Can someone please help identify what's wrong with my tomatoes? Please help! (Picture attached)

[Hillcrest homestead]

I remember reading that leaves will change color if they are getting too much of a wavelength. I.E. Red leaves are the ones getting too much red wavelength? The grow lights that have blue are vegetative growth and red is forced blooming. You can Check that out online under high end grow-lights and their specifications will tell you how to adjust some led ones to different wavelengths etc…

 

[Chris2018]

Be careful fertilizing as they are still young and you risk burning them. I like starting my seeds in a seed starter mix (as someone said above, peat and vermiculite hold a lot of water). I dont bottom water seedlings but instead use a squirt bottle and mist them at the base. Seed starter mixes have the nutrients they need to get started and grow. After mine are a good 1-2 inches tall- I repot them in a larger container using a garden soil or raised bed soil. They double in size in a week. Tomatoes are easy but also finicky....they really like calcium and nitrogen. Save your eggs shells and grind them up and plant it with the tomatoes when you move to them to the garden. I also leave cups out to collect rain water as its higher in nitrogen than tap or well water and water my seedlings with that once they are bigger.
I have a moisture meter I bought off amazon for really cheap to know when to water my plants- usually about every 2 days while they are still in their pots and under my lights (LED shop lights) I water them at night when the lights are off so I don't burn them. I would try repotting them with a different soil mixture containing composted manure which is high in phosphorus. They should start to get better.

Most seed starting mixes have no nutrients added. I'm most cases seed starting mix is simply a mix of Peat and or Coco Coir, Perlite, a Wetting agent and some has a Mycorrhiza Fungi.

Tomatoes actually like a soil that is slightly acidic side at around 6.5 pH which is on the acidic side.

 

[sarahewilliams]

I remember reading that leaves will change color if they are getting too much of a wavelength. I.E. Red leaves are the ones getting too much red wavelength? The grow lights that have blue are vegetative growth and red is forced blooming. You can Check that out online under high end grow-lights and their specifications will tell you how to adjust some led ones to different wavelengths etc…

Oh thats super cool to know! I used a red/blue one but it sucked. Probably because it was cheap. I eventually want to get some high end ones... do you use any you'd recommend? The shop lights have worked great, but I do want something geared towards plants.

Most seed starting mixes have no nutrients added. I'm most cases seed starting mix is simply a mix of Peat and or Coco Coir, Perlite, a Wetting agent and some has a Mycorrhiza Fungi.

Tomatoes actually like a soil that is slightly acidic side at around 6.5 pH which is on the acidic side.

They’re ideal for germination but not long term for seedlings.

 

[The_Chicken_Tender]

Be careful fertilizing as they are still young and you risk burning them. I like starting my seeds in a seed starter mix (as someone said above, peat and vermiculite hold a lot of water). I dont bottom water seedlings but instead use a squirt bottle and mist them at the base. Seed starter mixes have the nutrients they need to get started and grow. After mine are a good 1-2 inches tall- I repot them in a larger container using a garden soil or raised bed soil. They double in size in a week. Tomatoes are easy but also finicky....they really like calcium and nitrogen. Save your eggs shells and grind them up and plant it with the tomatoes when you move to them to the garden. I also leave cups out to collect rain water as its higher in nitrogen than tap or well water and water my seedlings with that once they are bigger.
I have a moisture meter I bought off amazon for really cheap to know when to water my plants- usually about every 2 days while they are still in their pots and under my lights (LED shop lights) I water them at night when the lights are off so I don't burn them. I would try repotting them with a different soil mixture containing composted manure which is high in phosphorus. They should start to get better.

I think organic fertilizers are less likely to burn plants than synthetic ones (I could be wrong). I just got some all purpose compost, which I have been adding as I transplant. It's not purely manure, but it probably has similar qualities? That's interesting about the rain water though, I may have to try that.

 

[The_Chicken_Tender]

From my experience, you should only bottom water as seedlings.
Once the seedlings get their true leaves and become young plants, they should be top watered. Top watering flushes out any unused nutrients and salts out of the soil.

Since your use a mix that contains two ingredients that tend to hold a lot of water (peat and vermiculite) I still tend to lean to over watering.
One of the problems with over watering is that it causes a condition known as Nutritional Lockup where plants cannot take up and use nutrients.

Now a problems with bottom watering is the soil at the bottom of the pot can be extremely wet but the soil at the top of the pot is dry so when you think your plants need watering, I would lift the pots up and see if it is light or heavy if the pot feels light in weight, then it's time to water and if it is heavy you don't water.
When you do water, I would recommend that you top water just until water comes out the drain wholes at the bottom of the pot (don't let water sit in trays under the pots).

As another recommendation, I wouldn't use a dry fertilizer while the young plants are still in pots, a better option would be a liquid fertilizer.

That makes sense about top vs bottom watering.

I have a few pots that I haven't fertilized yet, so I looked it up and found out how to turn dry fertilizer into liquid fertilizer by soaking it for 24 hours, which I started in a bucket last night. I will use that on the rest of the plants. I think it will also solve the new problem I have, which is fuzzy white mold growing on the fertilizer (I sprinkled some cinnamon on the mold, but I don't think it's doing anything). Thank you for that recommendation.

 

[The_Chicken_Tender]

I remember reading that leaves will change color if they are getting too much of a wavelength. I.E. Red leaves are the ones getting too much red wavelength? The grow lights that have blue are vegetative growth and red is forced blooming. You can Check that out online under high end grow-lights and their specifications will tell you how to adjust some led ones to different wavelengths etc…

Interesting. I bought some full spectrum lights that say they work for all stages of growth, but they are definitely not adjustable.

 

[Chris2018]

That makes sense about top vs bottom watering.

I have a few pots that I haven't fertilized yet, so I looked it up and found out how to turn dry fertilizer into liquid fertilizer by soaking it for 24 hours, which I started in a bucket last night. I will use that on the rest of the plants. I think it will also solve the new problem I have, which is fuzzy white mold growing on the fertilizer (I sprinkled some cinnamon on the mold, but I don't think it's doing anything). Thank you for that recommendation.

Yes, to a point you can add dry fertilizer to water and get a liquid fertilizer.
Keep in mind that some nutrients are partly dissolvable by water.

For example, one of the organic fertilizers I use in the field/ garden is a 5-4-2 fertilizer derived from fish bone meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal, crab meal, shrimp meal, langbeinite and kelp meal.
It has a 5% total nitrogen when added to the soil, if I soaked the fertilizer in water the water would contain 0.4% nitrogen and the solids would contain 4.6% nitrogen.
That is because 4.6% of the total available nitrogen is insoluble nitrogen.

As for the "mold", it might not be a mold.
It could be Mycorrhiza Fungi which is a good thing because it is breaking down the fertilizer and making it available for the plant.

 

[Chris2018]

I remember reading that leaves will change color if they are getting too much of a wavelength. I.E. Red leaves are the ones getting too much red wavelength? The grow lights that have blue are vegetative growth and red is forced blooming. You can Check that out online under high end grow-lights and their specifications will tell you how to adjust some led ones to different wavelengths etc…

The reason is that plants don't photosynthesize correctly for growth under red lights and start showing signs of deficiency, turning the plants a purplish red color.
Young plants need a blue light spectrum to photosynthesize correctly and keep that nice dark green color.

 

[Chris2018]

They’re ideal for germination but not long term for seedlings.

You're confusing a couple terms,
First a seed starting mix is usually a soilless mix that contains no nutrients except calcium which is a pH buffer. It is not meant to used past the true leaf stage unless you are feeding a liquid fertilizer. When plants are fed a liquid fertilizer either Organic or Synthetic they can and WILL grow just fine in a seed starting mix until the go into the ground..

Now the second term your confusing is seedling, a plant is only a seedling until it has it's true leaves, then is a young plant.

 

[bhaugh]

I grow a lot of plants in a grow tent under lights. Tomato’s included but they end up taking over too much space so I stick to small varieties. Tomato’s can turn purple when it’s too cold as they will do outside. Led grow lights don’t really produce much heat unless you have a bunch in there. I’ve found the greatest success using lights with IR lbulbs among the regular bulbs. Plants do need radiation to grow well. Grow lights do pretty well but they still can’t compete with mother natures light system.
As for seeds, I sow most seeds into soil direct but I start off with small pots to get a good root system before plants to grow bags. Although sprouting doesn’t require much for ferts I’m old and all that transplanting is too much work. Once the plant is leafing I’ll add worm castings, kelp and micros to get things up and moving along. As was mentioned, gardening like anything else takes “practice” and we learn the most when we fail then find workarounds to our problems.