yeah you prob feed via chart? best to use half stregth of feed chart
1.2 EC is perfect, flush flush flush and hope they dont get too stressed!
-
As of today ICMag has his own Discord server. In this Discord server you can chat, talk with eachother, listen to music, share stories and pictures...and much more. Join now and let's grow together! Join ICMag Discord here! More details in this thread here: here.
The Chemistry behind Coco Coir: a (strange) journey from ferts bottle to to buds
- Thread starter The.Cook
- Start date
yeah you prob feed via chart? best to use half stregth of feed chart
1.2 EC is perfect, flush flush flush and hope they dont get too stressed!
Yeah, salt buit up was the first thing i suspected also, but i already flushed with 2 x potsize...runoff EC is 0,4, pH still at 4,6...
Plants look very dark green, but no burnings at all. Looks like way too much Nitrogen, stretched like crazy and the side branches grow nearly horizontal.
They got watered everyday with at least 20% runoff and i am using ata clean (same as drip clean, which is not available here anymore).
But i will flush her again this evening with ata clean and enzymes...
Sorry that i have no pics now, as soon as the light go on again i will post some!
Never fed by the Charts!
After transplanting the clones to their final pots, i fed with 0,8-0,9 EC for a couple of days and after seeing the first roots (and plants indicated that they were hungry) i bumped the EC to 1,0-1,1. This was the maximum they ever got.
They had 7 days veg and are on flowering day 17 now...
sounds like you are doing everything right..
what kind of coco you using? the first cycle or you reusing it?
also what kind of water you using, and most important what ph are you feeding?
But maybe best to start a new thread and not clog OP´s thread!!
bless & greetings to the Cook
what kind of coco you using? the first cycle or you reusing it?
also what kind of water you using, and most important what ph are you feeding?
But maybe best to start a new thread and not clog OP´s thread!!
bless & greetings to the Cook
The.Cook
Member
For some reason your coir has drifted to a lower pH than usual.
Beside what caused that drift, I think the safest way would be to just keep up on feeding them with the nutrient solution you want to use...
Dunno about your plant but 0,5 seems quite low.
Also, avoid flushing with ro water as different ions r washed away in different wayS depending on how much they are bonded to the colloids. You wuold end up with a completely unbalanced substrate.
Instead, you can also feed more or more often to keep the substrate "clean" and buffered at the right level. The choice betwen more and more often obviously depends on your plants.
Maybe that can also be related to your findings:
To give you an example, a fully flowering plant handwatered not very often should easely lower pH to a similar value by adsorbing lot of K+ and realising H+ in his place.
Beside what caused that drift, I think the safest way would be to just keep up on feeding them with the nutrient solution you want to use...
Dunno about your plant but 0,5 seems quite low.
Also, avoid flushing with ro water as different ions r washed away in different wayS depending on how much they are bonded to the colloids. You wuold end up with a completely unbalanced substrate.
Instead, you can also feed more or more often to keep the substrate "clean" and buffered at the right level. The choice betwen more and more often obviously depends on your plants.
Maybe that can also be related to your findings:
To give you an example, a fully flowering plant handwatered not very often should easely lower pH to a similar value by adsorbing lot of K+ and realising H+ in his place.
Using a local coco brand, similar to Canna Coco, its the 2nd run with it, so yes I am reusing it.
Using tap water with EC 0,35, pH 8-8,1.
First run I set the pH of the reservoir to 5,8 and let it raise till the rez was empty (about 7 days, maybe to 6,8 or so), this run I was anal about the pH and corrected it as soon as it went over 6,2...maybe I corrected it to often bringing too much acid in (used GHE pH- powder...)?
On Saturday I did another heavy flush (EC 0,5/p H7/H esi Enzymes/Ata Clean), pH was 4,5 after that...but from yesterday on it started to climb, being 5,3 yesterday evening, will check again this evening.
Here are the pics as promised...
You are so right blueberry, sorry Cook for entering this thread, will address my questions in the infirmary
Thanks guys
Thx for the detailed feedback!
I don´t use RO water, but I will put this to my records in case I will use some in the future.
EC 0,5 was only for the flush, they get EC 0,9 and pH 6 now, watered every day with about 20% runoff.
Will do exactly as recommended, will feed them with lower doses more often and see how they like it.
Sorry again for disturbing your thread, you guys helped me a lot!
ok, all good.. do a weekly slury test then you know exactly where your medium is at and you just feed accordingly...
i feed between 5.2 - 5.5 as ph rises and my coco is at around 5.8-5.9 all the time... aiming for a 5.5-5.7 in the medium ...
so one just has to go with the flow and feed accordingly.. weekly test keep mishaps at bay
yeah open a new thread... good luck!
i feed between 5.2 - 5.5 as ph rises and my coco is at around 5.8-5.9 all the time... aiming for a 5.5-5.7 in the medium ...
so one just has to go with the flow and feed accordingly.. weekly test keep mishaps at bay
yeah open a new thread... good luck!
Great thread man, you've pretty much laid down the science to my understanding of how you should grow in coco, smaller pots, multi feeding, etc.
All the Best,
HGO
All the Best,
HGO
Miraculous Meds
Well-known member
I have no build up. I hand water with a wand from a 55gl rez that is heavily aerated and kept at pH6.2 w/600-700ppms 60-70degreesF.
Every time I add tea, they seem to go through a rough patch and bounce back. The chemistry here is strange. Wondering wtf is going on in the rootzone and have no clue...still yielding,happy, & making rosintime is getting better by the millisecond
Are u just using the tea by itself, or r u using regular base nutes with it. if just tea, try with .5 to 1 ec of base nutes. U might be temporarily throwing the medium out of cation balance by just using tea. I used to use teas n gave em up cause my stuff
seemed as happy or happier without all extra additives.
Also theres the chance that the tea n bb from the tea are raising ur ph in the medium.
tea recipes have got a lot more dialed since I tried them. too much molasses can throw off ur nute ratios with the mg.
whats ur tea recipe?
I stay around 1,0/1,3mS too from start to finish.
Hit some minor overfert when I tried something more while less than 0,9 caused my plants to drink and transpirate way too much..
So...if i read into this correctly, it seems like what you are implying is if the plant is transpiring too much, you will see a spike in the outlet ec as well? Due to drinking water but leaving nutes behind. Am i understanding this correctly? Such as being blasted by an over sized fan that is about to be replaced
Just trying to get the full grasp of what all conditions will fluctuate the outlet ec... i understand the evap situation clearly, just trying to understand other scenario effects as well.
fsttimes81
Member
Reading this post has confirmed everything I have thought about myself for years. I am apparently an idiot! But n idiot with a horseshoe up my butt, because somehow I have managed to make it 20 years with out understanding any of the science behind this. A lot of time and effort went into this post for which I can appreciate but I feel stupider for reading only because I can not comprehend any of it... FML!
fazor
Member
The Cook Thanks very much for sharing your scientific knowledge, thanks to Your initial posts in this thread I now understand a lot more.
Still i have some questions, this is my 1st coco grow, at start i was using Tap water now im using R/O water.
R/O water:
I starded using R/O water about 2 days ago, with solution at EC about 1.7 and PH 5.7 - 5.8,
The plants are in about 16 days after swithing to flo photoperiod.
Before im adding nutes to R/O, im adding 0.5 ml of calmag to raise Ec to about 0.3.
My run off is at about 0.56 - 0.59 EC and PH 6.0 - 6.1, so the outlet EC is much lower than inlet.
Tap water:
Before R/O, with tap water, when i was exceeding 1 - 1.2 EC, the outlet EC was higher then inlet EC.
With solution at EC about 0.8, the outlet EC was about the same.
Now, please correct me if im thinking wrong:
1) when i was using Tap Water, plants ate much less macro/mocro elements then now when im using R/O water (the Tap water is probably contaminated by something)
2) outlet EC lower than inlet EC is a good thing, because it means The Plant is using/eating macro/mocro elements from the solution
3) i don't need to increase my inlet EC to the point when outlet EC will be the same, instead i should look at plants and search for deficency or toxicity/exceeding and act accordingly
4) before the next grow I can buffer my coco by letting it sit in R/O water + Cal Mag with EC at 0.4 - 0.6 for about 12 hours, and it will saturate coco with cations enough
5) this is my 1st grow in coco, i did'nt buffered it and noticed that outlet PH was high like 6.8 - 7, and it lowered over time/days: that was because coco was catching Cations and making Ph higher, PH was starting to get lower because coco was getting saturated by cations
6) my ladies was growing very slow at start, that was because of 5), if i buffer coco in my next grow, the germinated seedling should grow much faster
All the best, and sorry for my bad english!
Still i have some questions, this is my 1st coco grow, at start i was using Tap water now im using R/O water.
R/O water:
I starded using R/O water about 2 days ago, with solution at EC about 1.7 and PH 5.7 - 5.8,
The plants are in about 16 days after swithing to flo photoperiod.
Before im adding nutes to R/O, im adding 0.5 ml of calmag to raise Ec to about 0.3.
My run off is at about 0.56 - 0.59 EC and PH 6.0 - 6.1, so the outlet EC is much lower than inlet.
Tap water:
Before R/O, with tap water, when i was exceeding 1 - 1.2 EC, the outlet EC was higher then inlet EC.
With solution at EC about 0.8, the outlet EC was about the same.
Now, please correct me if im thinking wrong:
1) when i was using Tap Water, plants ate much less macro/mocro elements then now when im using R/O water (the Tap water is probably contaminated by something)
2) outlet EC lower than inlet EC is a good thing, because it means The Plant is using/eating macro/mocro elements from the solution
3) i don't need to increase my inlet EC to the point when outlet EC will be the same, instead i should look at plants and search for deficency or toxicity/exceeding and act accordingly
4) before the next grow I can buffer my coco by letting it sit in R/O water + Cal Mag with EC at 0.4 - 0.6 for about 12 hours, and it will saturate coco with cations enough
5) this is my 1st grow in coco, i did'nt buffered it and noticed that outlet PH was high like 6.8 - 7, and it lowered over time/days: that was because coco was catching Cations and making Ph higher, PH was starting to get lower because coco was getting saturated by cations
6) my ladies was growing very slow at start, that was because of 5), if i buffer coco in my next grow, the germinated seedling should grow much faster
All the best, and sorry for my bad english!
The.Cook
Member
Hi Fazor!
dunno if I got you, but for what I know, differences between Inlet Ec and Outlet Ec are more due to How much / How often you feed them than your Inlet EC.
For example, if you feed a plant once a day with quite no run-off youl'have bigger differences in IN-OUT ec than feeding the same plant twice the time or twice the volume of nutrient solution you were using.
!!!Midwest Toker
Member
Thanks' also TC.
I run 9 liter pots of coco hand watered to 20% run-off once a day. My input is 400 ppms' @5.8 pH and my output is coming out at 530 ppms' and a pH of 5. Everyone is telling me to flush but my plants are looking fine.
I run 9 liter pots of coco hand watered to 20% run-off once a day. My input is 400 ppms' @5.8 pH and my output is coming out at 530 ppms' and a pH of 5. Everyone is telling me to flush but my plants are looking fine.
shishkaboy
>>>>Beanie Man<<<<
Would you recommend a bottom feed til saturation type of strategy for someone that was not worried about salt buildup?
Just trying to wrap my head around the exchange of nutrient solution and the overall "balancing out" of mixtures.
Nevermind found this.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=209848
Just trying to wrap my head around the exchange of nutrient solution and the overall "balancing out" of mixtures.
Nevermind found this.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=209848
Last edited:
