light too close. need advice. HELP

the plant in the small black pot is a bag seed and the terra cotta pot is grand daddy purple. I had might light about 2-3 inches above the plants thinking they'd grow into the light and thats when i'd have to move them. well it only casued them to be lazy and not grow vertically. i have a couple of sets of leaves on about 1-2 inches of stem. i think thats alot. i just raised my light to about 15-18 inches so they'd have to grow up towards the light. i also started to feed it with "thrive alive b-1 green". its a fertilizer that the guy running the local hydroponic supply shop gave me after i explained everything to him about my setup. its 0-0-1. is their anything else i can do or do i just have to wait. oh i forgot to mention that i started growning these plant back on 11/18/13. i germinated them in a wet paper towel in a bag for 2 days then planted them after they "sprouted". so thats about 5 weeks. will i have strong plants becuz i kept them so small by keeping the light so close or will they just not grow and not produce anything. please let me know. any help is appreciated

What kind of soil are you using? I dont really see any perlite in it. Are you letting it dry out a bit or are you keeping it soggy? On the third picture what is that green slime on top of the soil?

I don't think you light being "too close" is the problem. Having a light too far away will cause leggy seedlings, too close will fry them but it looks like a fluoro light. I keep my t5 a few inches above my cuttings no problem.

If what ur saying is true, and those have been in soil for 5 weeks, than ur doing something MAJORLY wrong and its not the light. My plants were put in dirt on Nov 21st. This is what they look like.

Being 5 weeks, they should be a lot bigger than that.

i bought feminized grand daddy purple seeds from bcseedking.com thats whats in the terra cotta pot. thats been goin since november 18th. i dunno what the hell is goin on. im gettin a ton of leaves growing but no vertical growth. im using miracle grow garden soil that i picked up from home depot. i know its not the best but im workin on a budget. as for the green shit on top of it i have no clue. im guessing algea or something. i did raise my light up and started to feed her. so i have my fingers crossed

Those look bad for 5 weeks as others stated. Do you keep them sitting in those pans of water all the time?

If so, that's your problem right there.

Looks like they are living in a bog and most likely have a very stunted root system.

Cannabis does not like swamp like conditions, any plant that you grow actually does not like sitting in water like they are. You need to drain your pots and it looks like the soil is way to boggy as stated above.

To recover them and possibly see some growth I would recommend buying some perlite and another bag of potting mix, for plants that big I doubt they have a huge root system in those pots so what I would do is basically transplant but when you do that wash all that boggy soil off the root system with PH 6.0 water till you have the stem and roots clear of all the soil (that mossy stuff just makes that soil look not to great). Be super careful with the root system and plant straight into your new soil mix, which has been pre-mixed with your perlite. Then feel the weight of your pot, after which add some water a little at a time until it drains through the bottom. Feel the weight of your pot again, take not of pre-water weight and water weight. When your pot feels like pre-water weight nearly you know its time to water again, this prevents over or under watering. Once the water drains through the pots tip it out of the trays, you don't want them to sit in water like that EVER, a little water that will evaporate is fine or get soaked up but not much more than that.

Good luck, let me know how it works out.

As stated above your growth should be way more, I have a few plants in hydro from the 14th Dec and they are only a little smaller than Ghrimms plants (2 weeks), at 5 weeks you would expect a lot of growth and probably should not have let them go this far, harder to recover but still possible

Oh this is my random soil grow, just doing it as little extra project till I get some clones, they are about to move under a 80w cfl tomorrow as I just moved my first group of plants to their new home under a 400w light

They are only about 5 days out of the soil but you see the difference in lighting and stretch between the different plants, the shorter one had light just above it and the longer stemmed were further from the light, this is how plants are affected by the distance between light.



You can see in the soil both perlite and vermicite which are two mediums of aeration for soil that allows for a greater flow of water through your soil, the soil mix is just premium potting mix with slow release fertilizer (I did not plan to spend a lot of effort on these three girls they are just for putting outside near the end of the summer for a couple of extra ounces perhaps).

Good advice so far. If you want to fix it just empty those trys after you water or do what i do and put a spacer between the container and the tray. Water comes down and isnt reabsorbed into the soil. It just evaporates and raises the rh of your room. Good for veg. I use pieces of 2x4. Havent had any issues with mould yet.

yeah dude that dirt looks like mud. algae on your soil is a no-no.

I would get some perlite from home depot or your local garden store and mix at least 30% perlite into that MG garden soil. I used that on my first grow, it does work. but not that well. and you'll get random other plants popping up in it over time as well. not very good soil for mj.

anyway mix up the soil with the perlite and repot those midgets in a bigger pot, give them a bit of water to get everything settled then let them DRY fully. general rule is to stick your finger in about 1-1/2" (or almost to the second knuckle) and if it feels wet, DON'T WATER YET.