First Grow. Need Help!

Hi guys. I am 1 mth into my first grow and things are not looking great...
2 x feminised Northern Lights seeds. Germinated OK and sown in a mixture of 3.5 parts moss peat, 2 parts perlite and 1 part vermiculite.
Been keeping them on windowsill and sometimes in the garden by day, and then putting them under 250W HPS in the evening to try to ensure 18+ hours light per day. However, some days I was not arnd to put on the light, and they would have only got 12hrs of light, and not always direct sunlight.
Kept the soil moist with tap water (it is hard water). Fed a couple of times with Plagron Alga Grow feed, at 1/2 strength.
About 2.5 weeks in I am pretty sure I overwatered for a couple of days, and since then the older leaves are turning yellow and dying. New leaves are coming and are green but overall growth is very slow. I will try to attach a couple of photos (not sure how to do this). the photos were taken at about 4 weeks, as you will see the plants are still tiny! Also, there are 2 close up shots, whcih I think shows that the plant in starting to show sex. Just above where the first 2 real leaves were (removed due to yellowing) there are little hairs now appearing. I understand that this is a female. Are these plants starting to flower, it is too soon?
Can anyone give me some advice, should I chuck em and start again?!
Any help wud be appreciated, you guys make this look easy! Seriously disappointed that my first attempt is looking this bad already.

Dude don't toss them just yet! Both me and one my buddies on here had plants that were worse and man you should see how they both turned out! Do you have adequate drain holes? Also I didn't see any pistols....I think you need better lighting maybe pick up some cfls... I will see if I can track down anyone for some better advice..but don't be disappointed its how we learn

Alittle early to be sexing them. As for the lighting there geting leave then under the 250w hps they will grow
Way faster. At 18/6 there not going to flower! For watering wait on adding nutes and water with ph corrected
Water when soil get dry.

hang in there, yes you've over watered and probably over fed them too.
Water when the soil is nearly dry then heavily till the water runs out to flush the soil (miracle grow right ?)

dont sweat it man. just clip the brown parts off first.
are you feeding them anything? the yellow and brown is from over fert. im not familiar at all with any kind of medium (what you grow in) except perlite so i dont know how much that gives off on its own. make sure you have GREAT! drainage like rene said. if i were you i could get 2-3 6500k cfl's and put the plants under them untill the recover. then put them under your hps or outside to veg. if you put them under your hps or cfls have the lights on for 18/6.
dont give it any nutes untill it starts growing a few nodes man. your seed leaves havnt fallen off yet so you got a little ways man...
IT WILL COME BACK

just keep it under the hps. so it will always get direct light.

Sounds like hes going to need a timer to

Thanks guys for getting back to me. Sounds like I just need to be patient with these little guys! Stupidly gave them more nutes yesterday, definitely didnt help with yellowing. I'm gonna go back to just water from now on. .
The soil mix was just plain spaghnum peat moss, perlite and vermiculite. I dont think that peat moss has added nutes? When I have fed them I used Plagron Alga-Grow.
There are drain holes in the bottom of the pots, but maybe I should have added gravel layer at the bottom. Will do this when I move to bigger pots.
Also, I will set up my grow room proper, and then I can have the plants under HPS exclusively. Got my timer/contactor last week so that will help.
Thanks again!

plain peat moss is too acidic, you need to get some potting mix if you ever hope to get those things to grow.
Just perlite and vermiculite alone would be better but you'd have to feed evry watering at a diluted rate.

I'm betting you've got PH problems. Looks like you've got spider mites too, 3rd pic in. (could be an innocent cobweb, but it's a warning sign)

Cheers guys, maybe I should get a pH meter? WHen I move to larger pots, I will probably get a potting mix rather than plain MP. I didnt realise you could grow directly in vermiculite and perlite, what ratio? I have got quite a bit of both and could try this approach. Or would potting mix be better? Cheers.

bottleofbread said:

. I didnt realise you could grow directly in vermiculite and perlite, what ratio? I have got quite a bit of both and could try this approach. Or would potting mix be better? Cheers.

Click to expand...

I've never tried it myself, the Hydroponic guys use it, called Hempy Buckets.
For a newbie good soil would probably be better but if you want to try a it I'd go with 50-50, it dries out faster than soil so you might want to water more often.

Hey guys, back with an update!
Bad news: 1 plant has completely died
Good news: the other plant has recovered altho it's still growing very slowly!

Have attached a couple of pix, any advice would again be appreciated.