Scrub it never occurred to you to put a screen on the drain?
I guess you don't have a dog to wash. Lol.
I guess you don't have a dog to wash. Lol.
Yeah mate I'm using the regs of coco, red label CocoTek, straight. I break up the brick with a screwdriver, place fragments into a smart pot, and flush/expand with warm water in the shower for 10 minutes until most of the brown runoff is gone. Then I give it a good watering in with nutes & h2o2 when I use it and even more brown runoff comes out. The runoff from the PK was like blood when I sucked it out of the perlite last night!
The smart pot is a must for bricked coco users who flush in the shower/bath (can clog drains otherwise)
Yeah dude I can get this stuff. (I can get anything from these guys' inventory. Some really nice stuff if you're into bottled stuff)
Honestly though, I can't fault the top dressing of DE. My plants seem a lot thicker and sturdier, I'm sure you guys can see it too. Also, liquid silica really messes with the ph.
Also I have no money I'm waiting for a packet of the cheapest ebay batteries to turn up before I can use my ec meter again, lol. The low battery warning on the ph meter has been showing for weeks too. AND I've nearly run out of rain water. I will go collect some water from a stream if I run out.
About the coco, yeah even a layer or two of that frost mat stuff I have would work too. Or an old hobo's t-shirt perhaps? (I heard it kills root aphids, haha, kidding)
Thanks for the information Scrub. That was very interesting I've already copied it into my growing file I even dug a little deeper and found some informative videos about it on you tube. I'm using soil at the moment and waiting to go hydro still. I have an idea how make a cheap mini DWC bubbler for my pc case using a two liter soda bottle painted black or covered with black tape laying on it's side with two holes cut out to fit two yogurt cups to holding the growing media and plants. To change the nutrients just have a second bottle ready to go and move the plant cups into it, or a better thought just cut the side panel with the cup holes in it out and have a couple of other bottles with a wide slit just wide enough to set side panel with the cups into it, the sides of the top panel would over lap on all four sides of it to close it up. I 'm sure someone has thought of this already, but I haven't seen it yet. It's just a idea and I don't even know if it would work yet. When I'm ready to go hydro I'll try it along with the coco. Thanks again my friend. CheersMadlib, it's pretty fine particle we're talking. Coco silt. My drain is flush mounted in the shower floor so I don't think that's do-able but for the record no it didn't occur to me, haha.
Xm, you'll be organic/soil style I'm guessing, with teas and what-not? I've not used that coco before.
Heya Ghost. Well, I only refer to it in the hydroponic sense. It's not strictly hydroponics because the coco is not completely inert, but it's the same thing if you don't have a stick up yer clacker. All nutrients are supplied via the nutrient liquid whether hand watered or through a "hydro" system.
I sort of cheated this time by adding DE/silica as a top dress. Silica is the only ingredient that isn't in the hydro nutes because it reacts chemically and must be added seperately, so I figured since I had the DE doing nothing it was the perfect use for it and it keeps nute mixing even simpler. It's an experiment which seemed to work well. I sometimes use liquid kelp but I'll cover that later.
Anyhow, the simplicity: What makes it so great is you never have to worry about a deficiency again, as long as a few principals are followed. The nutes I use are all 2 part - bottle A and B of veg nutes, and bottle A and B of flower nutes, and equal amounts of A and B are used every time. As mentioned they contain every single element you need for a healthy grow. The only additive you may ever need is a P:K booster product for a few feedings later in flower, if you need it. I guess if you want to add more then silica would be a good choice to add in veg, but anything else is simply not needed to get a new grower some kickin' ass budz.
I'm not saying the extra additives aren't gonna grow you bigger buds later on, but just not needed for most guys. It also increases the chance of something reacting badly with something else so keep it simple is always best. It's not what you use, it's how you use it, so pin down how to get a plant from A to Z in coco with simple nutes before attempting some crazy shit. If you have to add stuff to your hydro nutes then it is not a very good hydro nute!
I use the DM Gold line so it's the only nute I can recommend as fitting fully into my coco philosophy. If you have rain water (or I would assume RO behaves the same) then you just mix the nutes in and it will be very close to the correct ph (5.8ish is the goal). It'll vary a little with the strength (nutes are acidic) but I find mine stays locked to that area really well with rain water. See? If I had all those other additives, I probably would not have that rock solid PH range right now. Sometimes I use a few drops of liquid kelp instead of ph up but it's not so stable. The great thing about the kelp is that by the time you add those few drops every watering, it pretty much matches the full strength dose as if you'd applied it once every 2 weeks as the label says for soil. So your plants get a steady light dose of cytokinin and other freaky shizzle.
The process of mixing is very simple. Add nutes, then check EC (the strength of nutes) if you have an ec or ppm meter. Then check and adjust ph, and pour on plants till runoff. What I've started doing is keeping a small 10 litre res that I mix the nutes up in, but I only need small amounts at a time, so I leave it unPH'd and it sits around 5.5. I scoop out as much as I need and add what I want and then ph adjust that portion. If I had PH'd it in the res, then scooped out what I want, but wanted to add the kelp, that would make the PH be too high, and I'd have to add PH down. It also lets me add fresh h2o2 to the dose of nutes without wondering how active the h2o2 I put in the res last time is, and also lets me avoid h2o2 altogether if I wish.
Although this is a lot of words, it's a very simple concept - use the right coco, use the right nutes, use the right water, feed at the right level. The feed strength is the only part that requires any brain input and is as simple as looking at the plant and deciding if it's underfed, overfed, or happy.
Anyways, getting tired of typing lol. I might expand a bit deeper later. The miracle grow with coco would be better than the miracle grow without coco I reckon, but that's as far as my soil knowledge goes People seem to like it in soil though.
Pics soon! Any thoughts or questions or debating, please go ahead.
But the real news is that I just gave a PK clone to my mentor type person who is really looking forward to it after seeing your gallery.
Take care
Yep, I can't top that. I've grown some nice stuff but I could never hold them up as the all time best. I have no doubt she's all that and more I just hope it performs as good as the mother pheno. It's shaping up that way, good veg speed and lovin' life. Peace.
I wish we could grow 1000+ plants without fear of reprisal.