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Lost a whole tray of seedlings to a $12 fan mistake and it cost me 3 weeks
Back in April I started 48 tomato and pepper seedlings under a cheap shop light in my basement, and everything was going fine until about day 10 when I noticed the stems were getting thin and pale. I figured it was a light issue, so I raised the lamp, dropped it lower, messed with the timer, and burned through two weeks and a bag of seed starting mix trying to fix something that was not broken. Turns out my little oscillating fan was set on low and pointed straight at the tray from about 6 inches away, which was drying out the top layer of soil faster than the roots could keep up with. I was watering twice a day, which I thought was normal, and it was actually drowning the lower roots while the surface crusted over. A guy at my local nursery in Boise asked one question, how close is your fan, and I felt like an idiot. I moved it back to 3 feet, watered every other day, and the next round came up thick and green in under a week. Anyone else ever chase the wrong fix for weeks because the real problem was something dumb you set up on day one?
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joseph_murray81mo ago
Same thing happened to me but with light instead of air. Had my shop light about 2 inches off the tops thinking more light equals better, and the leaves went pale and crispy at the edges. Spent almost two weeks moving it up and down and messing with the timer, all while the real issue was the heat coming off that cheap fixture baking the poor things. Thing is, once you find the actual problem the fix takes about ten seconds and then you feel like a fool for all the time you wasted. What gets me is how the obvious stuff never crosses your mind because you set it up on day one and just trust it. It's like your brain skips right over the setup and goes hunting for some complicated answer. Bet you'll never look at a fan the same way again.
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