Newbie advice needed! Have read so much my brain is scrambled. NEW GROW!!!

To all the RIU legends out there, please help. I think my seedlings are stunted and I don't know why.

1x1x1.8m tent
5" highspeed centrifugal and carbon filter
600w dimmable ballast
600w philips son t
6" cooltube with seperate inline fan
Temps never been below 60 at night, never been above 85 lights on.
Plants 23" away from bulb with small clip on fan for extra circulation.

Plants 2x BBxWW and 1x Freddy's best, popped through the soil about ten days ago. Had some stretching due to lights being off and were started under 400w, then up to 400w boost, then up to 600w when they seemed to be handling it and had also read that at 23" from bulb not even in recommended range for 400w. I could go closer if i need to but because they're so small thought this should be more than sufficient lighting. I also read that stretched plants should be re planted so I did that for the freddys and 1x WWxBB two days ago. The root ball would already pretty much fill a mug with all the soil attached. They seem to be happy on terms of colour etc and havent drooped after the transplant.

Soil is organic potting mix with a fair amount of perlite and vermiculite and a small amount 5-10% regular potting mix. Drains very well been watering every couple of days when top layer seems dry but underneath is slightly moist. pH was high but have now been watering with pH 6 water for the last 9 days basically since second water after sprout. 1/8 and 1/5 strength canna terra vega on two occasions and 4mL/L strength rhizotonic every water.

They basically stopped growing after the first set of leaves after the cotyledons and even they havent got to full size. lost for ideas.

transplanted too early! u should have wait a bit before putting 'em in big pots! maybe stress, water no nutes!

Yeah they're just stressed from the transplant, they look fine and once their roots start to grow again and into the new soil they'll start takin off. What's your humidity been reading?

You tricked them by transplanting so early.
Now they are trying to grow roots and have stopped foliage growth.
Also, stop feeding for now, at least until 3 weeks old.
Here's a couple pics of mine, I usually move from the 20 oz. Solo cup around 21 days from sprout.
Here's my current ones, last month at 14 days old before transplant.
And here's my last one, at 21 days from sprout when I moved her.View attachment 2628706

Ok, I forgot to mention that I started the seeds in paper and as soon as I saw a tap root I planted them into those pots. The only transplanting was two of them that stretched quite a bit and i made them deeper. Yet they are all the same size. The reason I started in big pots was because I read that with auto's transplanting is bad and slows em down and i figured that the same would be for photo strains. I'll put it down to rookie error as I have read theyre spending all theyre energy making roots. But then that doesnt make too much sense as outdoor plants dont have any sides to hit to make it veg. so stop with the nutes altogether for now including rhizotonic?

And if the pot is too big and it needs the roots to hit the sides before it shoots up should i move it to a smaller pot?

I wouldn't move them again. They are stressed from the first transplant and moving them again would stress them more.

Thanks for the input Frenchy. Again though, out of three seedlings onky two were re potted due to a little stretching and that was only 48hrs ago. Apart from that they were started in those pots as soon as a tap root appeared yet they're all the same size so I just don't think its transplant shock. They popped through maybe two to three days after planting andthen basically stopped growing yet still look healthy for maybe a two day old seedling not nearly two weeks!

also your5e hps it to close for young seedlings, are the Philips bulbs duel spec,(just curios), higher the lights to about 1m away for now, let the plants grow into the the space till they get to about 18 inches away and maintain the distance through out flowering, it bring down you're temps to slightly, anything above 78 can become mite/bug heaven, also ive noticed youve no rh at all, well its below 30 percent, they will struggle to recover from the shock with very low rh as they wont be able to transpire properly and uptake and locate nutrients, wich will all add to the to the shock and slow down recovery/normal vigor

they just looked shocked and will recover, giving them optimum condition's is key to success

Hey Spits,
I was told that the philips has a bit of blue in it not sure if that means dual spec.
My rh should be higher as i let the runoff under the pots sit (the pots dont sit in it) so there is always a little bit of water to evaporate off. I think my meter may be faulty or im drawing too much air. Do you think i should cover them with some sort of dome for extra humidity like a coke bottle or something? Oh and I can dim my ballast to 400w rather than raise the light?
Thanks for the advice bra

I agree with everyone, early transplant definitely.I just did this about two weeks ago and thought the same as you,now that the roots are filling in there is an explosion of growth.Patience and time is all you need to worry about for now.You can look at my journal to see what I mean,I transplanted at about the same size you did but I went straight into 2.5 gal. pots.Good Luck.

spitsbuds, I looked at that pic of the meter but didn't notice the RH reading was "--", I thought it was just a temperature meter.

coneoisser, does that meter read relative humidity? Is it a broken meter or is the humidity just so low that it doesn't have any reading at all? For this phase of growth I've noticed that they respond really well to lots of humidity, I get to around 75% RH and they seem to love it, its like a tropical rain forest and they grow with enthusiasm! I've read that all the way up to 90% RH is fine for the vegetative stage, but that's hard to do and really is probably too extreme. If you don't want to put a humidifier in there, you can mist them well, a few times per day and keep the tent closed to keep the humidity inside. Are you currently exhausting the air from your tent? If you are that could be causing you to lose your humidity faster. Still the question is, what is the current relative humidity reading?

Hey Chuck D! I think it's broken because it does sometimes work although low humidity vould be an issue too. I am drawing quite a bit of air through my tent and rh in my area is usually over 40%. Can the fast moving air and the light heat lower humidity? My pots sit above a tray and I let the runoff sit in the trays to evaporate and raise humidity. Going to water then cover with a plastic cup. Hopefully this will help and I will get a new hygrometer? Asap.
Again thanks everyone.
Awesome pic of arnie bizzle!

Hey champions,
Thought they probably are getting a bit dry with so much air exchange to keep temps down so I watered them gave them a spray and made these cups. they have 4 small slits at the top and two at the bottom for air flow. hopefully this will help and the ladies will go nuts! Your opinions wanted!

They don't like the light intensity or the heat 85 . Get them under cfls temps under 80 and they will improve within aweek. Use the room for veg stage (4 weeks +) and a small nursery with a cfl for seedling stage. Also start them in small pots.

Bakatare666 said:

You tricked them by transplanting so early.
Now they are trying to grow roots and have stopped foliage growth.
Also, stop feeding for now, at least until 3 weeks old.
Here's a couple pics of mine, I usually move from the 20 oz. Solo cup around 21 days from sprout.
Here's my current ones, last month at 14 days old before transplant.View attachment 2628705
And here's my last one, at 21 days from sprout when I moved her.View attachment 2628706

Click to expand...

Bro they are n, mg def at this early stage due to the ph being way out, make sure every watering and feed is the correct ph with a digital meter. Do this and the green will go back in the leaves. If not fixed ,by flowering you will be in trouble with just a few yellow leaves left on the plant.

Allo uncle Chop Chop (Buds)!, cheers for the info. I have some 130w cfls but really dont want to set them up this grow, do you think if I turn my 600w down to 400W that would be enough? Going to get a small tent for the cfls and seedlings on my next grow. Turning down to 400w my lights on temp should drop 10 degrees and at 23" from the plants the light intensity isnt enough to fall into the sufficient amount of light range for good growth based on an HPS graph ive seen before. 600w at 23" was just in recommended range. anyways, let me know what you think.

I had my seedlings under a 400w MH since they were a week old and they are just fine.

hey sohighifly! cheers for the input here. did you have humidity problems? Did you just put them straight under? and how far from bulb?
Its weird because I have read many other threads where people say that seedling love HID as long as temps are ok. My temps havent gotten over 90 and I thought that they'd like the warmer temps around 80-85 while they were young. Most of the time they dont even get over 80 anyways. The only thing I can think is that because I have to pull so much air through the tent and as a result over my babies, maybe its drying them out a bit and because theyre so small theyre not growing just holding their own. Like as in the smaller the leaf area, the less the plant has to transpire. Guessing the poor girls have to transpire quite a bit of water to stay hydrated with all that air flowing over them?

NEED SOME HELP PLEASE!
Hey guys,
so I have my babies under their home made humidity domes and not much has been changing but I now think I have the source of my slow growth seedling problem! I have been watering with pH 5.5 -6 and not checking runoff pH too much. It was high when I first checked and then kinda forgot to do it. When I watered today with pH6 water, I checked runoff (the first trickle that came out) and it was measuring 7-7.5!!! so that must mean that the soil pH is even higher than runoff, perhaps around 8? Please correct me if I'm wrong but that would explain a lot. I'm guessing a soil pH of 7+ could be responsible for stunting the girls. The only reason that I didnt check runoff before was because I thought that soil was supposed to be acidic if anything, especially organic soil which is what I'm using.
Now, what should I do? Flush with pH'ed water? Change soil? There is more info about this grow previously for the new contributors.
thanks in advance
Coneoisseur.