Purple Seedlings

A good way to figure out your watering is to weigh the cup and soil dry. Add about 40% of that dry weight as water, and when your leaves start to wilt add 30% of the original dry weight as water. You will start to notice the light weight of the pot, and eventually be able to tell without wilting the leaves when they're ready to be watered. I'm not sure if your issue is entirely over watering, but that's a good way to get the hang of it. I set mine around 200g dry, makes it easy to figure out water amounts.

If you bought your soil from the store, I'm sure you did, that is where the gnats came from. If you keep the soil real moist, they thrive. If you can, replant your seedlings in some soil with diatomaceous earth mixed in it. Be sure to prewater the new soil, and let it sit for an hour or so. Then transplant your seedlings into it. It should help you control the infestation.

Just a quick update:

@Kingrow1 The humidity dome was removed as soon as it was mentioned. Thank you for the input! I do know how stomata work but it was my understanding that high humidity was preferred at this point. I'll have to chalk it up to being my first grow. Onward and upward for next grow.

@Timothypaul26 My dome does have vents. I appreciate your input on watering and using diatomaceous earth. The last bit was very helpful. Also, how are your seedlings doing now ~30 days out?

@Custom420 Below is a picture of my current temps and humidity. Its looking pretty steady. And the fungus gnats suck. Dealing with them on top of my own stupidity? I'd say my plants are easily 12-14 days behind where they should be right now.


So here are the ladies as of today. Let me know what you think!

Seedlings are vegging now, all doing well except for 2. They had problems coming out of the shells, and I had to pop them with tweezers. Most are hanging over the sides of my 5 gal fabric pots, about 7" tall.

The 2 up front outsides are the ugly ducklings. I also made matters worse by adding some compost tea that I had brewed for my veggie garden. Just wanted to use it up, and the one in the left corner looks like N tox now... hoping she'll pop out of it. Just using water and liquid karma now.

Fungus gnats are pretty harmless, most of us have some flying around.

Kingrow1 said:

Fungus gnats are pretty harmless, most of us have some flying around.

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They are not harmless, they can mess with your root zone. Nematodes, or mosquito dunks will help. I would do it earlier than later. Once they start laying eggs everywhere it will much harder to control them.

xmatox said:

They are not harmless, they can mess with your root zone. Nematodes, or mosquito dunks will help. I would do it earlier than later. Once they start laying eggs everywhere it will much harder to control them.

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They cannot penetrate very far into the root zone unles you are running a coco or hydro medium, in soil the top layer contains very few roots for them. The adults do not eat the plants or roots either. I pretty much have them most of the year and have never seen any damage.

Are you budwashing? I get gnats all the time and have to treat for them, and I know if not treated, they are all over those buds.

one issue no one has said a word about. get rid of the hid light till those have 5 or 6 sets of leaves.
i veg with a 250 mh, but its on one side of the tent, there are two 24 watt t5hos on the other side for seedlings and young clones. if you put the hid far enough away from your seedling not to burn them, they will stretch and slow down. get them under a couple of t5s a few inches away and let them fatten up before you put them under the MH

xmatox said:

Are you budwashing? I get gnats all the time and have to treat for them, and I know if not treated, they are all over those buds.

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I get a few and dont mind them so i live with them but have erradicated them in the past if they got out of control. Pretty much every where in my country, peat and fruit attract them easily.

i crumble up a mosquito dunk and put the dust on the surface of the soil or coco or w/e i'm growing in, they slowly dissolve and spread into your medium. they kill the gnats when they're on top and the larvae when they spread into your medium. it won't eradicate them but it slows them way the hell down. if you use the yellow sticky traps while doing this it really knocks the population down

I know the MH isn't ideal but its what I had to work with. I turned the ballast down to 500W hoping it would help and moved the light pretty high, close to 48".

My only other option was the single T5 that came with my humidity dome.