Please help! Slow growth, curling leaves, tried everything

[Loco Roco]

Hey, guys, can you please help me with my problem?

I'm growing from the seed for the first time, I've always started with clones before. I successfully germinated, put them under CFL for a while, now they're under 600W MH lamp.

Setup
- 9 Bubba's Gift plants from Humboldt Seeds
- 110x110x160 growbox
- 600W MH lamp (Superplant)
- Coco

Fertilizers
- I put just a small amount of Jungle in da Box fertilizers + Supervit.
- pH 5.8

Now the problem:
Symptomps:
- Slow growth. I literally didn't see any change for a past weeek.
- Leaves curling as you can see on my photos
- Branches are very close to each other but that may be a problem of the strain

Dates:
- Seeds germinated on 7.10.
- I put seedlings under 600W on 16.10.
^ this means the plants are almost month old. Are they supposed to be this small?

Probable causes / What I tried
- At first I thought the plants are freezing. The MH lamp doesn't produce much heat (it's in cooltube) and I use a humidifier that produces cool mist. Cool mist is the first thing I thought is the problem. I stopped using the humidifier for like a day or two, but it didn't help and humidity dropped to 30 % so I turned it back on. The temperature is 20.5 - 24 °C. Humidity around 50 %.
- Because of the cold problem, I closed a window a lil' bit. Not entirely, there's still a gap. But, I thought that maybe plants are not getting enough air. However, opening window didn't help and I used this technique before with much bigger plants with no problem.
- After reading some articles, I suspected my plants are suffering with bud rot. However, roots are not brown or slimy and there's no smell.
- I'm 90 % sure it's not overwattered or underwattered. I water them every day with little bit of water and fertilizers and next day, they're almost completely dry.

Photos: Share.Pho.to | This photo set was shared via Share.Pho.to

Thanks for any suggestions and help!

[HobbyGardener]

Hi there,
here's another newbie, so take my comments with all the needed precautions, please. I see a few things worth checking:
- pH possibly too low for soil growth (some books say 5.8 good for hydroponic, but more like 6.2-6.8 for soil grow)
- light too far away (i have zero experience with MH lights though, and you didn't mention how far away is it to the top of the plant)
- as the plants don't show leaf yellowing etc, but just general drooping, maybe there is a problem with over/under watering. I'd try to skip watering on HALF of your plants, and see how they compare with the half that gets watered. Maybe you could also give them more water (until some 20% runoff comes out the bottom of the pots), but less often (ie skip a day or two).
good luck mate

[cococeltic]

I'd put the light a bit closer and give them half the water and feed. I'm a newby to but I had a similar problem and that fixed it. oh and I gave them a heater a a 100 wt tube one.,, good luck.

[Katzie_Wolf71]

5.8 - 6.0 for pH for best results in coco i have been reading. And too me that looks like a Nitrogen deficiency. As for bud rot you will smell it and see it, just google that and you'll see images of what it looks like.

[Katzie_Wolf71]

It will have a ammonia smell to it also if theres bud rot

[BenJ]

Hi ... I grow just like you in soil under a 600 w but HPS now get rid of that mh crap it's not suitable .. I'm growing more than 10 year's i had this problem at the start as i figgered shit out, so i can help you..
for starters,,, you gotta get a more suitable bulb for that early stage you're 600 mh is far to much for veg no matter what people say.. i veg under a 200w energe saver it's spot on !! go 400 if you like but i run both flower and veg at the same time so 600 hps and 200 es, is fine ..
I know if i put my young plants under the 600mh they would look like yours in 2 days !!!!
keep your temp up with a electric oil heater i find them good, don't have to much or any airflow a fan will keep them cold you don't want that ,, and keep them sprayed a light spraying 3 or 4 times a day
Make sure your feed is warm thats important, properly warm every feed !! it's a pain in the ass 'it really is' but i promise it's a big deal..
You should have perlite in that soil get perlite for you big pot's..
Learn about clipping the top nodes it turns 1 plant into 5, the very top node when clipped makes all the others thing there the big dog and 4 or 5 of next nodes grow like there the big centre head ..
hope that helps, if you've any specific questions just ask

[BenJ]

how are you looking now ?

[Loco Roco]

how are you looking now ?

hey man, i had to cancel this grow since i had to leave the town for 2 weeks. i'm starting over now. so are you saying that 600 MH is bad but 600 HPS is ok? thank you so much!

[iAvantGarde]

MH is better for veg, HPS is better for budding. It's because of the light spectrums produced. There's nothing wrong with your light, but with the size of your grow space, you don't really need one quite so powerful. And bring your ph up to 6.5. It was too low for uptake of cal, mag, and phosphorus. I don't remember Celsius to Fahrenheit, but 60-80f is fine. Start with a high humidity(around 75-85) for seedlings and bring it down as they grow. It should be around 40-50rh when they start budding. Hope it goes better this time!