Buffering coco in layman's terms?

Beehive said:

Hydrate the brick and rinse the dust out. Until the runoff is fairly clear. It doesn't have to be super pure looking.


Then soak it in water that's had 15ml of Cal-Mag per gallon added. Tap or RO. Doesn't matter.

Soak it for at least a day. 24 hours. I soak mine for a couple of days. I don't rinse it after the Cal-Mag treatment. Let dry a bit until it's ready to planted.

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Hey Beehive...
Thanks a lot for the input 15ml/gal.
One question tho...is this buffered coco then safe to use for germinating and seedlings..
I suppose that's close to 800-900ppm of calmag buffered with coco..hence the doubt. Afraid it might burn the little ones..

lusidghost said:

I've always used pure coco. Now I bypass all of the headaches and use these.

GroEzy™ 6" Coco Grow Cubes

GroEzy™ Cultivation Blocks Size: 6" x 6" x 6" Volume: Approx 1.5 Gallon Packing: 32 units per case Pallet: 54 cases per pallet Coco Grow Cubes, the perfect foundation for growing strong, colorful plants, you may enhance your gardening experience. Made from high-quality coconut coir fibers, these...

www.thecocodepot.com

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These work well?

Yukimi Fakumata said:

These work well?

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I stopped using them. They were hard to hand water because there’s only a little hole for the plant. I ended up cutting the fabric off of the top. I also didn’t like how the coco was either too tight or too loose for the pot.

I like the concept, but I ended up buying Canna Coco and little 1/2 nursery pots to make my own.

lusidghost said:

I stopped using them. They were hard to hand water because there’s only a little hole for the plant. I ended up cutting the fabric off of the top. I also didn’t like how the coco was either too tight or too loose for the pot.

I like the concept, but I ended up buying Canna Coco and little 1/2 nursery pots to make my own.

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Do you pack the coco down to form the cubes?

twentyeight.threefive said:

Do you pack the coco down to form the cubes?

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No, I keep coco as loose as possible. Those premade bags were either super tight or about two handfuls short of coco. I used two different companies. The ones that were under under-filled settled all weirdly.

If you were asking how they kept their cube-shape, they didn't really. The over-filled ones stayed mostly square, but the other ones tuned into little fat uneven rectangles. They stay cubed if you have them pushed against a wall or another cube. I was pushing them together to make big square bed, with some plantless cubes to act as root space. That didn't work out well, so I started making rows. That also didn't work terrifically well, so I started making my own tiny pots. After running my own for most of a cycle, I'm currently on the fence. I may go back to 3 gallon pots or rockwool. I haven't decided yet.

Iceman8700 said:

Hey Beehive...
Thanks a lot for the input 15ml/gal.
One question tho...is this buffered coco then safe to use for germinating and seedlings..
I suppose that's close to 800-900ppm of calmag buffered with coco..hence the doubt. Afraid it might burn the little ones..

Click to expand...

I followed the 15ml gallon instructions and had no problems with the coco, I'm about to do another 75ltr I was just checking the figures.
Some experts recommend double buffering for some sort of gains.
When I tested both the single held on to some ec, the double buffered the ec come out as went in.
I can't remember what the alleged benefits are of doing it twice but it's one of the link posted in this thread.