Coco Growers Unite!

rockstarenergy,

i couldnt say if it will burn or not but i would start lower and work up.

are you taking your water source into consideration?

you may also want to concider that fox farm might know better than u or mel frank when it comes to their own product but maybe not? idk? If it were me, i would defenitely run the idea by fox farm directly and see what concerns they do or dont have...

but, if its only a slight variation, then it would probably be fine in most cases.... but i would reconsider the idea of using mel franks formulas if you are growing in coco, because im almost certain his formulas arent designed for coco, which has a few unique requirements:

coco can act as a calcium magnet, (stealing it from your plant) so you need a lot.
many growers also experience Mg. deficiencies in coco.
coco may require special amounts of K as well...

depending on what brand of coco you are using, you may want to add some fulvic/humic acids unless they are already in your coco or in your nutes (not too familar w/ fox farm)

im thinking your formula has hope and could might work, but depending on your water source, you may need some cal/mag... especially if you are using R/O

Just bought a brick of the coco to try it myself. I had a veg'ing Frisian Dew that was a good candidate. I mixed about 3 parts coco to 1 part perlite and put it in a 3gl smartpot.

We shall see what happens!!!

aeviaanah said:

thanks, you dont think i should water next without nutrients? i understand you already told me what you think....but im curious about why you would continue to feed.

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i say that for two reasons:
1. because flushing works better with a very low dose of fertilizer then when you use plain water to flush.... please dont ask me why, but i promise you its true.
2. because the leading experts in cocoponics and coco research say plain water has a negative effect on the coco's microbiology and its buffers.

i usually flush with like 1/16th or 1/8th strength nutes... i said 600ppm last time ( up to 300ppm from my tap water, and 300ppm's from the nutes) but if your using R/O water i would shoot for around 400 ppm give or take.

of course these are just opinions, and you can break a lot of my rules and still get by ok... i like going the extra mile and seeing what i can get out the girls.

jberry said:

rockstarenergy,

i couldnt say if it will burn or not but i would start lower and work up.

are you taking your water source into consideration?

you may also want to concider that fox farm might know better than u or mel frank when it comes to their own product but maybe not? idk? If it were me, i would defenitely run the idea by fox farm directly and see what concerns they do or dont have...

but, if its only a slight variation, then it would probably be fine in most cases.... but i would reconsider the idea of using mel franks formulas if you are growing in coco, because im almost certain his formulas arent designed for coco, which has a few unique requirements:

coco can act as a calcium magnet, (stealing it from your plant) so you need a lot.
many growers also experience Mg. deficiencies in coco.
coco may require special amounts of K as well...

depending on what brand of coco you are using, you may want to add some fulvic/humic acids unless they are already in your coco or in your nutes (not too familar w/ fox farm)

im thinking your formula has hope and could might work, but depending on your water source, you may need some cal/mag... especially if you are using R/O

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thanks jberry. for the most those are half strength solutions except weeks 3-5 which are full but im probably gonna reduce that. the changes i made are the following: thier schedule stops using GrowBig for the first two weeks of flower and only TigerBloom and BigBloom are used. then they stop using Tiger for two weeks and only Grow and Bigbloom are used. after those 4 weeks all three are used together. im not really sure why they do it like that and it confused me so my plan doesnt stop either of them but with smaller amounts. like i said i think im over analyzing.

you're totally right about them knowing better than me haha. but what can i say...im a newb trying to do it like a pro . i guess i'll just scrap the whole thing and do half or quarter strengths of what they say to.

my water is tap water(well water not town water) and im not sure of the ppms but i know its hard water. im pretty sure theres a lot of calcium in it too so thats why i only asked about the mag. there is 25 ppms of calcium in 5ml/gal of Grow Big which seems like a lot to me cause all the other trace elements are less than 1.2ppms. i dont know tho.

im using canna loose coco so should i still start adding humic/fulvic acid?

thanks again

thanks man ill give it a try.

Yo Brethren, What up with the? hahah

I didn't know where too post this but oh well

Has anyone used this http://www.vermicrop.com/product_details.php?products_id=6

I think of trying it but I wanna get some feedback first. Thanks.

vermi crop has some good products... ive never seen that one b4, but it doesnt explain how or if it is better than coco, or why you would want to use it instead of coco.

idk, i would be intersted to talk to someone who has used both.

i wonder if u would use coco nutes or regular hydro?

i say try a couple plants of it first.

hydrohead said:

Yo Brethren, What up with the? hahah

I didn't know where too post this but oh well

Has anyone used this http://www.vermicrop.com/product_details.php?products_id=6

I think of trying it but I wanna get some feedback first. Thanks.

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I have messed with a bag of it. Potted it up but never grew in it. It looks like they took the stuff you sweep up in a dust pan with some strings and hair and trash and stuff (not real trash, but good stuff) I bet it is some great stuff to grow in but my anal-retentive clean-freak side would not have it. It grossed me out. I just kept thinking of the floor.

hey guys i found this fun little youtube video about canna...i dont think its been posted already but sorry if it was. its not really anything new at this point of the thread but its definitely interesting. its 3 parts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsJXJED0qD4

the narrator definitely drinks tea with his pinky out, wearing a bowler cap!!!

jberry said:

vermi crop has some good products... ive never seen that one b4, but it doesnt explain how or if it is better than coco, or why you would want to use it instead of coco.

idk, i would be intersted to talk to someone who has used both.

i wonder if u would use coco nutes or regular hydro?

i say try a couple plants of it first.

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I did post earlier asking the same things but no one responded. Anyhow I call up a company rep they apparently guaranteed that 2/3 coconot and 1/3 vermicrop soil amendment would give better results than coco, that convinced me enough to at least give it a shot. I managed to get some samples of both so I will try 2 plants in coconot/vermi mix and 4 in coco (which I know works great).

They suggested using organics, but i did ask them about coco nutes since that is what i have at the time. They said it should work very well.

I will try it and let you know how it worked.

My guess is that it is gonna turn out similar to coco. Only time will tell how good this product is as it is very new. I am always hoping for new and better stuff to come out. As much as I love coco, it would be pretty cool to have medium very similar to coco that would out perform it. Then we would need a new coconot thread.

Afternoon everyone , had a quick look through this thread but cant find the answer to my question, Im growing in rockwool/hydroton using a simple flood/drain setup, but I purchased some coco blocks to give it a try , i also bought some coco nova nutes, a&b , and they claim these are all the nutes i will need from veg right through to the harvest, this link is basically what i have , but from a different source, sorry if advertising is out of order, its not my intentions, http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/BNCocoNovaAB-Product-891.html , I'm just wondering can i use other flowering / veg nutes as well using this system or am i best off just using the 2 parter, any replies would be appreciated, and im pretty sure this is the right place to ask this question , cheers WoW

WhitestOfWidows said:

Afternoon everyone , had a quick look through this thread but cant find the answer to my question, Im growing in rockwool/hydroton using a simple flood/drain setup, but I purchased some coco blocks to give it a try , i also bought some coco nova nutes, a&b , and they claim these are all the nutes i will need from veg right through to the harvest, this link is basically what i have , but from a different source, sorry if advertising is out of order, its not my intentions, http://www.hydroponics.co.uk/BNCocoNovaAB-Product-891.html , I'm just wondering can i use other flowering / veg nutes as well using this system or am i best off just using the 2 parter, any replies would be appreciated, and im pretty sure this is the right place to ask this question , cheers WoW

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There is too schools of thoughts on this, a lot of old school growers i.e. lucas are base nutrient believers.

And a lot of folks really swear by the additives. As far as adding the additives to the current 2 part base nutes you are using, there is no question you should be able to use some additives. But be sure to cut down on the base nute strength when running additives with PK. A really great way to get an idea of how to use additives from other companies is to look at their feeding charts and just use your nutes as their base and add the additives as recommended by the example schedule. As I have learned quickly no matter which nutes you use it will surely take some practice to dial the nutes for each specific strain, even each pheno. Some burn easy, others yield more and eat a lot more etc...

GL with all, hope this helped.

Cheers for the speedy reply , I'm thinking of just using the base nutes just to be safe, at the minute I'm feeding them 1/4 strength formulex and 1/4 strength A&B bionova, the root systems are really healthy and poking out the net pots , no signs of nute burn or anything, at the minute one of the net pots is hydroton / rockwool and the other is coco , its a bit messy so I have cut the bottom off an old pair of the gf's tights to contain the coco, any other tips on containing the substrate or should i be using it as a soil type medium and watering the top of the pots with the mixed up solution? I have seen and read about great results from coco and I think its going to suit my way of growing, when i get the technique down that is

Question time again, I haven't read anything on here as far as transplanting from coco, to a bigger coco pot. My seedlings are between 4 and 6 inches tall and are in 4 inch pots filled with 100% coco from a botinicare brick. I am transfering to 2 gallon pots filled with the same medium. Should I have the coco wet or dry when transplanting, and is there anything else that I should do different than I would with soil... As always any tips or advice is greatly appreciated!!!

i use the same pots (4in. to 2gal.)

i usually mix a weak solution of nutes and wet the coco in the 2 gal pots with it before transplanting.

i let the 4in pots dry out just a little before i transplant into the the wet 2gals, so that the roots grow away from the dry coco into the wet coco.

i dont water them in after planting and i dont water again for at least three days because i want the roots to search for water in their new pots.

i have tried many different methods and this is the one i like the best.

Jberry thanks for the advice I will follow your method exactly. one more question do you think 4-6 inches is a good height to make the move at our should I wait another weak or 2?

if the roots are starting to "circle up" in the bottom of the pot then go for it.... u may have to pull one out to see what the roots are doing.

if you dont have a good root system then wait a bit longer imo

hey jberry, plants are doing much better now. still showing signs of stress but they are perking up much more. i will feed once more at a low dose then work up a little.

i got a question. some people swear by some nutrients. lets take fox farms for example....grow big is 6-4-4 and tiger bloom is 2-8-4. now on the other hand we can use something like supernatural gro with an npk of 20-20-20 and supernatural bloom 11-31-15. there is a big difference here, i understand one is organic and one is synthetic. how is it one can be successful with one and another can be successful with the other? ive always wondered about the different results one may get with trying different nutrients.. what do you look for in a good fertilizer? please elaborate on this subject and why it is important to understand these npk values and when you would want to use one product over the other.

also take GH chi foliar spray .2 - 0 - .2 or fox farms big bloom .01 - .3 - .7....how could a product this low in npk actual be of much use? there may be other micronutrients in other products that are helping but these two don't show any of the sort on the back. are there hidden ingredients in these that are helping with our grow?? have u used any of the nutrients mentioned? how about bio bizz bio grow?

jberry said:

i use the same pots (4in. to 2gal.)

i usually mix a weak solution of nutes and wet the coco in the 2 gal pots with it before transplanting.

i let the 4in pots dry out just a little before i transplant into the the wet 2gals, so that the roots grow away from the dry coco into the wet coco.

i dont water them in after planting and i dont water again for at least three days because i want the roots to search for water in their new pots.

i have tried many different methods and this is the one i like the best.

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This sounds great.

JBerry, how important is pot size for growing in coco.

Say if I have 6 girls under 2x600w HPS in a 22in x 78in space.

Currently I am testing 3 gallon (10in sq) pot vs. 5 gallon air pot. Their doesn't seem to be much difference at this point (6 weeks flowering). Can I downgrade to 2 gallon pots without lowering the yield?

pot size is important in relation to plant size. of course bigger plants will require more room for there roots. ive always like stepping up from small pots to medium then to large a couple weeks before flower. more roots = more nutrient uptake.

a small plant in a 3 gallon and a small plant in a 5 gallon shouldnt make much of a difference. a large plant will have a harder time growing to its fullest in a 3 gallon when compared to a 5 gallon.

how big are they anyway? pictures?