The coco container

[Desert Hydro]

I’m back after a long hiatus. I found out I had iron bacteria in my well and it was killing my plants. Took two years to figure it out and I almost gave up entirely. Two years of failures and I was through. Ready to give it all up. Donjuanmatus aka the lone tree from the coco trees thread helped me figure it all out. Now I haul water which is a major pain in the ass but I don’t have to worry about the bacteria anymore.

I’m in the same 40’ reefer, with a 4 x 30 flowering space. It’s divided into two watering zones and I stagger the zones about a month or so apart. I was running big plants and blumats but after a failure killed 25% of my harvest in one giant plant I’ve decided against them for flower. I will continue to keep my mothers on them.

I now run the full Athena pro line on a top drip system, netafim .5gph drippers x2 in a one gallon pot. Right now I’m flooding for two minutes every two hours during lights on.

I’m using multiple smaller lights from HLG because I used to run long narrow soil beds. I’m going to upgrade to some grand master eventually

 

[Creeperpark]

Thanks for sharing, friend. It sounds like that was a hard lesson to learn with a lot of loss. When growing in a soil-less mix, I have found that one needs to start with pure water. Are you hauling in RO water? Your garden looks killer and amazing and I appreciate this thread. I'm riding with you, bro.

 

[Desert Hydro]

Thanks for sharing, friend. It sounds like that was a hard lesson to learn with a lot of loss. When growing in a soil-less mix, I have found that one needs to start with pure water. Are you hauling in RO water? Your garden looks killer and amazing and I appreciate this thread. I'm riding with you, bro.

I thought I was starting with pure water. I lease a really expensive whole house RO system that I thought would give me clean water. I guess what was happening was that the bacteria was being reintroduced by the house plumbing after the RO system because of years of buildup in the main lines. It was a very hard-learned lesson. I prefer the universe to only give me small lessons at a time now lol.

I haul in RO water from local stations and I still treat with hypochlorous acid because who knows how often they clean their tanks. I appreciate the kind words. I miss the days when the forums were alive and booming with info. Now everyone just wants to scroll IG and hit the like button without engaging in conversation.

 

[Desert Hydro]

This morning’s pictures. I think I am going to do a good flush to reset the ec back to baseline in order to get me ready for the final fade and true flush.

 

[Farmer John]

Holy shit, wow! Will be watching this, good to hear and see a major problem solved.

 

[Desert Hydro]

Holy shit, wow! Will be watching this, good to hear and see a major problem solved.

Thanks, I will eventually play around with sanitizing my own RO water and seeing if I can make it usable, but for now, I'm not going to risk it. Next on my agenda is get a decent-sized storage tank so I can haul and store larger amounts of water at a time and not have to go every couple of days.

If you ever think water cleanliness could be an issue invest in some hypochlorous acid. its cheap and works great if you are in soiless mix and arent depending on beneficial bacteria populations. Right now I am using athena cleanse, but there is a version on amazon that's twice as potent for $10 less so I can cut my usage in half and still save money.

Another thing that I am doing differently on this run is being much better with my foliar IPM regimen. I am using athena IPM at the prevention rate along with some kelp at about 1 oz per gallon. I used to be lazy with my IPM but I am in a super rural area and I have to walk through tall grass to get to my room and pest pressure is high. I need to start breeding beneficial insects for my garden and entire property.

 

[Desert Hydro]

Root health is on point and the main stem is really fat for such a small pot/plant. The new seedlings are looking excellent. I need to number them and clone each one in the next few days in case there’s anything special in there. I’m sure there will be. Both of the parents were amazing.

 

[Dropped Cat]

subbed

 

[Desert Hydro]

Nothing to see here. Man, I’m so far behind on stuff. Life’s been crazy the last couple of weeks. Someday I’ll get my shit together.

 

[Desert Hydro]

Cruising along nicely, all things considered. I’ve got a 4x8 section coming down in a few days, and then a 4x12 section a few weeks after, followed by a 4x4 of seed testers. Once everything is down I’m going to clean house for a couple weeks and get a fresh reset after I sanitize and bug proof. I still need to finish wiring up my under canopy bars to finish off the plants with a few weeks left.

 

[Desert Hydro]

Under canopy lights got wired up right now. They should be kicking on in an hour. I’m sure it will be amazing to get blinded from multiple angles lol.

I will say that these 1 gal plants absolutely crushed it from what I can tell. It seems like a lot of the stuff I learned over the last twenty years has either been disproven or modified significantly.

Next run will be set up with moisture/ec sensors and I’m hoping to get the dosatron hobby kit setup as well. I’m going to be investing a lot into the infrastructure of this garden to make it more efficient since I am but a mere mortal.