Plants falling over

So im kind of a newbie grower and Idk whats goin on,

Im in Veg, running a 18/6 cycle
Im feeding mostly RO water, (i once fed a 1/5 strength nute solution)
They have been goin great, growing to their current height (about 4 inches) in just the last week. Im using a 400 Watt HPS but I also have a 250 hanging right above (about a foot) of the plants.

Today, I went to work with them and they just started falling over, right in front of my eyes too... one of them was kinda leaning when I walked in, but during the 10 minutes i was in there, ALL of them just started laying down (and I didnt even touch them).

I added more soil to the cups, and burried the stems about 2 inches so that they wouldnt fall over too much, and I flushed them immediately after.

Am i over watering? underwatering? do I need to add nutes?

They are in just some shitty typical potting soil so today Im going to transplant them into 3 gallon smart pots with Fox Farms soil... Idk if this is going to fix anything though.

I have a picture Im trying to upload, Ill have it up within the next 5 minutes.

Also, how soon can I use liquid light? Ive been spraying the leaves with them ever since they got big and happy, but maybe I shouldnt? is it possible that liquid light overspray on the soil could cause problems if obsorbed by the roots?

I had a runt that I decided to bonsai, so I replanted it into a tiny tiny tiny smart pot, and Its root structure was healthy, Id say that It was about half an inch tall with about 2 inch long roots. When I transplant today Ill give more info on the root structure (if thats even relavent).

any help would be great, thank you!

Here is the pic

More Info:

Im feeding them the following nutes

Root Stimulator and Starting Solution (5-15-5)
Citrus Food (16-8-2)
Mirical Grow (30-15-15)
Alaska Fish Fertilizer (5-1-1)

I mix about 1/4 of the suggested amounts into a gallon of water and let it sit for about a week. I shake it up well before watering. HOWEVER, keep in mind I only fed them nutes one time, and it was at 1/5 strength MY normal solution... do they need more nutes? I always thought that they didnt need nutes for the first week or so...

Also, ive heard something about a mold causing this? if so does anyone have info on that? and how to stop it? I turned off my humidifiers (my humidity was about 40%RH) and the humitiy should come down to like 5... very low humidity where I live.

Please help, Ive put about 4 months of research and 1200 bucks into this grow, I really cant afford to lose these plants, they are my only seeds. Im a new grower so this was going to be a test run for my room... Dont know why I didnt buy extra seeds, guess it was bad planning on my part :/

The lights may be too close and the plant is losing moisture quickly. The lights may be too far away causing them to stretch faster than the stem can support. Prop them up with a toothpick and let the stems thicken. A gentle breeze will help the stems strengthen.

your soil looks more like chewed up bark than soil, the roots have nothing firm to grab onto.

From your pic it looks like your soil is really fluffy/loose, if it is, you may want to compact it a bit to help anchor the plant. I don't have a great feeling on MG (the nutes). FF is working for me...that's just my opinion.

Pureblood89 said:

your soil looks more like chewed up bark than soil, the roots have nothing firm to grab onto.

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Yea, I will be transplanting to Fox Farms.
The thing is, they seem to be just falling over at the stems, would bad root structure be the cause of that? Like I said about my runt, its roots where nice and big... How would the roots not gripping the soil cause the plants to fall over? (not questioning whether its valid, just curious as to the scientific reason)

Also my Soil AND Water PH is about 6.8-6.9, I know thats a little high but its still in a healthy range right?

Little Tommy said:

The lights may be too close and the plant is losing moisture quickly. The lights may be too far away causing them to stretch faster than the stem can support. Prop them up with a toothpick and let the stems thicken. A gentle breeze will help the stems strengthen.

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I poured dirt in on top of them and burried them to the first set of leaves, im hoping this will cause the stem to strengthen a little. (its not COMPLETELY to the leaves, the plant is about 4 inch tall and i burried them about 2 inches, so there is still 2 inch of stem sticking up. I also put an oscilating fan in there about a foot away, It oscilated from about a foot to the right of the plants all the way to a foot to the left of the plants. I figured this would stop them from getting wind burn?

alot of my seedlings fall over like that, they usually pop back up. i dont give my seedlings nutes until they're better established

leave the fan off till theyre a little bigger

klassifyme said:

leave the fan off till theyre a little bigger

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are you sure? that goes against alot of what Ive read...
Im not doubting you, but im sure you can understand my hesitance...

Does anyone else have a second opinion on this? should i turn the fan off? Its not blowing really hard, when it hits the plant they just kind of wiggle (like they are doin the wave). It also only blows on any one plant for a few seconds at a time, id say the plant is being actually blown on about 1/6 of the time (3 seconds on, 18 seconds off).

it looks to me like you planted in crap medium, which any seed will germinate in, and the roots didn't hold anything, now the more you move them around and try to transplant and stand them up they're getting beat up in your soil. 1200 bucks spent and you used crap soil? not trying to put you down, but you might as well find rapid rooters while you're at the store to germ them in. then you can wait till they have a healthy root structure to transplant into healthy potting soil. I use FF as well, and I don't get much if any shock in my ladies. check my journal. daily pics for the past 6 days or so with no nutes. only watered at transplant and 3 days later.

Learning all the time said:

it looks to me like you planted in crap medium, which any seed will germinate in, and the roots didn't hold anything, now the more you move them around and try to transplant and stand them up they're getting beat up in your soil. 1200 bucks spent and you used crap soil? not trying to put you down, but you might as well find rapid rooters while you're at the store to germ them in. then you can wait till they have a healthy root structure to transplant into healthy potting soil. I use FF as well, and I don't get much if any shock in my ladies. check my journal. daily pics for the past 6 days or so with no nutes. only watered at transplant and 3 days later.

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Good advise !!!

Learning all the time said:

it looks to me like you planted in crap medium, which any seed will germinate in, and the roots didn't hold anything, now the more you move them around and try to transplant and stand them up they're getting beat up in your soil. 1200 bucks spent and you used crap soil? not trying to put you down, but you might as well find rapid rooters while you're at the store to germ them in. then you can wait till they have a healthy root structure to transplant into healthy potting soil. I use FF as well, and I don't get much if any shock in my ladies. check my journal. daily pics for the past 6 days or so with no nutes. only watered at transplant and 3 days later.

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Yea, stupid move, i didnt know much about soils and what not, but REALLY, the biggest problem was i didnt know where any grow stores where (now i do) and my home deopt only carries shit... so it was that or dirt from my backyard, but i know that that is prone to pests and stuff...

Also my room is at 84 degrees. The overall temp is 84, and I have a probe right at the canopy and it reads 83.2-84.5. My max and min for the last 24 hours has been 69-85.

your difference is wayyy too big. if you can get the dif down to 3 deg during veg and up to 15 deg during flower, that's optimal. but your night temps may be too cold, and your day temps are def too high unless you're flowering with co2. try venting your room more often or control that AC and forget the power bill.

Unfortunately I can get the low temp up easy with a space heater on a thermostat, BUT, Theres simply nothing I can do about the high. Thats not me trying to argue, Its just that where i live is hot, I cant help it. My HOUSE temps are in the 80s :/ will this kill my plants? is being a few degrees too hot really going to destroy my crop?

What if I can get my room between 75 and 85? would that be ok? I dont think i can pull it together much tighter than that...
Also, the fan, should i be using that right now or not? I just want a second opinion on that...

WhiteWidower123 said:

What if I can get my room between 75 and 85? would that be ok? I dont think i can pull it together much tighter than that...
Also, the fan, should i be using that right now or not? I just want a second opinion on that...

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I turn my fan on as soon as i see leaves and dont turn it off, ever..
I dont use any Nutes for the first 2 weeks or so..

I dont think your problem is tempature (but still work on getting it right), the soil looks real fluffy and i bet the fan would help strengthen them stems up.. they look skinny!

I pinched and twisted the shit out of the stems this morning, watered, and against most peoples advice gave them very light nutes. Ive been keeping the fan on too. Im going to install a heater on a thermostat and an extra exaughst fan (i have a HUGE like foot and half duct fan) on a thermostat as well. Im going to set my big fan to come on at 85, and my heater to come on at 75. Unfortunately, if i close the gap any more than that im going to spike the electric bill, and being as my father has been kind enough to let me use his place, I really cant do that without feeling like a total ass. And to be honest neither of us can afford to pay a hugely higher electric bill at the moment. (my father is an electrician, and we read the stats on everything in the room and have a pretty good idea what the jump in our bill will be, and we can handle it, but we cant add anything major to it (such as a full time heater))

Anyways, long story short, pinched the shit out of em, threw the fan on em, nuted em, they grew half an inch today and are standing straight up and happy again...
Thank you guys for all of your help

I +Repd everyone who gave suggestions (who i was allowed to rep)