using Bio-bizz bio-gro, alg-a-mic, and fish mix.
The light is about 8-12 inches away from the tallest girl.
Originally had the plants in soil mix (like the front 3) that was provided from the medical dispensary. Transferred to coco coir yesterday when I put them into 3 gals.
My guess - This isn't going to work. I don't think the BioBizz stuff is plant soluble, meaning you need some microbes, particularly bacteria, to make the nutrients available. Coco, on its own, isn't a great home for bacteria. I have not seen anyone grow successfully in straight coco with real (insoluble) organic nutriients. To introduce and make a better home for microbes you are going to need some compost or worm castings added to that coco.
You really have two choices
- Go by some salt-based fertilizers
- Put some castings and compost in that mix and use what you have
With the first option, you will definitely need pH meter and an ppm meter would also be useful. With the second option, you probably don't need the meters - at least I don't.
FWIW - I like the 18-6 veg schedule.
Pine
Thanks for all that Piney, Im going trial by fire to learn, while researching along the way. Had the stuff laying around, might as well use it and get experience.
My roommates have a tea brewing for the next feeding. Will that alone help, or should I by a bag a worm castings and add it to the coco?
You could always try. I've been wanting to try for awhile, and given unlimited resources I probably would.
Another thing - some of organic fertilizer formulations provide macro and micro nutrients in soluble form. I don't think BioBizz is this way, but I could be wrong.
I used to use BioBizz. I think I even may have tried it in straight coco on some plants that were already fucked up (from being in coco and me not knowing what I was doing) and definitely didn't get any better.
I don't think the tea will help that much.
An intermediate between mixing in the castings or compost is to generously top dress your pots with castings/compost and mulch on top of that. This way you can grow roots all the way up to the castings (the mulch) where there is a lot of microbial activity. Again, I have no idea if this would work, this top dressing idea is just something I've been thinking of.
I treat coco-castings (added minerals) just like soil.
Pine
Piney what is your feeling on Fox Farm Fert. Buddy of mine suggested it, wasn't sure if it would be a good mix with the coco.
Or do you have a recomendation for fert. Im trying to save as much money as possible, seeing how this is my first attempt at medicine cultivation
I wouldn't worry about what the cause may have been in the old medium. Now that they're in coco you need to get a ph/ppm pen asap. I use a Hanna 98129 (look on ebay) If you are going to use coco specific nutes that's great. I use House and Garden nutes they are great.
If you're not going to use coco specific nutes then you are going to need some cal/mag. Coco sucks up your cal-mag in your regular nutes and you can easily get deficiencies if you don't supplement with it. I would recommend using silica too that stuff is awesome support for healthy plants, on top of whatever nutes you are using.
You will need to be feeding them with every watering at ph 5.8 solution. I recommend going over to the coco section of the forums and just start reading. Great info there.
Coco is awesome! Much more control over what goes into your plants. Good luck.
Did you get a ph/ppm meter? You need one. I'd be feeding them with around 600-700 ppm's (all your nutes combined) at ph 5.8 at this point. Mine get fed with every watering. Don't let the coco dry out it needs to be wet constantly. I would recommend putting drip trays underneath and water till you get a little runoff. If you see any coco turning light in color then you need to water them.
You water as much as they need to get approx 10% runoff into your drip tray. Just make sure that coco is wet, or else you can get salt build-up which can lock out nutrients your plant needs.
PH strips are fine. Just keep it between 5.8 and 6.1 and you should be ok.
I'm assuming you don't have a ppm meter. As far as nutes goes, for now a capfull of each of what you're using per gallon of water should keep you in the safe range for ppm's.