Anyone else using open lines in coco DTW? Runnoff is nuclear hot

[ThePizzaMan]

Hey

Ive been running into severe issues lately ... drying to diagnose the problem. One of the things im trying to figure out is why my runnoff is so high.... like blinking light on my truncheon high! Wondering if two open drip lines could cause channeling and excess salt buildup. Im feeding once per day and allowing for the pots to dry a bit ... even when i try to flush the plants with low ppm solution its not doing anything to bring the ppm down. MY thoughts are that i am feeding way too high 1000ppm nutrients every feed... OR the open drip lines channeling the solution and allowing for massive salt build up.

Anyone running two open drip lines per plant in coco having massive success? I read you are only supposed to max out at like 800ppm so maybe im just frying the plants.

I have other issues but trying to narrow things down .... everything is cool until like week 6 and the plants are literally dying on the stalks. It starts at one end of the garden and works its way across the garden. buds are left brown and lacking trichomes ... odor is reduced or even acrid. The plants are straight up dying on the stalk.. the damage sweeps across the garden in like a weeks time. Its insane and quite demoralizing

Thanks guys

Pizza

 

[Ca++]

I can't do anything with PPM numbers. It sounds like you have a truncheon, so you have two different ppm readings coming off it, and as is normal when people use ppm, I don't know which.
It is nonsense anyway. All we can measure is EC, which you also have on the truncheon. Along with CF, which I can work with. PPM isn't workable though.

Salt buildup is usually answered with more run2waste. Or you could lower the feed EC. Coco is organic, and carries Na and K in quantity. It looses these as it decomposes. These will add to the EC, so some increase is normal. Though top light, means drop a tank of correct solution through them, usually.

 

[dramamine]

The high EC runoff sounds like a side effect of whatever's doing your plants in toward the end. Maybe a pathogen of some kind. They stop uptaking nutrients, then the EC rises. What a drag to watch them all do that. Maybe you could get some plant material tested for pathogens if you can't get it straightened out.

 

[Brother Nature]

If you’re feeding too high then letting the pot dry out, that’s gonna cause salt buildup in coco and screw with the ph. Not really enough info to offer a good diagnosis, but coco should never dry out and remain around 5.8ph, I’d start with looking at that…

 

[ThePizzaMan]

If you’re feeding too high then letting the pot dry out, that’s gonna cause salt buildup in coco and screw with the ph. Not really enough info to offer a good diagnosis, but coco should never dry out and remain around 5.8ph, I’d start with looking at that…

funny enough the PH was not crazy out of wack... but the PPMS were and have been off the charts high. When you take runoff...are you taking runoff through the tray?? or taking runoff by removing an individual plant and running solution through it manually to get an acurate reading. Ive been taking it as the runoff runs through the tray....maybe im doing that incorrectly. I have 32 clones roughly 4 months old in 2 gallons ... next feeding im going to take some runoff and see what happens. Ill try not to let the pots dry out too much but i only transplanted a week ago and they are still growing their legs. Thanks for all the help...ill keep this thread updated.

TpM

 

[mexweed]

There are definitely salts that are getting washed off of the tray going into your testing water

 

[Brother Nature]

When you take runoff...are you taking runoff through the tray?? or taking runoff by removing an individual plant and running solution through it manually to get an acurate reading.

I have a medium PH tester, so that is how I would do mine, but if you want a somewhat good reading of run off you'll need to do the second method. Like mexweed mentioned, if you're taking the reading off what drips from the container then off the tray there are going to be a lot of excess salts giving you a misread.

 

[Ca++]

As a maintenance check, If all the pots waste comes together somewhere, I personally test there. You feed as a group, so the groups response is important to you.

The reading will change, from the first trickle of runoff, to the last.
You first get information about the root zone before fertigation. This should be the highest EC you see, as your feed comes through the roots, where the salts from the last fertigation have concentrated. It's nice to be there and catch this moment.
The last bit to drain out, probably comes 5 minutes later, than what you thought was the last bit out. It is also worth waiting for. It's water that has sat at the bottom of the pot, quite some time. Got a real taste for what it's like in the rootzone, then come out for testing. A little bit of rootzone, actually coming out in liquid form.

That would still be maintenance though. Individual care is a superiour level of effort. As a batch grow who's problem sweeps across the room, Some initial sampling along that same arc might produce a pattern.

I have seen uneven floors and emmitters at different heights play games. The water will get out at the lowest point, until the last. Many people have syphon problems from tanks that should be off. If a valve passes slowly, then just the lowest emmitters might be enough to drain that seepage away. Leaving areas of grows getting water, after you thought it stopped. This could lead to brown dead buds, on plants that went limp and yellow first.
Other times, it can be the runoff suffering from uneven floors. Interconnected pots are particularly prone to this problem. Gravety might not drain all the water to the pump-out bucket. Leaving some areas of the room like swampies.

I think you will find some uneven response is from unequal treatment, somewhere. While the overall gain in EC is a seperate issue. Addressing the plants individually will hold answers. If an arc accross the room says they are all bad, I think you are done testing them all. Though you have different strains to think about, If you thought it might be just some individual plants, not all of them.

Looks like you have a few peoples attention

 

[CocoNut 420]

I don't work with nutrient ppm i use ec its universal.

How to fix it.
Say you're aiming for 1.5ec, thoroughly soak the pots with 1.5ec nutrient in the morning, then in the evening thoroughly soak them again and take a note of the run off.

It should only be 2/3 points higher, if it's more you need to
A) use more run off.
B) lower the input nutrient ec.

If the ec is lower than went in you need to raise it, basically you're aiming to keep the run off within 2/3 points over the day.

Your environment plays a major role in your ec, a hot dry room will raise ec faster than a cool humid room hence the importance of environment.

 

[DJM]

2 open ended drippers are more than enough to not create salt build up and reset the mediums EC. But that's COMPLETELY dependent on the flow rate of the emitters. If you have anything less than 2gph emitters your going to have more issues. id recommend at least 3gph. The reason why is this

0.5-2.0 GPH emitters are largely designed for rockwool applications where the rockwool is doing most of the heavy lifting to spread and dissipate that moisture so the entire medium reaches full saturation and resets its EC

This is not the case in coco as coco does not wick and spread moisture in the same manner that rockwool does , and because of that you need to use a much higher flood rate to reach full saturation, where the drippers flood the medium from the top down, and flushout salts/ reset medium while doing so. Without replicating that flood like process on the top layer of coco down and using emmiters with a low flow rate this is whats going to happen

Your medium will never be able to achieve full saturation, even with 4 drippers per 1 gallon pot. What will happen is youll only be able to reach a max of 48-50% water content or so because the drippers arent flowing at a rate thats high enough to reach full saturation , even if you run them for an hour. You can feed to 50% run off and still never achieve full saturation of 60-70% WC and still have high run off because of it

While with emitters using a higher flow rate, youll be able to reach much higher WC % of 60-70% , and in turn will flush and reset your medium each time you feed....if you dont hit that full saturation youll never stabalize the EC in your medium regardless of how much run off you get because the EC will continue to stack in the coco as long as youre not hitting full saturation

Also when using low flow emitters , the EC between the top and bottom of pot will be vastly different , this is due to channeling and the nature of how low flow emitters are designed to work (they were designed around rockwool NOT coco) and also due to not flooding the medium from the top down

Youll notice most the people in coco having issues like this are all using netafim low flow drippers of 0.5-2.0 GPH while most using octobubblers or high flow rate drippers never do

In summary netafim low flow drippers are NOT made for coco and work subpar compared to rockwool. So if that is what you are using thats most likely the propblem . With coco you want to fully flood the medium from the top down every time you water , without that flood via a high flow drippers your medium will never be stable or reach full saturation

In an ideal world you want your run off within 300ppms (0.6 ec) of whats going in ...if its higher than that its probably due to a flaw in your irrigation strategy, what kind of drip irrigation youre running, or you are feeding too high

***if you are using high flow rate drippers than id guess you have issues maintaining even pressure and because of that your drippers are getting less flow than they should

***also 800 ppms is much too high in my experience, id run 600-650

Hope that helps

 

[StickyBandit]

The coco I use wicks all the way to the surface in these hempys, fed 15mins/day bottom fed with overflow 50m/m from the bottom

Diary - World's First Wilma Auto Hempy!!

I don't know if it actually is but it's a catchy title :p it's probably been done many times before Much of the credit (if this works) goes to @HEMPY who took the time to run me through his method, cheers bud (y) I already had the Wilma system (any bin with a lid will do) so it was a small step...

www.icmag.com

 

[CocoNut 420]

Yeah, i feed saucers/trays with plants from the bottom regularly, I'm also testing a autopot atm along with my typical dtw.

They're doing fine.

There's no doubts about the wicking to the surface.

Dtw V autopot grow off ;-)

Fwiw the dtw root pic above was re potted weeks before the autopot so there's no comparison.

 

[Rhizoma]

Hey

Ive been running into severe issues lately ... drying to diagnose the problem. One of the things im trying to figure out is why my runnoff is so high.... like blinking light on my truncheon high! Wondering if two open drip lines could cause channeling and excess salt buildup. Im feeding once per day and allowing for the pots to dry a bit ... even when i try to flush the plants with low ppm solution its not doing anything to bring the ppm down. MY thoughts are that i am feeding way too high 1000ppm nutrients every feed... OR the open drip lines channeling the solution and allowing for massive salt build up.

Anyone running two open drip lines per plant in coco having massive success? I read you are only supposed to max out at like 800ppm so maybe im just frying the plants.

I have other issues but trying to narrow things down .... everything is cool until like week 6 and the plants are literally dying on the stalks. It starts at one end of the garden and works its way across the garden. buds are left brown and lacking trichomes ... odor is reduced or even acrid. The plants are straight up dying on the stalk.. the damage sweeps across the garden in like a weeks time. Its insane and quite demoralizing

Thanks guys

Pizza

I guess you have perfectly mentioned your problem.
The open drip probably are not distributing correctly the water which create unbalanced salt distribution.
You water only 1 per day with dry wet system.
There is you high EC.
What's the variation between EC inflow and runoff? Over 300ppm? Then Instead of flushing, just increase fertigation schedule..2x and don't let the Coco dry out.

Do you clean your tank? Do you flush it weekly?