My seeds dont wont sprout from rockwool cubes! [help!]

Ok, so i have been trying to get my (5) seeds to germinate for like 3 weeks now!
First i took 2 of my five seeds and put them in wet toiletpaper and waited about 2 days untill one of them opend and a little root came out.
I then droped the 2 seeds into one rockwool cube each, wich had been wet over the night in tap water.
then i put them in a seald box with a plastic cover and put them over a light, so that the bottom of the box they are in are about 84 *F or 29,2 *C.



I sprayed the cubes with like 3-4 sprays of water a day, Waited about 10 days, and nothing!
I then figgured mayby the PH was to high, so i got myself a PH meter and took one of the remaining seeds. this time i let it sit in a glas of water about 18 houers before i put it in the wet toilet paper.


I waited about 4 days this time untill the root had become about .75 cm (quater of an inch) and then proceed to planting it in my rockwool cube wich had now been submerged in ph 5.6 water for 24 hours.


I put the cube in the box over the light, and then days later nothing. I am now germinating my last two seeds (from http://www.nirvanashop.com, northen Lights auto) in hope maybe these will sprout.
This time I'm planing to skip the toilet paper and just go straight to rockwhool after submerging the seeds for 24 h.

So what am i doing wrong?
Is my dome to hot?
Should the cubes with the seeds be kept in dark, or should i place a light over them?
If so, should i place double CFL 36 W 4800k rods, a 85 W 5500K CFL bulb or a 250 W 2800k-ish HID?
Should i be running nutriants in my cubes? Im running 1 drop/L (1 drop/ quater galon) of SUPERthrive, and Ph down. thats it!
How long should it take for them to sprout?

All help is welcome!
If im doing anything else wrong plz tell me!

Also my basilikas leavs are starting to crumble.
any guesses as to why?



I was thinking maybe it was the fan blowing them dry, so i moved it a bit further away.



so thats pretty much my system as of now.
any sugestions?

i am newer and will just be telling you my opinion not saying i'm right.
1. those plants are not receiving light they need. look at the stretching and crappy leave quality. using cfls means u can put the light on the plant pretty much, so put the lights closer to the plant.
2.the fan has nothing to d with ur dry leaves.
3. ur humidity dome was to wet from what i saw. also have 1 20-30 watt 6500k cfl above and just put it on a heating pad on low so like 75f
4. make sure when u plant ur seed its not to wet and hot cause then your making the best environment for mold. trust me i ruined my first grow like that...
5. u need patience. don't over complicate this stuff. and you can do nothing but give it time.
6. when germinating from seed i feel if u start ur seed in a solo cup straight into a medium like soil it works better.
7. ur lighting is why ur plants look like that. you need to get the 6500k ones and you can mix in other with it durning veg, then for flower you want 2700k cfls

hope i helped
widowww

If I had to bet I would say you drowned them. Rock wool holds a lot of moisture, so once they are soaked in a 5.8 PH solution, you have to shake the excess water out and don't add any more until almost dry. If you germinate in a paper towel and you have a root coming out, gently place the seed with the root down no more than a 1/4" down and leave it alone. If the seed has germinated you don't want the dome anymore, as it will create too moist of an environment. You also won't need the extra heat if it has sprouted Just a simple 27w 6500k CFL above the rock wool is sufficient when the seed sprouts, then you can add more 6500K during veg, and switch to the HPS and the warm CFL's for bloom. Some very light nutrient is advisable in rock wool for starters, and the Superthrive is fine. Never put 2 seeds in one cube, bad idea as you will never separate the roots and you will end up having to kill one plant. I personally would skip the paper towel, just place the seed in the PH'd cube, put it in a warm place with your dome, light is not really needed at this point. Wait until it pops, which usually happens in 4 day's average, but some seeds can take a week. Remove the dome and then you need the CFL. Good luck

I think you might of........

1....damaged/contaminated the tap roots when transplanting into rockwool.
2....planted em too deep into the RW.
3....drowned em. that dome is too damn soggy looking. i doubt any cannabis plant has to go through those conditions germinating in the wild.

I approve of your methods except the DIY heat mat. If you have 75~ ambient temps i dont think you need it. Also, get a bigger dome if you want to take that route. once sprouted the roots need some O2.

use the same methods when germinating basil seeds. Same shit really.

ok, so i should not use the 2400 hid lamp during vedge at all? is a 45-ish cfl really enuff?
how do i keep the plants from reaching the light? eg. become tall and not so leafy?

thx for all the fantastic answers!

I'm germinating my first ever seeds now for a hydroponics system, although I've grown plenty of herbs, trees and other types of plants using soil, this is all new to me as we'll. I am using a mix of methods I found between elite marijuana growers guide, youtube, and forum posts. Best thing is to use free seeds in my opinion or get some cheap regular seeds that you don't mind messing up on.

my method that has so far had 100% germination rate, 1/8 sprouting (it has only been three days, so I'm optimistic the others will come with time), is as follows.

firstly got two jugs of regular tap water and sat for 48 hours, adjusted ph of both jugs to 5.5, one jug poured into kettle and turned on till the water was only slightly warm, then poured into my three different glasses for three strains I'm trying out, dropped seeds into each then put the glasses on top of my propagation unit, turned to low heat. 1 day 5 seeds popped 1-half all 8 popped.

transfered to damp paper towel on plate, covered with more, covered with another plate and left sitting on top of propagation to encourage some warmth, all roots extended within 24 hours, dampened the towel after 12 hours just that once.

Second jug had used to soak rockwool in during this period, checked ph first to make sure it was at 5.5, often the first reading after dropping ph can change so check after water has had time to settle, 2-3 hrs.

transfered seeds to rockwool after giving the cubes a quick shake out, put back into propegator, left cover slits open, put a 18watt cfl lamp above, don't be overly excited to add more water, let the cubes dry out, no need to drench them, just keep careful watch that you apply water again before they are totall dry. Also noticed you said you spray cubes, I found a bit on that, it said that due to rock wools density and air pockets, it is better to use a dripped from above up to the point where the water starts to seep from the base, then stop, add a little at a time till this happens.

while I have only had one seed sprout so far this method seems to be working perfectly and I have hope all 8 will pop.

most common mistakes that I have come across are not giving enough air, to much heat, to much humidity, to much water, not allowing darkness during germination in towel (just leave it don't constantly check on them), leaving for to long in glass when root pops, you should move to paper towel immediately, let others catch up. Green house seeds recommends not even using a humidity dome as it's not necessary in their view and anything above 50%humidity can be detrimental, that's their view on germination, I would not claim to have enough experience to know! but honestly my first seed sprouted in dome with at least 55% so who knows.

Perhaps you might get the beans going in some soil or coco and then you could clone into the rockwool cubes.. Kinda what I ended up doing with mine. You also might be cooking the seeds.. I did that with my first couple and a heating pad lol

Matt420Aus said:

most common mistakes that I have come across are not giving enough air, to much heat, to much humidity, to much water, not allowing darkness during germination in towel (just leave it don't constantly check on them), leaving for to long in glass when root pops, you should move to paper towel immediately, let others catch up. Green house seeds recommends not even using a humidity dome as it's not necessary in their view and anything above 50%humidity can be detrimental, that's their view on germination, I would not claim to have enough experience to know! but honestly my first seed sprouted in dome with at least 55% so who knows.

Click to expand...

Many professional growers/breeders specifically advise against using a dome for seedlings/germinating seeds. If you take a look at the first picture from the OP, that is a perfect example of what you DON'T want to do.

A sealed container like that plastic food tray or a dome is keeping all of the moisture locked inside, with no air exchange either. Cannabis isn't an aquatic plant. Relatively fresh, healthy seeds shouldn't require soaking and don't need to be germinated with paper towels. It is a misconception that seeds need to be under a dome to sprout, or that the dome helps. Neither paper towels or a dome offer any benefit versus direct to media, IMO.

The problem with the dome is: with a saturated media, high RH and poor circulation, the conditions are set for damping-off diseases. Seeds/seedlings are delicate and such conditions markedly increase the probability that any one of a number of these ubiquitous pathogens will attack and kill the sprout. Some damping-off disease causing organisms prefer warm conditions while others like it cool, so it can occur regardless of the temperature.

Mate Im even newerer lol and I made the exact mistake youre making,wasted 9 effin seeds so I did.
Ive now realised I was trying to run before I could walk-Im leaving the hydroponics until Im more experienced,and have got myself soil and plant pots.
I reckon my mistake was not leaving them alone too-I was forever "checking" them,which involved opening the rockwool all the time.
Good luck!

snoyl said:

Mate Im even newerer lol and I made the exact mistake youre making,wasted 9 effin seeds so I did.
Ive now realised I was trying to run before I could walk-Im leaving the hydroponics until Im more experienced,and have got myself soil and plant pots.
I reckon my mistake was not leaving them alone too-I was forever "checking" them,which involved opening the rockwool all the time.
Good luck!

Click to expand...

Yes that was exactly your mistake. You cannot check them. They will grow within a few days or weeks depending how long the root was when planted. I usually wait for my nubs to be a half inch or so and it takes about 5-7 days to come above the surface. Since I've starts growing, I never once had a seed fail on sprouting.

Yer, I understand your impatience snoyl, I have to limit my checking on my girls to twice a day, otherwise I'd be constantly wondering have they sprouted yet, is there enough water is it to hot etc etc. and never open a medium until I'd say about 15-20 days if you can hold out that long, I'm not sure about marijuana but based on soil conditions, temperature, water I have had herbs that popped out of the ground at about three days, same seed packet 11 days for others, if you look at posts about seeds you will notice some older seeds have slower or lower germination rates, seeds that are pre-mature or green have a lower germination %. It's hard to tell older seeds as easily as green seeds but if you have constant problems from a specific breeder I'd advised just not to use that company. Also seems like some batches of seeds have higher hermie probability etc.

growing in soil is much easier and cheaper and forgiving than hydro, that is why it is preferable for many people as their mistakes will not screw up an entire crop as easily, but I believe hydro is not overly complicated if you research properly talk to other people who know the common mistakes, and monitor properly. I set up my system and ran a crop of tomato plants through it first just to check temperatures, resevoir levels and uptake, space, etc etc. while many people might not be patient enough to do this I found several flaws in my DIY design that would have caused minor to serious problems... I believe whole heartily in PPPPPP,
proper planning prevent piss poor performance.

now I know that my temps fluctuate outside to much changing the internal intake of air and the ballast I had did not offer the option of changing the wattage, so I took back to my hydro shop and swapped for a digital ballast that can adjust this, things like 35 degree temps could have seriously impacted my plants, with such a small flower space temps are the biggest problem.

getting a little off the germination issues, but my point being plan first, learn as much as you can, learn as you go, have patience

good news now, 5/8 seeds sprouted day 4, I'll be stoked if all 8 come out on my first try, means I'm doing something right.

Strains are
4x white widow x skunk#1
2x darkstar (was a little worried about the variation in harvest time for this one, 70-75 days, as using dwc system to veg and a drip system, rtr to flower, so I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to run the extra 7-14 days of nutrients when I should be flushing for the other two strains, I may just have to disconnect the drippers for these two take them out and hand water, lesson learned pick strains with the same harvest time, especially in hydro with limited area).
2x sage n sour

i did have a question about my rtr system. Should I just run the system 24/7 as I'm not sure if I stopped the system would the roots just dry out to quickly, I ran it like that for my tomato sand they were great but worried if this would drown the weed, the system runs water from resevoir to drippers, goes thru pots over roots and then runs out the outtake valve and back to resevoir. Considering dwc is constant water on roots I didn't foresee this to be an issue but wanted to make sure a constant drip system would not overly effect the plants, they stay in my dwc system for two weeks then get moved to my rtr system, and based off the height of plants I am then running 1-2 weeks more veg or until they reach the scrog net. I'm going to use scrog method as it fits my space and light system better