Idiots Guide To Coco Coir

Okay, if you've read this far you're obviously intrigued by the prospect of growing in coco coir. If you know any little tricks, please add them on.

Choosing a brand or type of Coco.

There are a lot of different brands out there. We won't name any one type. There are also a lot of different grinds and varieties of coco. They range from plain long strands, which come in bags or in pucks ( see profit disks ) to coco croutons, essentially very course chopped coco nut husk, to very fine chopped which has a few fibers and little chunks of coconut husk. We like the kind that comes from the pet store and is used for reptile bedding. It has a lot of long fibers and a good mix of small to large chunk coco husk. We use this in hand water to waste. We've seen profit disks used in ebband flow, and croutons in drip, but the beauty part is you could use any one of them for almost any system. Scope them all out and choose one that meets your needs.

Hydrating (Fluffing ) Coco.

This is pretty easy. You will want at least one big rubbermaid tub with small holes drained in the bottom, ands a pair of elbow length rubber gloves.

First of all coconuts are grown by the sea. They are harvested by the sea, and up till recently really the husks have been discarded by the sea and lain there absorbing salt. No matter what brand of coco you choose, flushing it out is a good idea.

So here's what we do. We take a couple of bricks of coco and throw them in a 10 gallon bucket. We add 3 gallons of warm to hot water per brick. Then We leave it alone. The coco will slowly absorb the water. If you're in a big hurry, put the gloves on and kinda peel it while it's sitting. The wet outside layers come right off. We don't like bending over the bucket so we go watch tv or play with the cat while this is going on.

After the coco has absorbed all the water, put the gloves on and reach in and fluff it all up, make sure there's no large clumps. While doing this, Keep an eye out for chunks of salt. We have found about a ping pong ball size chunk in a bale one time. It can happen. Now each brick hydrates out to about 3 gals. of coco. So if you have a bad back, this next part sucks. Ours are not the greatest but we can still manage it. Dump the coco into a large rubbermaid tub with a lot of small holes drilled in the bottom. Get your bucket and start dumping warm to hot water thru it, flushing out all the salt. Figure at least 3 times the water to coco. We'll pour a bucket thru,wait for it to filter thru, then we have another rubbermaid tub that slips inside on top and we'll stand in it to press all the water we can out. Pull the top tub out, fluff the coco again, and repeat. Do this till you've poured 2-3 times the amount of water to coco thru it.

That's it. Your coco is now ready to use, as is. Wait a sec, no additives?no perlite? no nutes? no lime? bone meal? wormcastings? guano? Nope. Nada. You really don't need any of that stuff really, because you're going to be watering everyday so it doesn't dry out. You'll also be feeding everyday. Depending on which system you use you may be feeding more than once a day. Coco is essentially a hydro system. The biggest mistake we made, and we made every mistake there was, was to insist on treating it like soil. You'll be tempted we know. It seems wrong to water everyday till you get 10-15% runoff. Do it anyway.

ph and Nutes for coco.

We have one friend who keeps his ph at 5.2. Ours is about 5.5. The safe range appears to be 5.4- 6.2 . IMO 6.2 is the very high end, and you see better results under 6.0
The good news about nutes is you can still use organics, but we'd recommend using them in liquid form. Liquid guanos, worm poo, teas. we've seen growers add them directly to the coco and get great results. Seen other growers add them and have nightmares. IMO it's easier to control them when adding them into your daily water schedule. You may need cal/mag and extra N to offset the naturally high level of K in coco. This is particularly a problem if you let the coco dry out or the ph gets out of whack. We like hygrozyme 1 tsp per gallon with every watering. Suffice it to say, almost anything works, you just have to get to know your plants and to figure out the formula that's working for you. If you want simple and easy, get a 1 step coco specific nute like CNS17, about 1/2 tsp per gallon a day works for me. We like the KISS approach to nutes and coco. Keep It Simple Stoner.

That's about all the knowledge we have to impart on this subject.

YES! Don't water with your present water anymore! Drop the ph to 5.8. i has similiar problems;

Light green leaves on top


Check this the very first comment of this thread which states;

We have one friend who keeps his ph at 5.2. Ours is about 5.5. The safe range appears to be 5.4- 6.2 . IMO 6.2 is the very high end, and you see better results under 6.0

VictorVicious also told me the same thing. Both these guys really know what they are talking about.


Your plants have been stressed and are experiencing nute lockout. Ph you water to 5.7 or 5.8 and flush them really good (two to three times the volume of water to the volume of the pot). Measure the ph of the runoff on your last flush. It should be close to what you are watering. Just for grins, ph your first runoff also, I think you will see it is rather high.

Then let them relax and start nutes up with 1/4 strength and gradually increase.

Good Luck. Let us know how it goes.