1 plant growing alot faster and healthier than my other 2? My first indoor grow

I started 3 plants about 3 1/2 weeks ago and one of my plants is growing alot more leaves and looks healthier than the other two? This is my first low budget indoor grow, nothing serious, and i am gettin ready to transplant them to bigger pots soon. Could the other 2 be males or be dying?

To be honest they all look in terrible shape. What kind of lighting are you using?

looks to be rather overwatered

1sttimegrower513 said:

I started 3 plants about 3 1/2 weeks ago and one of my plants is growing alot more leaves and looks healthier than the other two? This is my first low budget indoor grow, nothing serious, and i am gettin ready to transplant them to bigger pots soon. Could the other 2 be males or be dying?
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Let them sit in those solo cups until they have 4 sets of internodes. Don't water untill the cups are dry. Let the roots search for water and get bigger.

Don't give any fertilizer intill they ARE BIGGER.

Right on tikitoker if i might add your cups look half full besides the over water issue they are root locked or very close to it. transplant as soon as possible. If you are going to go full term with put them in a 5gal. bucket, you only want to transplant once. And to answer your question about the taller one most male plants grow taller and faster than others. DONT kill it only time will tell what it is. Hang in there and keep us up to date.

As someone mentioned they look really overwatered. You got holes in the bottom for drainage?

And I never have understood why people only fill their cups/pots halfway full of soil.

I have many plants that grow way faster than its peers, in any case do what mikec4c said, transplant and watch the watering, for younglings like the ones you have i use a drop of superthrive to a gal of water and use that to water them and once the gal is out i switch to normal nutes.

If they're regular seeds. Your biggest might be a male sir. The other 2 growing the same rate might be females. It's most likely thr case. In any case, stop watering so much. Put in a bigger pot, and when the plants get about a leaf set or 2 more. Sgart feeding nutes.

Water less
Transplant
Wait to feed nutes

im using cfl lights and i havnt given them any nutes yet i just got 5 gallon buckets and am going to transplant this week... thanks for the advice everyone ill try less watering and see how they do.

how many clf are you using? At the very lest you want to have 100 watts. ex. if you are using 13watt clf you will need 8 of them. if you are using 23watt clf you will need 5 of them at least more is better when using them

i only have 10 20w bulbs but with really good reflection and im going to get more...Will a 2 cubic foot bag of soil fill all 3 of my 5 gal buckets?

2 cubic feet = 14.96 gallons, so you should be good. To my eye it looks like you may have started them in soil that is a little too hot (too much nutrient), and then over-watered. A lot of growers will start seed in a lighter mix with less nutrient. After two weeks, it is usually a good time to transplant into richer soil. The only problem with transplanting straight to 5 gallon pots is that you will flush much of the nutrients out of the dirt before the roots can even grow to it. It is true that transplanting causes stress, but it is my belief that this stress is offset by the roots being able to get to rich soil. With a consistent supply of fresh soil, you don't have to worry a whole lot about adding nutrients. Nutrients are where most new growers screw up there plants so take it easy and transplant into a 1 gallon pot first is my advice. If the leaves start to go dry and brittle, you officially over nuked them and will need to start over. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice everyone...I plucked the 2 smaller ones and transplanted to 5 gallon bucket with the bigger one and watered less and this is what it looks like now...
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1sttimegrower513 said:

I started 3 plants about 3 1/2 weeks ago and one of my plants is growing alot more leaves and looks healthier than the other two? This is my first low budget indoor grow, nothing serious, and i am gettin ready to transplant them to bigger pots soon. Could the other 2 be males or be dying?
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You're probably not getting a lot of light down inside those cups.
Why so far down?
Soil looks soggy too.

1sttimegrower513 said:

Thanks for the advice everyone...I plucked the 2 smaller ones and transplanted to 5 gallon bucket with the bigger one and watered less and this is what it looks like now...
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Notice the frilled edges of the leaf's margins? They are not in tune with the environments Temp/RH...... to me, this is the first indication that has potential to turn into an overwatering/root zone issue. Next is going to be the actual blade's on the leaf, the leaf as a whole and the peptole that connects the leaf blades to the plants main stem (stalk).
Your blades /leaves are curling downward, that in it's self tell me that their is too much water at the plants root zone. If the curling downward is caused by the peptole, then I would say stress or/and environmental factors have caused your problem. Learn to read your plants dude. But most importantly, let the soil dry out!

Leaves will also droop when too intense of light has been on and plants have received all the light they can possibally need and use for that matter. But with cfl's, I don't see that as oversaturation. However your leaves should look and appear as if they are reaching up for the light. Or pitched up at an angle as though to catch every available lumen there is. If I were you, I would consider replacing the cfl with at least a T5 HO florescent-- aim for at least 10,000 lumens, and that's he very bottom end. less In veg--more in bloom, big flowers need big power

1sttimegrower513 said:

im using cfl lights and i havnt given them any nutes yet i just got 5 gallon buckets and am going to transplant this week... thanks for the advice everyone ill try less watering and see how they do.

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in a 5gallon at that age/size, not the best idea for a grower who's watering methods are not yet perfected. let that gallon go even longer in between watering's. I wold suggest placing a bamboo stake in/at the buckets edge. When you want to see moisture content and placement, lift the stake out and visually confirm moisture based on the area that's damp/or wet. This will help in watering accuracy based on moisture content, which is directly influenced by plants physical state and environmental conditions.

I never.....never go from a dixie cup to 5 gal pot....lol I transplant every 2 weeks, into a cup or pot just a bit bigger, this always gives your roots new soil to explore and keeps the soil fresh. Thats a big problem I see, transplanting into huge pots, the soil gets all "used up" and has no benefit to the roots there fore makes your plants suck!!



This is what I get with a 2 week transplant cycle, looks like it works pretty good??? no?? btw those little plants are now into 1 gal pots and have been transplanted 3 times.