What am I doing wrong? 1st grow

I've been combing through here for a little while now and love the forum and the great help ya'll offer each other. I'm hoping ya'll don't mind throwing some info my way. I just finished my grow cabinet and have attempted my first grow. It is a complete fail so far. They have been going for about 3wks. I am on well water that has a very low ph so I have added baking soda to raise the ph. it didn't take much at all less than a spoon full for a gal. The soil I'm using is equal parts of the cheap home depot potting soil (can't remember name), vermiculate, perlite, and worm castings. I found the soil mixture in this forum. I 've posted some pics of the grow cabinet and the poor condition of my plants. Its really kinda laughable. Any help, tips is greatly appreciated!

how far is your light from those babies?...what kind of light are you using

I am willing to bet it's your water/ph. I would recommend getting some ph up and down from a hydro store. Get some distled water from the store, flush em good with ph adjusted "good" water. Test the ph first bit of drainage that you get out of the containers to dsee where you are at ph wise. At this stage it wont cost much to buy a gallon or two of water to get it going, but once they take off you may want to look into an alternative water supply/filters.

Yep...ph problem. You haven't fed them anything right? Give 'em a couple of few weeks before you give'em nutes, and get some cheap ph paper and up or down as rich said from the hydro store. You'll have happy girls like this....

Do you use a ph meter or paper or whatever?
I don't think it matters as long as you're using
the cheapest stuff! Sorry but you put some money
and/or time into that cabinet you should see my closet
You should spent more on dirt?
How big is the cabinet. You planing 1 or 2 plants? My closet is 2x7
How big/type of light and how far looks a little stretch too!
Here's my closet video~
It's your dirt!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mrghettogrower&aq=0&oq=mrghettogrow

Yep, ph issue, unless ur feeding them, then it could be. A. Ppm issue, good luck

Dont use well water!!! I had well water for years and there ius a lot of things in there that can screw you up! Lime, Shale, Copper, Sulfer, etc, etc.. Get 5 gallons of spring water from the grocery store and change your soil so you know there is no issue there!!

Looks like ur light is too far also. Mine is 23 days

Bro you have gone to the effort of building a nice grow box and then you go and use cheap rubbish soil and adjust ph with baking soda. Start again those seedlings are as good as fucked, get good soil and buy some ph up and ph down at hydro shop or ebay for $20.

summerigrewup said:

Looks like ur light is too far also. Mine is 23 days

Click to expand...

Whats with the ugly foot .I was eating ,now not hungry.

I am using PH drops for testing. I'm gonna start over and take ya'lls advice As far as the baking soda issue I'm gonna order some ph up and down and I'm gonna start buying the water. I wish I had thought about it sooner, but thanks for the tip on the distance of the light. I figure I'll probably get some better soil too. Thanks for the comments on the closet. Its a 18'X24"X72" The "cloning chamber" is 2'x2' and the "flowering chamber" is 2'x4' with a 400w MH/HPS cool tube. I'll let ya'll know how the second attempt turns out. Thanks again for the responses.

Well I'm back to post up how my second attempt is going. Really not as good as the first one if thats possible. Its really agrivating me cause I'm usually pretty fair at most things I attempt, but this is kickin my @$$. Basically they opened up and stopped growing. The ends of the lowest two leaves are turning yellow already. I ordered a PH kit and balanced the water (purified) with it to 6.0. I've been watering them every morning It doesn't really appear to be to much water judging by the soil, but I'm a newb so??? This time I wanted to make sure I had plenty of light so instead of using the cloning chamber light I'm using the 400w MH and its about 3"- 4" from the "plant". Currently I'm running the light at 24-0. If this is a problem I have a timer. They have been growing for 8 days and still look the same as day they opened except yellowing. Today (day I went ahead and added some nutes (BMO Plant Tonic) at regular strength. Any advice is greatly appreciated!