Coco guru or even coco wannabee advice requested!

[duddits]

Hey everyone,

I am new to coco and a newb in general. My last two grows were in soil. I love coco! It is unbelievable. From the first cup I packed, planted, and watered it is obvious how the plants love it. I bought B'cuzz Bounce bags and B'cuzz nutes. So far the seedlings are three weeks old and compared to the two that are in FFOF soil they are huge. Like 3 times the size of the plants in soil. They are Lifesaver F2's, Mota's Toxic Blue, and C99/Panama Red x ECSDV3. I also have dj blueberry that I have cloned with coco and ready gro plugs. From now on I'm gonna just put the cutting in the coco. I believe they will root even faster than using the plugs.

Couple questions:

Looking for DIY drip feed info
I want to do drip feed recirculate. Any good guides to make it with a good parts list? I want to do 8-16 plants. What way is best to drip? Make a circle around the plant with tubing and drill holes in the tube?

Why water to waste?
For now, I hand water and reuse the solution. How long before I should change out to new solution? I've been mixing up 2 gallons for 15 seedlings and it takes me through the week.

I used 2-3ml of Cal Mag+ at week two and a couple of the strains exhibited leaf damage that looked like a pic I saw of mag toxity. I read that H3ad figured how much epsom salts to complement his GH flora nutes. I use RO water and have not used cal mag again but any advice. Anyone else using B'cuzz nutes?

Where can I read up to find out correct pH and EC for the different age/stages?

I have been pH'ing to 5.8 give or take and with the new batch I mixed up on their 3rd week birthday I went with an EC of 975.

I would really appreciate some direction!! Thanks for reading this.

 

[aeric]

Hey there....for now ill just touch on a few things...

8-16-24 etc... is a perfect number for drip cuz u can use 8 site manifolds...i prefer them because they have adjustable pressure, and a good one has an internal filter easy to remove and clean, they are more versatile than just plain 1/2" mainlines hooked directly to 1/4". You just need one line per pot up to 1 gallon and a nice little stake to hold the line in the pot, no silly driprings or pressure compensating drippers needed. The harder 'outdoor' 1/4" dripline is difficult to work with, flexible black vinyl is better and easy to obtain at your local hardware superstore. For the mainline however (1/2") I would go with the harder drip tubing, or even pvc. For the drain line back to res I like 3/4-1" lines, so that draining is a problem free affair.

PPM/EC/pH meters are a must in recirc, as u seem to already know.

Straight up 'sweet', or epsom salts are better for supplementing Magnesium than Calmag, CM is easy to overdose, I would only use 1ml/gal of that at most. You may find that when temps, EC, and light distance are perfect, there is no need to supplement Mg or Calcium except in the most hungry (i.e. Kush) strains.

There are stickies at the top of this forum with great info on drip and recirc, but I'm not sure that they say what I just did, so there....that's all for now goodluck.

 

[duddits]

Thank you! That's great stuff. What type pump to get and what size rez would you suggest?

duddits

 

[Guest]

I handwater and collect the runoff to reuse. I find I have to water it down as in full flowering when I'm feeding them at ec 1.8 or 1.9 at ph 5.5 yo 5.8, the runoff can be as high as 3.4 ec and the ph can be as high as 6.5, so I tend to dilute it 2 to 1 with plain water so the ec is somewhere from 1.5 to 1.7, add some fresh nutes to take it back to 1.8 or 1.9, add a bit ot Atazyme and seaweed extract and reuse it, seems to work great for me and saves me a lot of nutes, I use as much as 50% less nutes if I reuse my runoff. I give fresh nutes every 2-3 days, using recycled runoff on the other days.

 

[brodus24]

How often do you guys handwater your CoCo plants and do you all water to waste?

In general, if you're growing in, say, a 3 gallon pot, how much are you watering/feeding per feeding?

Do you mix any perlite in? I have been and it retains water better, but that may defeat the purpose of coco?

 

[Guest]

I water once a day. I just collected the runoff left from yesterday's feeding and the ec is 3.2 so I might give the plants a flush today with plain water as I don;t want too many salts to build up.

 

[duddits]

I water once a day. I just collected the runoff left from yesterday's feeding and the ec is 3.2 so I might give the plants a flush today with plain water as I don;t want too many salts to build up.

Right now in 18 oz. cups the runoff is exact to what goes in. I check the pH every day and get as close to 5.8 as I can and then let it go!

I tried skipping a day watering, another thread and someone I spoke with said you really want the roots looking for moisture but I won't do it again. The majority of the plants were wilted and 3 hours later still haven't bounced back completely. I'm sure by the next day they'll be back. I have a 250 CMH in a cool tube and a wing reflector over them.

I doused em pretty good running the solution through a couple times before putting them back in their tray. It's like they're taking a shower. lol

 

[MedResearcher]

Straight up 'sweet', or epsom salts are better for supplementing Magnesium than Calmag, CM is easy to overdose, I would only use 1ml/gal of that at most.

That is very interesting to me, I think I may have overdosed my rez by using a bit too much CalMag along with Sweet.

How many ml/gal would you recomend using of the sweet instead of using Calmag?

 

[aeric]

MR: go by what ur plants want but 2ml is the norm, 3 if severe. That is with Monkey Juice A+B though, if ur nute is different than u may have different needs.

Brodus: Once a day when roots are established. No perlite, ur correct it actually holds more water, and less air.

I just collected the runoff left from yesterday's feeding and the ec is 3.2 so I might give the plants a flush today with plain water as I don;t want too many salts to build up.

Higher EC runoff means backoff on the feed until it is equal to what u put in, unless you haven't been watering with enough runoff in which case salts have built up and you're just reading buildup.

I tried skipping a day watering, another thread and someone I spoke with said you really want the roots looking for moisture but I won't do it again.

Only in the beginning, for a few days-week while they establish roots should you give some dry time. Wet/dry cycles are for soil and some other soilless mediums, because water= oxygen depravation, so when they dry they get that needed oxy, when wet of course...the water. In coco there is enough airspace even when fully soaked, the act of watering also introduces more oxy, in addition to flushing salts.

 

[duddits]

Thanks aeric!!!! Good stuff!r:

 

[aeric]

No prob. Duddits. Just wanna say I'm not a guru, always learning, all my posts of this nature are just food for thought. Check your own experience and let the plants tell you what's up. When you understand the fundamental process of what needs to happen....how to do it becomes easy and clear.

 

[duddits]

kewl! I really am replying to try to hit the 50 post mark... Wish me well lol