water softener

get the water from the well prior to it going thru the filter

the plants wont mind the sulfur water but the sodium from the softener will do exactly what its done to that plant to all of them eventually

you need to get the sodium out of your medium

there are somethings that help remove salt as in Na but its not coming to mind at the moment for some reason

That's a handy little piece of info.

PitGurl11 said:

macsnax, Thanks. So in the shit ton of reading I've done on this your not supposed to give a 'seedling' much water. Therefore, I have not given more than 24oz at once. Never even watered enough to have 'run off', like I guess your supposed to when the plant matures. So this could still be overwatering? All the overwatered pic.'s I found the leaves just looked clawed, not curling completely in.
As I mentioned above they are in 5 gal smart pots- perhaps she seems dry to me when she's not cause she's kind of over-potted right now? I last gave her 24oz. of water on Tues. So I'll wait for awhile now and see how she looks. I also moved the LED to 18" away.
Thanks much!

Click to expand...

This line here: Never even watered enough to have 'run off', like I guess your supposed to when the plant matures.
In healthy soil one grower can water to 20% run off, another can water with no run off. Both can have excellent results.

Buba Blend said:

This line here: Never even watered enough to have 'run off', like I guess your supposed to when the plant matures.
In healthy soil one grower can water to 20% run off, another can water with no run off. Both can have excellent results.

Click to expand...

That's why there's so much arguing on here lol. So many variables and when talking about just one you can have many positive results.

im not sure and I might be making some assumptions here

but in regard to watering and run off ive put some deep thought into it

I wonder

if the need for run off varies based on a couple things

1) over all salinity of inputs
if you feed EC2.0 and I feed EC 1.0 your going to need more run off to leach out the excess

2) if your using organic amanendments and not salt based fertilizers there might not be a need to have run off since theres no salts to leach out

I would say those are two variables that would need to be apart of the needing run off equation for sure.

Without run off Seems like you would need to wait longer to know to feed up or down. Unless your a pro I guess.

Good info. ^ last few comments are over MY head tho. lol. I originally posted this in the 'Newbie Central' forum (http://rollitup.org/t/curling-twisting-new-growth.944526/#post-13649688) before I found this one. Getting some good feedback, nice to be able to ask questions without having to say I'm growing tomatoes! I'm going to catch the water before the softener.

Tomatoes wha? Wrong forum hehe

im4satori said:

im not sure and I might be making some assumptions here

but in regard to watering and run off ive put some deep thought into it

I wonder

if the need for run off varies based on a couple things

1) over all salinity of inputs
if you feed EC2.0 and I feed EC 1.0 your going to need more run off to leach out the excess

2) if your using organic amanendments and not salt based fertilizers there might not be a need to have run off since theres no salts to leach out

Click to expand...

I was just thinking that myself recently. I'm not so sure runoff is all that necessary in organic soils either.

I forgot to ask, will these leaves correct themselves or should I just watch for better stuff to happen in the future?
Is there anything I can do for her now that I have given soft water. Which I am now understanding is deficient in Calcium and Magnesium and hi in salt? Someone had suggested maybe epsom salts @ 1 Tsp. per gallon? Should I be using this CalMag I read so much about
Also they will be a month from seed on Sat. 7/15/2017, and as stated before, planted in FFOF with some perlite and worm castings. Should I be thinking of what nutrient line to use? (if any)
(The good news is, my other girl seems happy as a clam )
Attaching some pic's from today below. One is of my setup, others are of illin plant.

Softeners exchange ca/mg for sodium. If you were able to use the water from BEFORE the softener, you probably wouldn't need to supplement ca/mg at all.

Yea, I'm catching it before the softener now. Just wondering if there's something I can do for her when I water next (she needs it now) to help her recover a lil quicker. (If in fact we're correct and it's the water affecting this plant)

If you're using your water pre-softener - I wouldn't add ca/mg. It wouldn't cause the curling of the leaves.

Under watering a "hot" pre-mix soil could possible do this.

PitGurl11 said:

I forgot to ask, will these leaves correct themselves or should I just watch for better stuff to happen in the future?
Is there anything I can do for her now that I have given soft water. Which I am now understanding is deficient in Calcium and Magnesium and hi in salt? Someone had suggested maybe epsom salts @ 1 Tsp. per gallon? Should I be using this CalMag I read so much about
Also they will be a month from seed on Sat. 7/15/2017, and as stated before, planted in FFOF with some perlite and worm castings. Should I be thinking of what nutrient line to use? (if any)
(The good news is, my other girl seems happy as a clam )
Attaching some pic's from today below. One is of my setup, others are of illin plant.
View attachment 3976188 View attachment 3976189 View attachment 3976190 View attachment 3976191

Click to expand...

only thing to do is run plenty of water thru them to get the sodium out

when its time to use fertilizer I recommend the GH flora nova for bloom and floragrow for veg

its a complete well rounded fertilizer that's not likely to give you trouble and possibly all youll need aside from maybe top dress a 1/4 tsp Epsom salt every week or 2 maybe maybe not

6 to 8mls per gallon full strength and your good

Some of the twisted new growth will straighten out if the problem is corrected. I would say it's a problem they need to grow out of. Fixing the issue won't make them straight and perky but the growth will begin to be normal. If there's enough growth left in the leaf to straighten out you might end up with a normal leaf by the end.