Coco: Tips, techniques, and the facts you will need

Dr. Skunk Bud said:

I am having problems with ph in my 50/50 coco perlite mix. I just recently transplanted my plants into autopots I watered them each with 1 gal of tap water with the recommended dose of veg+bloom that's what Im using. This was done roughly a week ago the pots are still wet and my p.h. in the pots is 4.5. I did not ph the water before I put it in. This is my first go with coco. What do I need to do to get the ph up? They aren't growing right any suggestions would be great. I did not include any pics because they are still pretty small just topped them yesterday. They have a pale green color to the leaves.

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Rx green solutions simple A/B nutrient line flourishes from 4.5 - 5.5 pH. You can even Reach out to them for free samples. They have a major research and development facility in Denver and I have seen thc tests as high as 33.6%. Their facility is entirely 78% coco and 22% perlite mix.

Im about to start my first CoCo grow. I got bioniccare coco. I plan on mixing a little perlite and dolomite lime in with it.
Im using House and Garden nutes and add some cal-mag. Its going to be a drip drip sysetem in 5galroot pouches. All this in a 4x4 tent with a 615cmh. Any tips or info are appreciated. This is my first coco and first time dripping.

Knock them 5 gal fabric pots down to 2.5 or 3 gallon. If you already bought them just fold em down. Unless you are growing tall and wide 4 to 7 foot trees ive found 5 gals of coco to be overkill. 2 and 3 gallon especially the root pruning fabric pots are the sweet spot with kost indoor coco grown plants. Especially tent growing. You want them roots drinking nute solution daily and a a dry pot (not bone dry and wilting -but ready for a drink)ready for a drip feed daily with nutes is ideal. Make sure you get a 10 to 20% runoff into the catch saucers. Use little one inch cuts of pvc pipe for "risers" so your pots arent soaking in salty spent solution amd just shop vac it out after a feed. New transplants like even drier pots to get them roots set.up to explode. Think a peat soilless mix type of feed/water program for the first week or two. Then hammer em daily and even multiple daily feeds once their up and jamming. Ive found 5 gallons just dont dry out daily like the smaller threes and twos. Not saying its a huge deal but try it. You use less coco and they love the daily watering. A pH ec/tds combo meter is your ally and keep.it clean and.calibrated monthly.

Oh...and dont use dolomite lime with coco. Its nothing like acidic peat based mixes and the pH of coco is much more stable than peat. Lime is not needed. One of the reasons coco in my opinion is superior to traditional peat base soilless mixes. Your gonna dig coco...i promise. Use a coco specific nutrient brand and if your tap is decent....around 100 to 250 ppm (500.scale) a cal mag additive most likely will not be needed. Botanicare cns17 has a decent amount of cal in it. Canna coco nute has even more. Plus plenty of mag. And dont get carried away with additives...boosters and what not. Most coco specific base nute brands will throw out a banging crop without all the extras. I do suggest a potassium silicate like Dynagro or Europonic (Ionic brand) silica. Those are some of the more concentrated brands. The advanced RhinoSkin and Botanicare Silica blast is extremely watered down crap. You will see thicker stronger stems with potassium silicate and powdery midew spot and bugs have a hard time sitting up shop with the thicker leaves and stems that silicate will give you. Keep canopy temp at 75 to 80 degrees and humidity 60 to 70 % when vegging and drop it down when flowering...settling about 45 to 55 % rh when in peak bloom. Lots of circilation fans blowing around and make sure your humidity doesnt spike huge when lights turn off. An led green headlamp for night work is your friend here. And they are cheap. Good luck homie. Grow fat healthy juicy lunkers.

Im currently trying to condition my coco. Have poured 3x the volume of coco in water through at 5.8 and the recommended ppms of Cal-Mag and nutes. Still coming out at 5.2 every time. Anyone have any advice???

"Our objective is to rinse the coco with large amounts of water containing Cal-mag @120ppm and 200ppm of Veg solution at a ph of 5.8. This breaks the medium of its tendency to drift towards 6.1PH. So, once 5.8 is reached the runoff will indicate so"

Got it close to coming out same as it came in. Went ahead and transplanted so we shall see....

I'm new to growing in general and got a plant handed to me and I brought it back to life check it out please I wanna improve all aspects of my box and growing with coco I wanna make it dtw but don't know where to start? gonna start reading this thread NOW!!

hellraizer30 said:

Even with drip clean and 10% runoff im still geting salt buildup
was feeding at 850ppm. Went ahead and flushed but now they
look like shit!

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Maybe just feed them less nutes

I have always been under the belief that once u over feed plants it might not have any affect on them but taste wise it's not a god ending....

I clearly seen this Running coco along side a wilma setup using clay pebbles and rock wool

danzibar1234 said:

Maybe just feed them less nutes

I have always been under the belief that once u over feed plants it might not have any affect on them but taste wise it's not a god ending....

I clearly seen this Running coco along side a wilma setup using clay pebbles and rock wool

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I been saying for years...most strains will rock out in coco with a coco nutrient at 750 ppm (1.5 ec) and a pH of 6.0 or 5.8 to 6.2. You dont have to be exact and its good to let it drift. When making up your tanks...set it at 5.7 or so and let the natural alkalinity (if your using tap water at 100 to 250 ppm which is - perfect) rise up on ots own. When your tanks are near empty...the pH should be about 6.1 or 6.2. A good coco specific base nutrient is all you need. These numbers.are the sweet spot for damn near every strain ive grown in coco coir. 2 or 3 gallon pots. 10 to 15% runoff every feed. Dont use drip clean or any thing else. Just try it.

since1991 said:

Knock them 5 gal fabric pots down to 2.5 or 3 gallon. If you already bought them just fold em down. Unless you are growing tall and wide 4 to 7 foot trees ive found 5 gals of coco to be overkill. 2 and 3 gallon especially the root pruning fabric pots are the sweet spot with kost indoor coco grown plants. Especially tent growing. You want them roots drinking nute solution daily and a a dry pot (not bone dry and wilting -but ready for a drink)ready for a drip feed daily with nutes is ideal. Make sure you get a 10 to 20% runoff into the catch saucers. Use little one inch cuts of pvc pipe for "risers" so your pots arent soaking in salty spent solution amd just shop vac it out after a feed. New transplants like even drier pots to get them roots set.up to explode. Think a peat soilless mix type of feed/water program for the first week or two. Then hammer em daily and even multiple daily feeds once their up and jamming. Ive found 5 gallons just dont dry out daily like the smaller threes and twos. Not saying its a huge deal but try it. You use less coco and they love the daily watering. A pH ec/tds combo meter is your ally and keep.it clean and.calibrated monthly.

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Good idea pvc pipe to keep pots out of water.

I've been using strait coco for a lot of years. I run what you call a run to waste system. I think it's one of the best ways of growing. And one of the fastest the best thing about ran to waste is you only use the nutes once and the rest gos to waste. This way you have very little salt buildup. I try to aim for about 15 to 20 litres of waste a week

bryangtho said:

I've been using strait coco for a lot of years. I run what you call a run to waste system. I think it's one of the best ways of growing. And one of the fastest the best thing about ran to waste is you only use the nutes once and the rest gos to waste. This way you have very little salt buildup. I try to aim for about 15 to 20 litres of waste a week

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Is that the same as drain to waste?
I've also had good luck growing in plain coco, and I did it outside. I used a fairly large cloth pot and didn't have to feed every day. More like every three or four days.
Next time I run coco, I'll pre-charge it with cal-mag. I was dealing with mag deficiency for several weeks...

Chunky Stool said:

Is that the same as drain to waste?
I've also had good luck growing in plain coco, and I did it outside. I used a fairly large cloth pot and didn't have to feed every day. More like every three or four days.
Next time I run coco, I'll pre-charge it with cal-mag. I was dealing with mag deficiency for several weeks...

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I forgot how much of a cal issue it can cause, I have been recycling it for 5 years and only adding very small amounts of new as needed. Until recently when I changed to 18ltr cloth pots and I had had a break from growing and chucked a 100 or so liters away. I was potting up from 11ltr pots and ran out of my recycled coco for the last 3 (of 7) pots, ran down to pick some new stuff up from the shop, I was battling the cal def for a few weeks even though I gave them a good dose. The difference between the 4 in old coco and the 3 with new was crazy. Funny because I was wondering if recycling it for so long was going to cause any isuues, it clearly doesn't.

coreywebster said:

I forgot how much of a cal issue it can cause, I have been recycling it for 5 years and only adding very small amounts of new as needed. Until recently when I changed to 18ltr cloth pots and I had had a break from growing and chucked a 100 or so liters away. I was potting up from 11ltr pots and ran out of my recycled coco for the last 3 (of 7) pots, ran down to pick some new stuff up from the shop, I was battling the cal def for a few weeks even though I gave them a good dose. The difference between the 4 in old coco and the 3 with new was crazy. Funny because I was wondering if recycling it for so long was going to cause any isuues, it clearly doesn't.

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New coco is naturally pre-charged with P and Na. Pre-charging with cal-mag displaces P and Na, which helps get you off to a good start. Has something to do with cation exchange.

Chunky Stool said:

New coco is naturally pre-charged with P and Na. Pre-charging with cal-mag displaces P and Na, which helps get you off to a good start. Has something to do with cation exchange.

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AH nice, I didn't know that. I knew it grabbed calcium and made it unavailable until it stopped grabbing it. Something to do with the positive ions in one of the 3 grades of coco they use to make up the bag. I don't remember the names of the 3 grades used.

Chunky Stool said:

New coco is naturally pre-charged with P and Na. Pre-charging with cal-mag displaces P and Na, which helps get you off to a good start. Has something to do with cation exchange.

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coreywebster said:

AH nice, I didn't know that. I knew it grabbed calcium and made it unavailable until it stopped grabbing it. Something to do with the positive ions in one of the 3 grades of coco they use to make up the bag. I don't remember the names of the 3 grades used.

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Oops, I meant to say coco is naturally charged with K, not P.

Coco coir is loaded with potassium which your plants can use. A good fertilizer designed for coco should have lower amounts of k to account for this. Should also have higher calcium..magnesium..and iron than a normal hydroponic base nutrient. Plants grown in coco really take off with extras like fulvic and amino acids. Fulvic makes iron more available and the amino acid (especially glycine) acts as a natural calcium chelate. If your tap is 0.5 ec or less (and you know its calcium magnesium amd iron)....use fulvic and amino acids derived from plant protein hydrolysate. And your tap is now a calmag....ready and good to go.

since1991 said:

Coco coir is loaded with potassium which your plants can use. A good fertilizer designed for coco should have lower amounts of k to account for this. Should also have higher calcium..magnesium..and iron than a normal hydroponic base nutrient. Plants grown in coco really take off with extras like fulvic and amino acids. Fulvic makes iron more available and the amino acid (especially glycine) acts as a natural calcium chelate. If your tap is 0.5 ec or less (and you know its calcium magnesium amd iron)....use fulvic and amino acids derived from plant protein hydrolysate. And your tap is now a calmag....ready and good to go.

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Coco is also loaded with Na, which can cause major problems. I think that's why people like to make sure it is thoroughly rinsed before use. Gets it to a "clean slate", which is desireable for soilless.
The other additives you described sound like the ingredients in GH Floralicious Plus! It is a very good product.
When steeping nutrient tea, I always add lots of humic acid. Plants really dig it, and it's cheap if you make your own concentrate.
2 lbs of dry powder makes 4 gallons of concentrate for $25
https://www.amazon.com/TeraVita-SP-90-Humic-Soluble-Powder/dp/B00912FRO2/ref=pd_yo_rr_bia_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DRKHC3BEG96TP5T94YD3

Lots of great info!

High everyone, great read from all of you. I am switching from Flora Trio to Advanced Nutrients Connoisseur PH Perfect for coco along w/Big Bud / Ignitor /and Overdrive. I have been using Cyco coco for 2 yrs. w/ Flora Trio & cal-mag and my water source is my de-humidifier. 5 gal. earth pots under 1-300w advanced plat duel spect led and 2 Viparspectra leds- a 450 duel & a 600 duel in a 5x5x8 tent. I have had nothing but great results in coco. If anyone is using A.N. Connoisseur PH Perfect for coco, please chime in and let me know how it's goin. I'll be back on to give you my results in a few wks. (carry on)