So I don’t know what else to do guys. A week ago I made a post about my 2 week old seedlings having burned leaves and not growing fast enough. I gave up on them and started a new batch. I took some ones advice and bought some 6500k T5 lights and hung them 4 inches above my seedlings. The new batch of seedlings hatched but now they’re STILL stretching. What am I doing wrong? it makes no sense to me other than the T5 lights not being strong enough. Please… someone help me out. Here are pictures of them. I planted these seedlings on 3/21/21
Those are leds, marketed to be t5 replacement. For example a 4’ t5ho has photometric flux around 5000 lumens. Your lights are listed as 2200 lumens, or about half of what the t5ho that is typically used for horticulture applications.
They should work though. How many of them are you using?
I am using 2 of them. both about 5 inches apart from each other and 4 inches directly above the seedlings. In my pictures you can see the bright LEDs are already super close. I don’t understand why this is still happening
Your lights may seem bright, but aren’t very strong by horticulture lighting standards. Beyond that, plants in center don’t seem to be as leggy. I would maybe try using more of the fixtures.
@dbrn32 Happy Friday, I have a similar issue, but I am using normal t5 cfl. Im starting a phone hunt so I have dozens in a single dome, using the triangular plugs. This was the only option as I only have 1 cfl and couldn’t do solo cups or anything else due to lighting. Anyway, nearly 100% hit rate and now these guys/gals are starting to stretch too.
If you recall I was asking about the HLG 100, and curious if you think I can get them out of the plug tray, into solos, and into a tent with that hlg running? HLG said 24-36 inches for seedilngs/clones, but not sure if that presumes more developed seedlings, they just soaked Saturday and growing fast.
I think its the PAR output that matters, not the height of the light, correct? At least on the LED. I just want to make sure going 36 inches won’t cause stretch, and I don’t want to hang 18 inches and burn the seedlings. Thanks @dbrn32 as always for lighting guidance!
Hard to say yellowing with rooting clones. They will usually show some objection even things are well, just because they aren’t that efficient while developing roots. Watch for leaves to twist, stand straight up, or attempt to shade themselves. Thst is usually earliest sign of light being too close.
You got ur self some nice shop lights there. Need to get horticulture cfl, they should b plainly labeled. Ur stretching doesn’t look awful, nothing I haven’t seen myself. I notice u still got some room n them cups, fill’em up. Get ur self some T5’s, or T8’s for horticulture purposes, hang’em where u gots ur flo’s now, if u got to give’em a little support so b it. I wish u nothing but good luck, may they grow strong n prosper.…