"First Grow" issues

Hi, All... what a fun site. I'm so stoked on this growing thing I can hardly think about anything else.

I just started growing about 10 days ago for the first time. I planted a few seeds of schwag, and a couple of bubblegum, figuring I'm probably going to screw up the first time, so don't blow good seed on failure. Plus, my schwag was actually okay smoke, just ugly.

I have my plants in 10" round pots in 100% MiracleGro potting mix in a closet set-up. They're under a 400W MH right now; I have a 400W HPS for when the time comes. All my seeds germ'ed right away, and popped out of the soil in 3-4 days.

My concern is that they seem kind of "stuck", The first two real leaves are out, but they've been like that for almost a week. I had a very gentle fan on them to stiffen up the stems, but I've seen others say not to blow air on seedlings -- wait a couple weeks for this. They're all about 3-4" tall right now, and strike me as pretty thin in the stem. Also, I can't find any specs for pH for the MG Potting (should've figured that out ahead of time, I know...).

The room itself seems to be great -- the MH heats it up to about 80-82 when it's on, and it drops to about 70F when its off. I'm running 18/6 right now. Humidity is about 50%, and very stable.

Any suggestions? Maybe I'm just being impatient..

could be but have you not read up on the mg soil growing nightmare with nute blasting? seedling not supposed to have nutes until 3 weeks of age and that mg soil sure has plenty of it. everytime u water, you are releasing nutes. nute blasting will cause growth to come to a crawl. do you have signs of nute burn?
3-4" for ten days is average, especially if they are bushy. how far away is that mh light?

I`d cut that miracle grow with some more perlite to help with drainage. MG soil is pretty hot maybe you should get some plain peat like maybe 2 bags to 1 of miracle gro. And then like around 30-40% perlite and some dolomite lime.

Hope this helps.

Sounds like you folks may have hit something. I don't see any signs of burn (I know what that looks like); just seems to be a lack of vigor compared to what I've seen other people get in this time. My MH is about 5-6' above the plants -- I have the means to get it closer if you think that's important (I've read in a few other places that, in an average 8-9' tall room, you needn't worry about light height with HID's -- wrong?).

I have some other basic topsoils and amendments on hand, but I'm in a dilemma as to whether to further stress these little guys with a transplant right now. I saw in a few other rollitup posts where folks said to just hang in there -- that the "MG mix" growth sag is common, and that they'll break out of it. BTW, they're not bushy at all -- just a stem with a leaf pair up top.

So far, I've been keeping close track of moisture, and the MG doesn't seem to be clumping or drying excessively so far.

your call. nutes during seedling stage will def affect growth.maybe transplant one and see what happens.

My thought exactly.. thanks.

u should see about moving the light closer too
plants tend to stretch when its looking for more light.
mine has stretched cuase i wasnt haveing enough light and not close enough
so sence i got more lights and put them real close they are growing way more bushier
its like once a set of leafs grow another one starts growing out real quick now
this might help and i was useing MG too and the lights helped alot and i got the plant up to 12 inches in MG and then i heard how MG is bad so then i got way more lights and that was working good and then i just changed the soil to a mix of sphagnum peat moss,horticultural vermiculite,perlite,wetting agent and lime for ph balance and now the plants are doing even better the bags of soil mix was real cheap on like 6,7 dollars
i dont think things will go wrong if u transplant them u said its already like 4 inches right nothing should really happen to them much at all i would they might start takin off on ya
yull make them happy

I had the same setup as you and clowdys, mg soil, light far away, small fan blowing on them. Rookie mishaps. I streched the plant and the fan was just lightly shaking the plant & growth almost stopped. (I think the babies were not growing because they were holding on for dear life in what seemed like a gail force wind to them) I moved the lights right up close, filled in soil around the bottom 1" of trunk and turned the fan off and growth resumed nicely.
I would definetly get that mh within 2' of the plants & blow the fan at/ between the plants and light not at the plants.
You can try adding some soil to stabilize the long thin stem if you like, it helped me for sure.

i totaly changed my set up and now working well
i have a fan on too but just not hiting plants directly
i have it facing the wall almost it works

Great... you guys rock. Will do.. already called home and had my wife turn off the fan (they're her plants, too

i keep my fan all the time
on low face it semi to the wall and the plants just so u see the plants move some

I've also changed my setup and its much better now, & I do the same facing the fan against the wall. My new rule of thumb is if a leaf is rustling its good but if the stem has any movement its too much.

i have it so if the hole plant is moving a little
not where the hole thing is going crazy

Welcome to RIU

I havent used MG in a long time but my wife uses it on house plants and what I noticed quite often is the MG gets soppy wet and holds on to the moisture and kills her seedlings or smaller younger plants. She gets much better results with very very tiny amounts of water for the first few weeks. I'm talking silly tiny amounts.

Maybe your lil tap root is sopping wet and rotting??

ya i hear ya bone why i dont use MG anymore another reason is like in the first couple weeks like 2 to 3 weeks the seedling to begining sprout really dont need food yet
and when it does yes it gives it but sence it has the slow release food thing for like 3 months in it when the plant doesnt need the food it still feeds the plant food and thats not good over ferting ur plant its gives it nute burn not good.