hello one & all!

well i have some 1 week old seedlings and things aren't looking good it seems. 5 out of 6 seeds germinated using the paper towel method and i planted them in party cups. 3 are random crappy bag seeds & 3 are Skunkberry from PeakSeedsBC. here are some details of my grow:

• grow medium: 75% Lady Bug Brand Vortex Organic Potting Soil; 25% Miracle Grow Perlite
• temps: 75-84F
• humidity: 45-60% (also have plastic sandwich bags covering the cups for extra humidity)
• ventilation: passive intakes & 265cfm blower exhaust (on speed controller) & 1 small fan blowing on CFLs
• lighting: six 23 watt CFLs (6500K) / only using 3-4 bulbs now
• grow area: 22.5” W x 18” D x 44.5” H enclosed cabinet

for this first week i've had the lights on 24 hours a day. i was using 5 of the CFLs but now i've reduced it to 3 to keep temps down. my seedlings looked OK the first few days and now it looks like they're turning brownish. the ziploc bags were on the cups the first 3 days then removed. when they started looking brownish, i put the bags back as i thought that may help. i raised the CFLs to about six inches after first having them about 1 inch above the cups.

after the initial soil soak before planting, i haven't watered until day 7 and then gave them each 4oz of pH 6.5 tap water (soil was pretty dry by day 7). i have not fed any nutes but i'm thinking of using some SuperThrive i bought next time i water.

the pics below were taken on day 8 the day after i watered. if anyone has any input about what i might be doing wrong please chime in! i hope they don't all die on me.

The Miracle Grow perlite has been treated with nutes and you are burning your babies. Axe the Miracle grow perlite and get just regular perlite. I know this for a fact!!! I have experienced the problem and have now eliminated any Miracle Grow products from my grows. I still use chemical nutes but an Orchid blend with no urea. Repot them in Fox Farm soils if you can get them and use no nutes until flowering. You want to keep the seedling moist and do not let it dryt out. Later in the process it will be ok but not the new babies.
Good Growing

nute burn huh? i was afraid of that. from what i read about MG perlite, some say it's OK as the nutes are in such minute quantities. maybe not though!

since these seedlings are so small.. how would i safely go about transplanting them into some gentler soil without killing them in the process?

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well i decided to transplant one for starters to new soil. i carefully dumped the 12oz party cup over to remove the soil/root ball & was surprised to see that roots had already grown to the bottom of the cup and even up around the sides just a bit.

since i thought i was going to have a smaller tap root to deal with, i thought i'd be able to get rid of all the original soil. now instead i have room for only about half new soil in the new 24oz pot. the new soil i mixed in consists of:

60% All Purpose Potting Soil from Lowes (ingredients: composted bark, sand & peat moss--no nutes!)
30% Horticultural Vermiculite
10% Lady Bug Brand Vortex Organic Potting Soil

this time no MG perlite!

before placing the root ball in the pot i watered the new soil with pH 6.5 tap water with SuperThrive mixed at ratio of 1ml to 1 gallon. after placing the seedling in the pot, i filled in the rest of the space with new soil mix and watered just a bit more.

i'll keep my eye on it and if it looks better i'll do the same with the other 4 plants.

The problem I had was indiscriminate. I had used Miracle Grow perlite but in different concentrations. I did not measure it exactly so some burned and some didn't. Drove me nutz. Good luck and the soil sounds ok.