Unofficial Coco Coir Growers Thread

[bonecarver_OG]

agree on it not being necesary to water every day .

but i still think the 25% drain is beneficial - i might be able to tune it into the minimum if would look into it, but this far i have just not cared about that. - i never have to take a break really in the nute feeding to flush the coco - since it gets flushed in every watering.

PH around 6 is good for coco

alkaline water (above 7) should defiently get mixed down with distilled water and PH´down - high alkanity mean more salts and in coco thats no good

peace

 

[mosca negra]

Well done I.M.B! Some great info there. I can see why you are the info resource Guru!

Peace, Mosca Negra

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tips I'll fill up my pots and run some water through and check the run-0ff and see what I get.

I soaked the b'cuzz coco in a solution of 5ml cal mag per gal ro with a starting ppm of 330 and ph of 5.3

After draining, the water had a ppm of 1200 and ph of 6.2... looks like there was quite a bit of K left in.

I rinsed the coco again with plain ph'd ro water and stuck my seedlings/rooter plugs in 16oz beer cups of coco with 30% perlite and fed with a 300 ppm mix of 3 to 1 ratio of pbp grow and cal-mag.... hope they like it

 

[Coco Nuts]

Looks like jinxie has left the building.

 

[Guest]

Gr8 thread,,, Im just waiting for my seeds to pop then im gonna start my 1st coco grow, im only going to be growing 4 girls at a time due to space restictions, i will be using House & Garden Van De Zwaan Cocos A & B has any1 used this product and what were y'all results? what else would i need? i have been told i need a ppm reader, is this a necessity? im from the uk so where is best place to geet 1 from? many thx all keep up the good work

 

[Guest]

I noticed that I have roots more closer to the surface of the coco and they grow on the whole area. Usually when I grew in clay pebbles the roots shooted straight down to the reservoir where the water drained but now they grew first sideways near the surface and then started going down, more even moisture in coco I think. I had some major problems with this setup (lack of knowledge) but now it starts to look like a medium I'll be using from now on. Next I'll try coco + lava rock + mycorhizza but that'll be in test after this grow is done.

Check out: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=23134
Cooltubed 600W HPS, 2 aquafarms with coco and airstones (Sensi Star & C99) and my first first soil setup having Original Haze x Skunk#1 from Sam the Skunkman. All scrogged. If you have questions about the setup post them in that thread.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

ppm meter? thats not necesary if ya can read what ur plants are telling ya.

i have never had one and i will never buy one.

i use canna coco nutes - a very complete set of nutes for coco-growing. there is normally never deficiancies as long as the PH is controlled.

coco coir and fibers are like a sphonge really - they got a really high water contaiment capability.

im watering my 5 gallon pots with about 4-5 liters every 1-2 days but i know they could hang on a while more with the humidity in there - but i feel better of watering and feeding them well. ive been now for years handwatering - but i finally decided to get a pump and set it up automatic since work is taking too much time and the babies are suffering at times.

my set of nutes:

canna coco A+B

aditives:

vitazyme
cannazyme
PK 13-14
B'Cuzz root juice

peace


revegged SSH x PTK and PTK/SCBB x PTK - yeah - thats about 6 x 6 feet and one 600W.




this is the same bushes a few weeks before.




my best aditive - the one i think i allmost cant be without is - vitazyme - its like plant steroids. gives an enormous boost to health and growth rate.

peace all

 

[Guest]

Well the ppm/ec meter is pretty handy device for not so experienced growers, I started with hydro only a few years ago. It's better to check the drainwater and see straight is there too much salts still in the medium. I can help my friends if they have problems with their hydro setup's. I can just go on their place and say lift/or back up the nutes a bit without them having to tell me exact ml/l amounts of nutrients, many of them don't even remember what the added and how much. If I didn't have that meter these plants that are growing right now would be dead. So it works for me and have paid the price back multiplied.

 

[Guest]

im useing botanicare's boss grow bags with Flora Nova grow & bloom

 

[bonecarver_OG]

i know allways the exact ml´s of what im giving to my babies - that way i got it controlled - more than knowing hydro - wich im fairly new to also - i try to know the plants and their needs in diffrent moments - its a constant process of learning and it differes from strain to strain and sometimes even pheno to pheno.

peace

 

[20kw dreams]

Great thread. I'll be running a 6kw coco slab grow here pretty soon. i have the mothers growing on an ebb&flow table right now.

I am using "House & Garden Van de Zwaan" nutrients right now in my hydro grow, and have some of the HG cocos, but after using PBP for a while now, it's just not the same. The straight chemical nutrients don't seem to give me the same overall plant health as the pbp line. The HG additives seem to be killer though, and are organic.

My mums in the coco/perlite @50/50 or so are doing great, but I never rinsed the coco out w/ the calmag.

Anyone here have an opinion as to which is better for the coco: Drip or ebb. I like the ease of ebb&flow, but the reservoir has to be too fuckin big to fill tables up 4-5" or so. If you were to fill the tables up high enough to cover the slabs, so to wash them out of buildup between waterings, you would need a 30-40 gallon rez for 1 - 4' x 4' table!

What about runnign different strains w/ the same ntrient program? Does the cation exchange properties of coco allow running strains w/ different growth patterns, assuming the finish and start at the same times? I sure hope so, cause I'll be running 10 strains, all indica dominant.

 

[bonecarver_OG]

yeah man u can do it - BUT- id say better go with one strain per table - since if u realize they have different needs of nutes u will be f**ked trying to solve that later in bloom.

peace

 

[20kw dreams]

Yeah bonecarver, I was planning on seperating the strains in rows according to height, which will most likely correlate to hungriness. I figure I can keep the nutrient mix a little on the light side, and foliar to meet the needs of the hungrier gals.

what happened to all the cocos?

The mothers are running w/ the House Garden Van de Zwaan Cocos nutes now....

uhhhh.....Trying to give this bump some meaning....

oh well...

Anyone have a good idea on how to build a cheap waterproof table that drains well for coco slabs?

 

[bonecarver_OG]

the difrence inbetween burning and feeding diffrent strains can be 5 ml
id say better have one kind per table/ rez - atleast untill u controll their hunger. - orjust shoot low and play safe -

f ex - my boggle gum used 10 ml / 10 L more of nutes than the other strains - feeding them the same made the bogglegum suffer untill i fixed it.

peace

 

[20kw dreams]

LOL Bonecarver, I wish. The way I run my nutes somtime, 2ml/gal can be the difference.

Well, unfortunately I think I am actually switching back to my patented "gutter downspout NFT" now. This upcoming move to a bigger local is going to cost a pretty penny, so I'm having to cut back on alot of things to make sure it works. I'll be saving $1000 by doing the NFT instead of the Coco. This NFT works great, I've used it before. Prob is the NFT requires me to hook up my water chiller, which makes my room warmer, and in straight water, plants are definately more sensitive to the nutrient levels, so running multiple strains is more difficult.

On a higher note, my mothers are exploding now, so I will probably be able to get it down to 6-8 strains. I have grown them all out in soil, so I have a pretty good idea of which ones will go good together.

I'll still be planning on running coco one of these fricken days. My next setup, I swear

 

[bonecarver_OG]

in coco u have much larger margins than in conventional hydro. this far i havent nute burnt a plan ever - it just is almost impossible using canna nutes - as long as u never go over 40 ml / 10 L - and i never feed them that much. at most i peak at 35ml/ 10L at mid flowering.

2ml a gallon with canna nutes is nothing -

coco is more forgiving


peace

 

[senseless]

have any of you coco growers thought of watering with some type of organic compost tea? like earthworm casting, bat guano and humus? would it work the same as a hydroponic nutrient solution or would the soil not have the marco/micro nutreints required for full potential growth.

 

[bartender187]

Bcuzz Coco uncompressed + perlite + hydroton... mixed by eye.... flushed with PH 5 R/O water twice... PH of runoff came out as 6 ish. Innoculated with EA/EN and mollases

Question for the coco experts out there--- Think I should flush one last time with cal/mag r/o mix (the first two flushes have been plain R/O)?

 

[bonecarver_OG]

to me it sounds fine

 

[Mampi]

Another coco- nut checking in!

Another coco- nut checking in!

nice thread I'm also a coco-nut luv the stuff.... tried the slabs, in pots mixed with perlite.... straight coco... mixed with hydroton. Now I am just using straight coco hand watered daily *although as bonecarver etc... have pointed out every other day is ok*

I have also noticed some compressed coco bricks have high salt levels.... its better to do a few bricks at a time or the small amount of salt contained in each individual brick can lead to a large rise in the EC of the water you are soaking them in....

I use canna coco, rhizotonic, cannazyme, budlink (silicone) & a lil dash of pk13/14 when the times right

Growing on the slabs is prodominantly for SOG as yas would assume.... anything past a 10 day veg and the slabs get pretty full with roots, plus there is '0' stabilty for a large plant on slabs....

Here's a link to quite an indepth guide to growing on coco in both pots & slabs, although they concentrate more on slabs...

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...+coco+grow+guide+pdf&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=8

There RH levels are a lil higher than what I would run with certain strains, although krusty master of the BIG BUD used to like high RH levels.... others, more knowledgable than myself, say mould is attributed to other factors other than RH: (relative humidity), so who knows.... The information in the link also advocates the use of co2 pills that go into the rez, but I hear co2 can't be taken up by the roots who knows.... the other info is pretty good as I am sure the dewds who have used coco for a while will agree.

A lil something about run off EC.... Canna actually say the run of EC ie: drain waters reading is not a good indictactor of whats going on in the coco.... They advocate that you do the following:


1. Take a sample of the coco from slab or pots (to make sure this is representative the coco must be collected from as many places as possible...

2. Make sure the coco has the right amount of water in it (squeeze the collected sample of coco and if a little amount of water runs between the fingers this is ok).
If not dry enough add a little demineralised water and mix until above condition is achieved.

3. Take a 250ml measuring jug and add 150ml of demineralised water, add coco to the 250ml mark is reached and mix well.... let this slurry settle for 2 hours

4. Mix again and measure pH.

5. Filter this the coco and measure the EC.

6. Send a generous sample of your dried and cured harvest to Major Bud teehee just checking your still following....

The analysis is best done after 3 - 4 weeks of growing in the coco and the target values for EC are between 1.1 -1.3 for the pH between 5.3 - 6.2. Very high EC increaeses the risk of burning symptoms, the coco can be rinsed with plain water with a pH of 5.8.

Canna also have a 'Coco card' on their worldwide website.... or the US/canada one... the 'Coco card' is basically their feeding recommendations which didn't let me down as a coco-newb.

Oh and when re-using coco it's best to do your flush with cannazyme Canna recommend a 7-14 day flush but I have good results with 4-5 days if I havent over nuted.

Carbs also seem to work well with coco.... according to AN *Yuk... sit... b'stards' lol! the critters present in canna's coco will take sugars from the plant instead feed the colony in the coco with carbs.... I used AN's carbolad last run with some LUI's and they were definatley sweeter and frostier... although the grow went pretty smoothly so it's hard to give all the credit to the carbolad but I know I never had LUI that frosty or tasty before! so go figure.....

Anyways that's enough wafflin on from me hope some of that helps a folk or 10 lol...


Ciao!