When to start watering to run off coco coir help

EH40veg

EH40veg

Active Member
Hey got some seedlings about a week old I read you should water coco to run off to flush out salt build up around the roots, but didn’t want to drown my seedlings was wondering when I should start feeding them nutrients and when should I start to water them until run off. Just feeding them ph’d water at the moment, any help would be appreciated as this is my first time using coco used soil before.
 

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The seedlings feed off of the cotyledons- those little round leaves- and you should be spraying them with water a few times a day- they will absorb some- and water the coco- if your pots have good drainage- you cannot overwater them- a little twice daily is enough until those small round leaves die- then you must give nutrients- I like twice daily if possible
 
Nutes 1.8ec since sprout coco never dry freshly buffered calmg rinsed away from first feeding.

Always feed to good runoff. Fed at least once a day but I do 2. Hand watering didnt work at flower so I automate and may happen to you too.

I wouldnt bother transplanting just plant direct or start in solo cup if you must but I found that to be a waste.

I get best results in smaller pots anyway like 1 gallon so I plant direct. Just not here, Im working backwards here, mothering it and taking clones and running those.
 

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medidedicated said:
Nutes 1.8ec since sprout coco never dry freshly buffered calmg rinsed away from first feeding.

Always feed to good runoff. Fed at least once a day but I do 2. Hand watering didnt work at flower so I automate and may happen to you too.

I wouldnt bother transplanting just plant direct or start in solo cup if you must but I found that to be a waste.

I get best results in smaller pots anyway like 1 gallon so I plant direct. Just not here, Im working backwards here, mothering it and taking clones and running those.
Click to expand...
Hey mate do u mean you’ve been feeding them 1.8ec since they sprouted? And thanks mate I didn’t want to water them to run off coz I thought I might have drowned them I think I need make some bigger drainage holes, only been feeding 100ml or so right now tho.

And what happened that it didnt work, yeah I’m just hand feeding them, feeding canna coco A&B but got a few others like rhizotonic and cannazyme.

So I should just transplant them into the final pots once they’ve grown out of these small ones? I’ve got 25 litre pots for my final ones so they’re quite big might struggle for run off when the plant is younger.
 
Oof 6 gallons is a lot. I use 1 gallon which is 3.7L. I needed to automate because it got bone dry which kills my plants every time. Just my experience and many others and people will say its due to that.

It became obvious to me later on, I only let them lose some water its retaining and feed again 3 hrs later. Still wet to the touch but absorbs water for the first half of the feeding cycle.

Then it puddles up and finishes. Flushed out old solution. Replaced with solution high in dissolved oxygen which is like nitrous oxide to racers but in growing.

Yea 1.8ec since sprout just to add that they can handle alot. Manufactures recommend super low ec that is equal to my tap water. Just a pain I dont bother with also for clones.

I have one reservoir feeding all so its nice to let it feed of my main reservoir instead of itsown. Idk what else youre adding but I only use maxibloom and poolshock to keep sterile, reservoir can rot.

Anything else isnt needed. People will add silica and other minimal things, I wouldnt worry about it now if ever. Idk what you mean struggle to runoff, its great for the plant to feed to good runoff regardless pot size.

Learning to check runoff ec can help fix problems half the time. My mini clones are done and can see where I fixed an issue and finished clean.

My bigger plants have a unknown issue popping up of colas just straight dying no one knows why. I overfeed but my clones look like shit when I dont. Meh everyone has their struggles.
 

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medidedicated said:
Oof 6 gallons is a lot. I use 1 gallon which is 3.7L. I needed to automate because it got bone dry which kills my plants every time. Just my experience and many others and people will say its due to that.

It became obvious to me later on, I only let them lose some water its retaining and feed again 3 hrs later. Still wet to the touch but absorbs water for the first half of the feeding cycle.

Then it puddles up and finishes. Flushed out old solution. Replaced with solution high in dissolved oxygen which is like nitrous oxide to racers but in growing.

Yea 1.8ec since sprout just to add that they can handle alot. Manufactures recommend super low ec that is equal to my tap water. Just a pain I dont bother with also for clones.

I have one reservoir feeding all so its nice to let it feed of my main reservoir instead of itsown. Idk what else youre adding but I only use maxibloom and poolshock to keep sterile, reservoir can rot.

Anything else isnt needed. People will add silica and other minimal things, I wouldnt worry about it now if ever. Idk what you mean struggle to runoff, its great for the plant to feed to good runoff regardless pot size.

Learning to check runoff ec can help fix problems half the time. My mini clones are done and can see where I fixed an issue and finished clean.

My bigger plants have a unknown issue popping up of colas just straight dying no one knows why. I overfeed but my clones look like shit when I dont. Meh everyone has their struggles.
Click to expand...
I’ll see how it goes mate, but cheers mate will give some more feed then, but about the struggle for run off I just meant say the plant is only 2 weeks old and it’s still not huge but it’s in a 6 gallon pot would I not need to water it quite a lot extra to get the run off?
 
EH40veg said:
Should I start to feed them at a small rate? Feeding them canna coco A&B
Click to expand...
I only give small plants a very very small amount of nutes like 150-200 ppm. They don't need much right now but you also don't want to strip the coco with just water. It has to do with cation exchange. It's kinda complicated but you can look into it further on your own, I'm going fishing (full moon) so I don t have time to elaborate!
 
EH40veg said:
I’ll see how it goes mate, but cheers mate will give some more feed then, but about the struggle for run off I just meant say the plant is only 2 weeks old and it’s still not huge but it’s in a 6 gallon pot would I not need to water it quite a lot extra to get the run off?
Click to expand...

Oh I see, youd keep the whole pot wet at all times minimal loss of water between feedings. I see what you mean and agree, youd be going through a lot of solution to maintain that.

I tried 3 gallon pots and regretted it, I thought I just needed a larger reservoir. Wrong, I went through like 45 gallons in 3 days with 2 plants.

You tend to feed larger pots less often but still I ended up feeding 4x a day to keep healthy. With temps of 80F and 35-40% humidity I just cant see how youd get away with less.

But people swear they get away with feeding less but usually have a larger pot I think. One things for sure I was told you want to deliberately get the roots root bound.

Getting root bound like I show here, brings even more oxygen to roots and allows high frequency fertigation. Theres already a great amount of oxygen exposure in the coco fibers/pearlite or coco alone.

That brings yet even more oxygen to roots while on top of that you have water with high dissolved oxygen that your feeding which is just a reservoir with a wave maker to agitate the surface of water.

Thats where the disolved oxygen comes from which depletes fast and the plants use tremendously. This saves me solution too, I go through 34 gallons every 3 days for 5 plants in one gallon.

This gives me plants that could fill a 5x5 with 4 plants, thats 5 feet by 5 feet, idk what that is in CM I use the usa measurement. We’re switching to metric, just one inch at a time lol.
 

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EH40veg said:
Should I start to feed them at a small rate? Feeding them canna coco A&B
Click to expand...

Some people wait a week, but I always hit it with 0.4 EC from day 1 (in fact, after buffering the coco, I rinse the coco with 0.4 EC feed a day before dropping the taproot in) and it takes off like a rocket ship. As you can see, your seedlings are tiny for a week. If you feed from day 1, you'll be ready to transplant after 7-14 days (depending on your starting container).

With regard to your earlier runoff question, if your coco is prepared properly then the media will be porous enough to handle saturating the media and still giving seedlings enough oxygen. If you're in 100% straight coco and/or didn't sift out the coco peat (coffee ground sized coco dust) then you might have to be a little cautious the first few days.

Basically, it's pretty easy to figure out - feed them once a day at lights on to at least 10% runoff and if any of them grow super slowly after a few days and the leaves droop, then the media is too compacted and they're not getting enough oxygen and just switch to a dryback protocol for a week or so. You shouldn't have that problem with the perlite in there.

A general feed chart for coco with a starting EC water of 0, would be:

0.4-0.5 EC seedling, first week
1.1-1.5 EC veg
1.2-1.6 EC flower
 
Next time consider starting in solo cups for the first 2 weeks. That way you can start feeding to run off around day 3 from sprout and not have to worry about over watering.
Like mentioned above........never give plain water and always feed to substantial run off. I rarely go over 1.2 EC or 600 ppm's.
Good luck.
 
ec121 said:
Some people wait a week, but I always hit it with 0.4 EC from day 1 (in fact, after buffering the coco, I rinse the coco with 0.4 EC feed a day before dropping the taproot in) and it takes off like a rocket ship. As you can see, your seedlings are tiny for a week. If you feed from day 1, you'll be ready to transplant after 7-14 days (depending on your starting container).

With regard to your earlier runoff question, if your coco is prepared properly then the media will be porous enough to handle saturating the media and still giving seedlings enough oxygen. If you're in 100% straight coco and/or didn't sift out the coco peat (coffee ground sized coco dust) then you might have to be a little cautious the first few days.

Basically, it's pretty easy to figure out - feed them once a day at lights on to at least 10% runoff and if any of them grow super slowly after a few days and the leaves droop, then the media is too compacted and they're not getting enough oxygen and just switch to a dryback protocol for a week or so. You shouldn't have that problem with the perlite in there.

A general feed chart for coco with a starting EC water of 0, would be:

0.4-0.5 EC seedling, first week
1.1-1.5 EC veg
1.2-1.6 EC flower
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought they seemed quite small for a week, I’ll check the Ec later i normally just go off the ppm, and the coco is 70/30 mate 30% perlite, I didn’t treat the coco in anyway.

Back thanks mate once the lights come on in a couple of hours I will give them a decent feed with 10% run off or so, I cut some more holes in the bottom of my pot for the drainage as they were quite small.

But thanks for the chart mate will try and aim for something around that.
 
ec121 said:
Some people wait a week, but I always hit it with 0.4 EC from day 1 (in fact, after buffering the coco, I rinse the coco with 0.4 EC feed a day before dropping the taproot in) and it takes off like a rocket ship. As you can see, your seedlings are tiny for a week. If you feed from day 1, you'll be ready to transplant after 7-14 days (depending on your starting container).

With regard to your earlier runoff question, if your coco is prepared properly then the media will be porous enough to handle saturating the media and still giving seedlings enough oxygen. If you're in 100% straight coco and/or didn't sift out the coco peat (coffee ground sized coco dust) then you might have to be a little cautious the first few days.

Basically, it's pretty easy to figure out - feed them once a day at lights on to at least 10% runoff and if any of them grow super slowly after a few days and the leaves droop, then the media is too compacted and they're not getting enough oxygen and just switch to a dryback protocol for a week or so. You shouldn't have that problem with the perlite in there.

A general feed chart for coco with a starting EC water of 0, would be:

0.4-0.5 EC seedling, first week
1.1-1.5 EC veg
1.2-1.6 EC flower
Click to expand...
Just gave the 8 of them 200ml each, and got just under 150ml run off back hopefully they will improve now, fed them at 0.4 ec was 180ppm will check back in on them in half an hour see how they respond
 
EH40veg said:
Just gave the 8 of them 200ml each, and got just under 150ml run off back hopefully they will improve now, fed them at 0.4 ec was 180ppm will check back in on them in half an hour see how they respond
Click to expand...

You'll notice a difference tomorrow at lights on when you go and hit it again with 0.4 feed.

Not sure how you got 75% runoff at 200ml with that coco looking that dry. Make sure you're watering slowly and evenly.
 
ec121 said:
You'll notice a difference tomorrow at lights on when you go and hit it again with 0.4 feed.

Not sure how you got 75% runoff at 200ml with that coco looking that dry. Make sure you're watering slowly and evenly.
Click to expand...
I meant 150 ml total off the 8 plants, was only around 15-20ml per plant id say
 
EH40veg said:
I meant 150 ml total off the 8 plants, was only around 15-20ml per plant id say
Click to expand...
Today they’re still quite wet mate, maybe absorbed 40-50% judging off the weight of the pots, a few of my leafs are drooping slightly should I wait until tomorrow to feed them again or should I be feeding daily? Would once every 2 days be ok at this stage if the coco is still damp?
 
EH40veg said:
Today they’re still quite wet mate, maybe absorbed 40-50% judging off the weight of the pots, a few of my leafs are drooping slightly should I wait until tomorrow to feed them again or should I be feeding daily? Would once every 2 days be ok at this stage if the coco is still damp?
Click to expand...
Added a photo here, any tips or tricks would be appreciated as this is my first time using coco, always used soil before.
 

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EH40veg said:
Today they’re still quite wet mate, maybe absorbed 40-50% judging off the weight of the pots, a few of my leafs are drooping slightly should I wait until tomorrow to feed them again or should I be feeding daily? Would once every 2 days be ok at this stage if the coco is still damp?
Click to expand...

The fertigation protocol for coco is to never let the coco dry back more than 10%. You're effectively growing hydroponically and the coco is just there to keep the plant upright. Keeping it 90%+ saturated is the goal and many people feed 5 or more times per day once it's mature.

All you're doing is topping off and it takes very little to top off. If you ever see light brown on top, it got too dry. If you saw the pics medidedicated posted, that's what you want - a rootbound small or smallish final container, so basically everything is the opposite of soil. I also use a microbial since the media is always saturated

That said, if your coco has too much coco dust (coco peat) in it, or it was packed down tightly, or you're in 100% coco, then you have to be a little more cautious in the first week and be ready to change course as needed. If you don't want to ever have to worry about that, then just make your mix 50/50 coco/perlite and start in a solo cup.

So if you're feeling sketchy about hitting it daily right now, you won't be giving up too much by fertigating every other day for the next two fertigations.
 
ec121 said:
The fertigation protocol for coco is to never let the coco dry back more than 10%. You're effectively growing hydroponically and the coco is just there to keep the plant upright. Keeping it 90%+ saturated is the goal and many people feed 5 or more times per day once it's mature.

All you're doing is topping off and it takes very little to top off. If you ever see light brown on top, it got too dry. If you saw the pics medidedicated posted, that's what you want - a rootbound small or smallish final container, so basically everything is the opposite of soil. I also use a microbial since the media is always saturated

That said, if your coco has too much coco dust (coco peat) in it, or it was packed down tightly, or you're in 100% coco, then you have to be a little more cautious in the first week and be ready to change course as needed. If you don't want to ever have to worry about that, then just make your mix 50/50 coco/perlite and start in a solo cup.

So if you're feeling sketchy about hitting it daily right now, you won't be giving up too much by fertigating every other day for the next two fertigations.
Click to expand...
No worries mate, thanks for taking the time to explain. I wouldn’t say it was packed to tightly, and it’s 70/30 coco / perlite but yeh I should probably start the seedlings in solo cups next time like you said.

I’ll see how they’re doing in a few hours once the lights go on and see if they need a top over, so would the top over just be enough to get similar 10% runoff yeah?
 
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