the Hand Watering coco thread

[Tokesome]

Yeah it definitely works Span. I have my pots raised by 3 inches and at first I had 7-10 inch wicks that laid on the catching tray below. I found that the liquids film resistance aginst the surface of the tray to be enough to restrict the flow of the excess fluid. I`ve now cut them so that they hang about 1-1.5cms above the trays and now they drip nicely and well before any solution starts dripping through the many holes in the pots.

My 3x2meter 15plant scrog grow, here http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=143080 has further details and photos if you`d like to check it out.

I think if you fill a pot up and fit a wick and experiment before you actually put a plant in will help you get it right and understand exactly how its affecting the medium. Something I should have done myself.

Toke

 

[SNiPerXP]

1) If I'm growing in a 5 gallon smart pot with 100% coco, how much water would I be feeding to get 20% runoff?

2) Is there a certain way to tell when to water with coco as you said not to treat it like a soil grow or do I just water it to 20% runoff daily?

3) When you say to make sure my pH stays at 5.8-6.1, do you mean the water I'm feeding my plant or the runoff?

 

[Tokesome]

Hey Sniper, thought I`d reply as I`d dropped in here anyway.

No.1 all depends on how big the plants are and how much they`re drinking, its best to try and measure the run-off collected from an individual pot, easy enough with some forward planning.

No.2. Dont treat like soil, ie. its more of a hydro medium unlike soil. Watering daily to 20% run-off is ideal once plants are established. It should always be damp wet, not waterlogged wet, and never let the medium dry out.

3, Yes ph5.8-6.1 is the target figure for nutrient solution fed to the plants, run=off may vary from this as the coco and plant release and retain certain elements as and when required.

I`m assuming you`re referring to fine grade coco in sacks like Canna coco, not the coarse stuff you expand yourself. I`ve no experience with the coarse coco, but it requires more frequent feeding due to the faster drainage of the medium.

Hope that helps, Toke

 

[Metatron]

hello everyone I've just catching up on a lot of reading. Could anyone answer a question for me? Can you feed pure coco with compost teas?

 

[bonecarver_OG]

i definetly recomend nutes made for growing in coco. it will take a lot of hustle away.

peace

 

[OPT]

I know what the PH means, but what is ec?

OPT

 

[Castelvetro]

ec=electrical conductivity, its a way to fiind out the part per million concentration of your nutes , u can check both before they go in, and also the run off to see how much the plant has eaten so as to gauge how much n when to reaply the food. hope this helps u.

 

[Spanishwilly]

The hand watering watershed dilemna

The hand watering watershed dilemna

When I water my 3 gallon pots of Canna pro, I can put in a certain amount of nutes and get not one drop of runoff. Add just a touch more and I get a sudden deluge of runoff which amounts to about 35 or 40 percent. Isn't that a bit much? Is there a simple answer? Am I just noobing badly here?

 

[bonecarver_OG]

willy

if u drill an exsessive amount of holes in the bottom of the big pots, they doo flush faster.

its normal what you are describing.

if you find that you are watering a little bit too much, try watering little bit at a time, untill u get a few drops starting to come out in the bottom. normally after a few minutes the excess water will flush out. but it does take time. its easy to give too much (meaning wasting) nute water if u dont water slowly..

if you water every 2 days a 40% run off is really what you need, id say for daily watering in some setups etc, the run of can be less , but if watering every two days, or even every 3 days (for example because of a trip or such) it is important to flush properlly afterwards to avoid salt build up.

its a fine ballance...

for best results in coco the roots need a moment of dryness, but at the same time salt build up is the enemy of a good coco grow...

so i flush properly each watering.

peace

 

[NCS420]

Need a lil help if you could. I really do appreciate.
I'm using Botanicare coco. I got it in bales. Putting it in 5 gal pots using RO water in a run to waste. Nutes are GH 3 part. I have diamond nectar that I might use as a foliar feed and maybe something with kelp. I've always used GH never really messed with to many other base nutes. Supplements I have so many. Sugar daddy, budswel, sweet, EJ Catalyst, Gravity and some yellow bottle final to name a few. I'm gonna play with the sugars and bloom supplements on different plants to see what gets the job done right and tasty. Don't know how the coco is gonna react to them either. I'm gonna give them half the dose and see how much more they can take.

I trying to dial in the best formula for the coco and using ro. Whether it's the lucas or something with the grow mix. Never really grew in just coco. I always did hydro with hydroton/gh coco cubes (they stopped making them) or rockwool cubes. My grow is way to large to do all hydro, so I turned to coco and hand feed with a wand. Soon as I get the nutes right, drip lines are there.

Need a veg/flower formula for my 3 part If you have any experiance with this? I am not a pro by any means and never used the lucas formula nor used ro water. So I know I'm missing some Cal and other trace elements from tap. Never had a problem in the past so why fix it. But now I have no choice.

I've always went by GH feeding program in my hydro grows and never had a problem. Plus I always used tap water. Where I am now water is 450ppm @.5 conversion, so I got a ro system. Plus I don't have the time or space to boil or air out my tap.

The coco does not like what I feed my hydro in the past. And now with the ro I am not looking to good. If you can help me in plain english lol I would be so thankful. Thank you for your time.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

for coco you can mix your tap water 50% with ro water - it should give you a start EC of 0.25 wich is pretty much perfect if u dont want to be using calmag etc. a tapwater with ec 0.2 -0.3 has all the cal and mag MJ needs for growing in coco.

ph in coco should allways be around 6.

about your specific nutes, maybe some one using the same can chime in?

peace all

 

[dj3hut1]

what ec should i start my seedlings?

 

[neoruler]

I posted this in another thread but it is probably better suited here:

I am now on my 2nd grow in straight Canna coco using Canna nutes and the only thing that has gotten on my nerves to this point is that both times I have noticed salts building up around the top of the medium and after about 3-4 weeks of veg have had nute lockout resulting in me having to flush the coco for a week or so in order to get all the salts out and the ph/ppm back to a good range. Both times it happened salt built up, the ph dropped way down w/ my runoff, and the ppm skyrocketed.

Now I am not entirely sure whether this may be the result of the fact that neither time did I wet the coco prior to planting(nobody mentioned that part to me) and it took a couple weeks for it all to get wet, resulting in some problems...OR whether it is the fact that I did not realize until a couple of weeks into my 2nd round in coco that I was supposed to be amending my RO water with approximately 200ppm of some type of CalMag supplement. Woulda been nice of someone at my hydro shop to mention that or for Canna to put it in something other than micro-print on their nute feeding table. Funny thing is, I have a few other friends who have switched to coco over the past year or so and each and every one of them have had issues with magnesium deficiencies and salt buildup after about a month of growth and it took this long for any of us to find out about amending RO water with CalMag. My friends basically have been dealing w/ Mag deficiencies all throughout flower and wondering what has been going on the whole time for like three cycles now.

I REALLY hope that I got this figured out now and I think/hope that I do b/c now that I got some MagiCal and everything is back in the right ph/ppm range the plants look like theyre getting healthier. I'll definitely be able to tell in about another week, but I'm pretty confident I have this part of the equation solved.

There are a couple questions I have for you guys who are more familiar with coco than I am:

1). I have grown in soil in pots and done hydro in waterfarms in the past. When you guys are saying to treat coco like hydro when it comes to watering fequency are you saying like water several times a day or everyday or what? I have sort of been taking an "in-between" approach through my first/second grows in coco. I water till the growbags are pretty heavy and then basically wait until they are starting to get dry and are probably 1/2 or less weight than they were. It usually takes a one gallon bag with well developed plants 2 days, sometimes 3 to get to that point. That seems infrequent since everyone seems to be implying at least once a day watering. I am trying not to treat it like soil, but am a little confused about this aspect and have wondered if I might be seeing better results with more frequent waterings.

2). I see alot of people saying they feed nutes all the way through w/o flushing b/c coco does not react well to being flushed...but then I read other people saying that best method is more like a feed/water/feed/water regimen. That seems to be 2 pretty big extremes to me, given that one is saying to never ever use fresh water and the other is saying to use fresh water every other watering. The owner of my local hydro shop (and I am in a heavy growing area) who is very familiar w/ coco said in his opinion feed/water/feed/water is the best method in coco.

What are the prevailing opinions around here?

Edit for handwatering thread:

Got any tips or insight you can give me on handwatering and mainly how to avoid salt buildup and mag deficiencies? I am pretty sure I have the mag deficiencies figured out, as I was never adding MagiCal previously. But I read so many differing opinions about watering, especially whether to continuously feed nutes or feed/water/feed/water.

 

[SNiPerXP]

Bonecarver, could you perhaps tell us more about all the nutes recommended for growing with Canna Coco along with how much and when to use them? I know of Cannazym, Rhizotonic, A+B and MagiCal, but what others do you recommend and again, I'd really like to know how much and when to use each. Thanks for being a teacher to all of us!

 

[neoruler]

all of the info you are looking for is listed on Canna's website. they also usually have postcards in hydro shops that canna circulates that lists all of that as well. Just add the magical according to the directions on the bottle before adding other nutes.

 

[justiceman]

Hey guys I am still researching about coco coir and their is one thing I am still unclear about. I have heard that you need to flush new coco with about 300ppm cal mag(r/o water) at 5.6-6.0ph in order to stabilize it? Does this apply to just untreated slab coco, or does it also apply to pre bagged coco like Canna coco, Botanicare ready grow, and Bcuzz coco? Does anyone have any links to a pretreatment coco thread perhaps?

I was thinking about buying some canna coco, and mixing it with some perlite then just watering cal mag with a light nute dose ph'd to 5.9 right off the bat. Should I pre-treat the coco prior to watering with a light nute dose?

 

[jackiee]

justiceman, you can use canna coco straight out of the bag,and it doesnt need perlite its one of the better ones.canna realy look after there coco. stay lucky

 

[pinkskunk]

i dont flush my canna coco i just fill the pots up and water with nutes ph 5.8 and my plants are green as and no probs what so ever. its the best medium iv used also srilanka coco is excelent too both are equal quality imo.

 

[OPT]

After hearing so many good things about Canna Coco, I too think I will be using this medium. Maybe cut with just a little perlite.

OPT

 

[Spanishwilly]

Re-use? Really?

Re-use? Really?

Hi BoneCarver and all,
I can´t see how I am possibly going to be able to re-use my coco. The root mass has lifted my medium in the pots it´s so dense. I have never seen roots like this before. Do I just start using Cannazyme? I can´t see how this is supposed to work.