Seedlings Drooping, Yellow 1st Leaves - Rockwool HELP!!!!

Brand new grower and new to the forum. Built a good grow cabinet, ventilation fine, chiller with icebox. Suntube 600w Hortilux Super HPS. Rockwool and drip system. Sorry for the long post, I'm getting anal about this.....

Hatched my seeds bought from Attitude, all Indica, 9 in total but 3 different strains. After a week of growing in a small rockwool cube and feeding 400ppm Clonex Clone and Seeding Solution under a Florescent light (per the hydro guy at the store's suggestion, I use RO water that measures 35PPM), I moved them to the cabinet and lit them from about 20" away. Temp is always 75. They measure around 73 at the leaf. Humidity at 50-60%. Didn't soak the big cubes overnight, but made the mistake of using a solution of 400ppm of Dutch Master Gold A&B to soak the cubes wet before transplanting. I'm at day 9 in the cabinet and they're having problems.

After the leaves started to droop about a 2 days after transplant, I flushed with PH 5.5 water and went back to Clonex at 100ppm. No real improvement and thought maybe overwatering, so let them dry the last 4 days. Today flushed the shit out of them with 145ppm Clonex and RO water and got the run-off down to PH 6.25 after about 3 flushes, was high at almost 7 when I first started to flush.

The cubes are not sitting in water. I don't run the drip system on the timer yet, and have only watered them now twice in the last 9 days. Have not seen any growth in the last couple of days. Am I really fucking them up here? I probably transplanted too early, but read that I could after they reached 2" tall.

These are the pics I just took. Some are doing better than others.

Help!!!!!

Have you fed them anything besides plain water?

Just the Clonex at 150ppm the last two feeds in the last 9 days. It's RO water that measures 35ppm and I used the clonex on the advice of the hydro store owner.

At first transplant, like I said I think I screwed up and soaked the big cubes in 400ppm Dutch Master Gold A&B thinking I was being conservative since they did fine with clonex at 400ppm while under the FLOs before transplant.

BTW, I've looked at most of the threads relating to droopy leaves and I don't think I over nuted or over-watered them. I guess 400ppm at first transplant is bad at this stage tho, but with no recovery in the last week, I'm not sure what to do next.

Well first stop using the Clonex. The store owner was correct about how rooting hormone can help seedlings get roots going but we want to eliminate possible causes. One theory could be that the plants are pushing too hard to grow roots, using up their resources. The Clonex shouldn't be of much help at this size anyway.

So you wet the cubes with the Master Gold before transplanting the little cubes and that was 9 days ago. You should move the floros closer. Most fluorescents can only support healthy plant growth a few inches away from the bulb or less. Ph can slowly creep up or down so pay close attention to the Ph at the cubes and in the res. They're going to need some nutes right away but I'm not familiar with the stuff you're using and so am hesitant to reccomend it for babies. If it were me, I'd give them some 2/3 strength Fish Emulsion, 1/3 strength 3-10-1 Bat Guano and 2/3 strength Maxicrop mixed together. Obviously these ratios would be thinned out in a hydro system. While they'll still need Phosphorus and more Nitrogen, a Maxicrop or similar organic foliar feed might help them out quickly as long as overwatering isn't a factor.

Bottom feed the young plants. Let the rock wool soak it up from the bottom. weak solution.

Those leaves look dry and crisp. Don't let the plants dry out.

Thanks for the quick response! They're not under flos anymore, they've been under a 600 hps about 18" and a 18/6 cycle since transplant. Measuring around 7000 foot-candles at the plant top. So try nutes again? Plants are only 18 days since seed. Thought little to no nutes until about 4 weeks no???

We start weak nutes when the 3 bladed leaves appear, and that's in soil. In my experience, seedlings have enough energy built-in to grow a small root and the first single-bladed leaves. Usually the plant's resources start to get used up around the 3 bladed leaves and to grow further, it needs to suck nutrients from the single-bladed leaves. That's why I suspect the bottom leaves are dying. With hydro you don't have the traces of nutrients that most soils have, so your plants only have exactly what you give them. This makes the seedling time frame the hardest for hydro growing because you have to give them a more specific ppm to supply enough nutes without burning.

I would suggest moving the light back a little until you have the problem sorted out- just to slow the plants down so they aren't being pushed as hard in their weak condition. If you do have a lack of nutes, less light will make the plants need less fertilizer.

Thanks so much guys! That makes sense. I'll do just that and watch them closely. Probably shouldve used soil but I guess I got too fancy on my first grow. Hope they'll pull through. Someday maybe I'll be knowledgeable enough to help out a newbie. Till then thanks again.

Well I fed them last night before their lights went off, 400ppm of the Dutch Master Gold, PH 5.25, and woke this morning to rejuvenated plants. Leaves are starting to straighten out and looks like new growth. I have set my timer to feed for 60 seconds every 5 hours which gives me 4 feeds a day. At that rate there is a little run-off but not much and going to keep 400ppm for a couple of days then bump them up to 600ppm. Crossing my fingers but I think you guys set me straight!