Coco Growers Unite!

jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
bender420 said:
At what rate do you recommend cutting the coco with vermi blend. Would it be a good idea to lower the EC.
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10% Vermi-Blend, and you could lower the EC slightly but you probably dont have to worry about it.

I also go easy on the silica due to its high K ratio, and I only use 1/2ml -1ml per gal. of the Hydro Honey due to how much it raises the EC and it is 10% calcium as well so you could prolly back down on your cal/mag a bit?
If your rates are working well then thats all that matters.
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
I would say less silica, less cal/mag, less hydro honey, and a little more canna coco A/B in their place but if you are getting good results then dont change a thing...
 
aagkings86

aagkings86

Active Member
Hey, this is my first time growing. I've been growing 5 blue cheese plants, and I just transplanted them on day 15 from 1 gal pots to 3 gal pots. The roots were starting to come threw the holes. The only concern I have now is that the roots are already starting to come out on the 22 day.

Is okay to transplant them so soon already?

This bcuzz coco stuff is amazing lol. wow
 
RockstarEnergy

RockstarEnergy

Well-Known Member
jayyy, MOG, hows it going? its been a while since i've been on here haha. do you guys know anything about growing outdoors with coco? im starting my second guerilla grow this summer and my plan is to dig holes and fill them with a mix of coco and either potting soil or compost. i grew in pots last summer and it rained about 2-3 days a week. im pretty sure my roots got a little drowned because my plants were stunted. my thoughts are that the coco will provide good drainage for the roots but the soil/compost with keep it moist so i dont have to water as much as straight coco. the mix will also provide nutrients so i wont have to feed as much. Plus is still have almost a whole bag left over from this winter that i need to use up.

is this logic correct? i realize this is an indoor thread but you guys helped me all winter so i thought i'd ask here before posting in the outdoor forum.
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
looks like its on the perfect feeding program... do you know what EC / pH levels you have been using?
 
aagkings86

aagkings86

Active Member
jberry said:
looks like its on the perfect feeding program... do you know what EC / pH levels you have been using?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if your replying to my post, but my ph level is about 5.7-6.0 I'm no so sure on the EC though. I need to go purchase some equipment for that. I've been going off the nine week feeding chart from Humboldt Nutrients drain to waste.
 
bender420

bender420

Well-Known Member
Hey Jay hope all is well with you. I picked up all the nutes which we discussed earlier and just made the first mix tonight.

Very surprised. Added 5-7ml of humboldt hydro honey per gallon, and it raised the EC 0.7

What the hell, I thought it was just carbs, turns out it is 10% calcium. I was at EC of 1.3 and ready to feed, but after I added the hydro honey it went up to EC 2.0. I don't understand the reasoning behind having such a high EC in a carb product, if I dilute my nute mix the ratios will be off.

Hydro Honey also lowered the pH a good bit.

Any input on how to use hydro honey will be great. I am just really confused at the moment, was expecting something different.
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
Yea that's why I only use 1/2 - 1ml per gal. If you use it at 5ml per gallon it gives you 130+ PPM's of Calcium. It also is derived from molasses and molasses contains trace amounts of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, sodium, zink, and some Vitamin B's.

If I want more sugar than the 1ml of H.H. provides then I add some organic raw cane sugar. (I usually add a little extra sugar during weeks 4-6 and/or when applying Gravity, and also when I use Great White)

Go easy on the sugar products... more is not better imo

Also, you may be better off diluting your solution rather than risking a EC burn... as you said the hydro honey is high in calcium and you're using cal/mag plus and getting more calcium from the canna base nutes... A calcium overdose early in a plants life could cause a ton of bad problems.
 
marlboro05

marlboro05

Active Member
UK junior grower here. I grow in a small dwc pc-grow-box.
I want to do my 1st organic coco-based grow but the coco husk chunks are just not available in he UK.
Is it discontinued? What are the alternatives to CHC for DWC?
 
Don Gin and Ton

Don Gin and Ton

Well-Known Member
man im uk and coco is everywhere.if your ponics shop doesnt stock the chunks ask him to order some i prefer the finer diced stuff personally
 
M

Masterofgenetics

New Member
Hey Jberry I got simple question.. I am using Humbolt nutes master A and B and verde.. Alright in the nute mix per five gallons of water (this was this morning) I use per 5 gallon...week 3 of veg.. 10 ml a,b and verde, 20 ml hygrozyme, 20 ml technaflora pro-teck silica, 10ml planticillian, then I checked my ph and ppm I was at 350 ppm ph was 6.0... all is good but the ppm's are way to low I want to be somewhere around 750.. so I added 10 ml fish shit, 10 problend flower, 5 ml tigerbloom. that set me at around 600 ppm usaully m,y run-off is the same as whats going in but my run today was 1050 so I am going to flush in a couple days..

Now my question is I have to feeding charts from H.N that look the same except one says to add 1ml of a,b and verde through out all veg but the other says 1ml the first week then 2ml the second 3ml the 3rd and so fourth. Do you know which one is right? and why my damn PPM's are so low?

And also I have been using Magi-cal from techaflora for over two now. And I always have fucking mag def every f'n time for the first 3 weeks of flower.. Today I am going to buy the humbolt honey and cal-mag.. Do you need more mag in early veg the in flower? because I never have mag def in flower.. I don't know but this damn mag def is getting on my last nerve.. I can't get this shit away.. any suggestions.. thanks bud!



Enjoy your self tomorrow 4-20










jberry said:
Yea that's why I only use 1/2 - 1ml per gal. If you use it at 5ml per gallon it gives you 130+ PPM's of Calcium. It also is derived from molasses and molasses contains trace amounts of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, sodium, zink, and some Vitamin B's.

If I want more sugar than the 1ml of H.H. provides then I add some organic raw cane sugar. (I usually add a little extra sugar during weeks 4-6 and/or when applying Gravity, and also when I use Great White)

Go easy on the sugar products... more is not better imo

Also, you may be better off diluting your solution rather than risking a EC burn... as you said the hydro honey is high in calcium and you're using cal/mag plus and getting more calcium from the canna base nutes... A calcium overdose early in a plants life could cause a ton of bad problems.
Click to expand...
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
I havent used Humboldt before but based on your ppm im guessing you should increase the ml. like the second chart says? What does the actual labels on the bottles say?

Excess Phosphorus and Calcium both will lock out Mag., so that is something to keep in mind... maybe you should try some Epson Salt to get some mag without getting the extra Calcium.

It is common to get mag defs when the plant is under high demand and growing fast like during the first 3 weeks of flower.... try some foliar feeds with epson salt (every 3 days) during this time. I would also increase my base nutes if they are only giving you 350 ppm's.

Go easy on the hydro honey because all the calcium in it will just antagonize your magnesium def.

Im not sure what is in the Verde but the Master A/B base nutes dont have much in them and are high in K (final npk: 2.5 / 2.5 / 4.5) .... here is a link that will let you find out what are really in your nutrients: http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilizers/FertDB/Product1.aspx?action=ViewTable&ltr=H , with a closer look, you can see that most nutes are incomplete and some contain some pretty nasty contaminants (masters a/b has a low level of arsenic for example but so does most soil)... having said all that, I have seen some pretty nice grows with Masters A/B.

-and I wouldnt bother buying cal/mag because "cal/mag plus" and "magical" are the same thing with magical being the better product imo.
 
B

buraka415

Active Member
Hi everyone. This is my 1st time post, and I've read 77 pages of this thread, and finally decided to skip ahead. I have definitely learned a lot. I am an indoor soil grower, with several yrs under my belt, but I've never really had great results. Poor, fair, and average results. Very sad and costly. Mainly a combination of heavy learning curve, making mistakes, not having separate veg and bloom areas for a long time, some other distractions in life, a bad teacher, and not finding out about RIU-type resources until within the last yr or two. There is a lot of great info in here about coco, and I'm really excited about making the switch. I just wish I had taken a different guy's advice who told me to do this about 2 yrs ago. UGH! So I'm feeling that moving to coco is going to be the best thing I've done to my situation in a while.

Am planning on vegging in 5.5" x 6" & 6" x 5" plastic pots. And then using a combination of 3gal and 5gal container pots in bloom, or I may just go buy more 3gal pots as I'm worried about excessive crowding and them not getting enough light - sounds like from what I've read the growth on the plants is going to out perform the soil runs I have had. Maybe I'm making an assumption, but it seems to make sense given the better root growth and built-in environmental variables that make it so grower friendly. The last soil I used was FoxFarms Happy Frog, and it just seemed so clay-y and hard. I cut it with some perlite, but maybe not enuff. I just remember thinking to myself last run, "damn, this stuff is hard, i cant imagine roots during very good in it". I followed a "water, nute, off, water, nute" etc... style sched, so it wasnt like the soil was getting all bone dry. EFF SOIL!! ;)

I think someone said it on here or some other forum, that coco was God's gift to growers. Hahah.

I am planning on going 100% canna coco coir, and just using the straight Canna product line. the canna coco - it is def a little more pricier than Fox Farm OF,or Flower Power?, but since you can re-use it, and all the other great amazing qualities, I think it makes the most sense.

Really excited to start sharing my experiences as soon as I get going again within a few wks.

ciao & sorry for the long rant - gotta love that Bubblegum :)
 
ganicsarebetter

ganicsarebetter

Well-Known Member
congrats on coco!! its unreal. youll see.

check royal gold basement mix. it contains coir, flakes, chunks, perlite and is already sterilized. great air, drain and root strentght because its just not coir or flakes or chunks, its ALL of them. plus perlite, and sterlized. its the best out there.

for food......

house and garden rules for coco. get the entire coco line. need the algean for magnese.... rootX is amazing!!! the Zen is great for the immune system. and shooting powder.........words cant explain. just get it, be careful, super strong but worth it. 2.4 grams per gallon of H2O......

and use distelled water.......flush for a week, do a 36 hour dark before flower, then make the switch. FORCES flowering to begin.

only thing with shooting powder is after you use it, the coco is not reusable, but you wont care. its crazy mate. sure people will say go with advanced, but its a rip because more is used per solution and def happens and they tell ya to get more stuff. with H and G, you wont have a prob with deff....

good luck and keep u posted on what you decide to go with.

whats your light?

pcs
ganics
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
You can reuse coco with shooting powder if you flushed the coco and you wait until the new plants are big and old enough to handle any remnants left behind... If they are over 10 inches tall and at least 3 weeks old then it usually wont effect the grow.

I start the plants in small 4" pots using fresh coco then transplant to the old used coco when the plants are big enough to hang.
 
B

buraka415

Active Member
- I want to be able to re-use the coco - so I'm inclined to not go w/ the shooting powder. perhaps after 1 cycle I can do some side-by-side experimenting. the store down the road has HydroFarm's Roots Organics Coco mix ( http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=8192) - it does seem to have a lot of stuff great stuff in it - but it seems if the pure coco from canna combined with their nutes & regular tap water - that it will keep things simple. I've tried a variety of different nutes and soils & honestly I'd just like to approach with the K.I.S.S method. I've had a lot of set-backs with soil & really can't afford anything major to go wrong and to affect my yield.

- using distilled water - well, I do have a "Small Boy", but I usually use about 20 gallons to water/feed, and the Small Boy is sooooo damn slow & my water pressure sucks. It takes a LONG ass time to fill up the rez with that. Hence again going with pure coco + Canna nutes, that way I can just use tap water for right now. I tried to do a PPM reading today and last night, I think my Sunleaves TDS meter is FUBAR - its reading 065 on the PPM readout?! that can't be right.

- speaking of using tap water - I live in SF Bay area - check out this table/chart breakdown on their water analysis, specifically the PH reading - http://sfwater.org/Files/FactSheets/SFPUC_WQ_Table_thumb2.jpg - 8.8 average? WTF? but when I test my tap water from the faucet I use with a Hanna PH meter, I get an even 7.0

my lights? that brings up another good question I have been wanting to ask, and it deals with the size of my room, # & Wattage of lights, and how many plants to use to best optimize the space & light output

room dimensions:
- 7ft 6" (H)
- 12ft 6" (W)
- 15ft (L)

using (4) 8ft x 2ft tables

lights:

(9) 1000W HPS Hortilux

my question is this: for many cycles I was instructed and led to believe that maxing out the tables with as many pots as I could fit (which is about 18 - 20 per table with a mix of 3 & 5gal pots) was the way to go. I believe this may not be the best approach, as they always seem so crowded. I have been wanting to experiment with bigger pots, less plants, with the hopes that the yield would be better or comparable to what I've seen. I'd much rather just do like say, 60 plants, in 5gal buckets & get 3oz per plant (which seems doable!). That would be huge. BUT.. I just have not ever tried. Last spring I got some bad genetics from a cloner, and the veg time was just ridiculous. The plants just wouldnt effin grow (a friend of a friend got same genetics from the guy and he experienced the same thing). I wound up putting some of them in what I think are 10gal pots, and one of the girls churned out I think 45gs.. Which is not bad, but not great. I guess I've always been too apprehensive to lower my # of plants down to 50 - 60 b/c I'm not confident I was going to get what I needed.

Now with coco - it seems that I'm going to get some good growth, and I've got another week or two to crunch #'s and do math. I also wonder if given the room dimensions and the wattage I'm using, if that is overkill in terms of lights. What's it about 12 plants per 1000w light?

Plus, I'm using CO2 via 20lb tank + regulator valve. I JUST added this to the equation actually during the last 10 days of my previous cycle (I'm effin desperate :( ) - so I can't say that it helped last round, but I do hope it works for next round.

Thanks

-B415-
 
jberry

jberry

Well-Known Member
Buraka, dude I dont know where to start, you need some help lol. I read this and your other post and its obvious you have the space and equipment to do something that most people on this website cannot (you should be getting a min. of a pound per 1000W light, so if you can utilize your lights properly then your looking at 9-10 pounds per cycle) . The only problem is, it is obvious that you need some hands on help from someone that has experience with a indoor grow of that caliber... I really have to wonder why you would attempt that size of a grow without any successful grows under your belt first? Dont get me wrong, hats off to you for having the balls and intentions of trying to do a nice sized op right from the start, but if you have been having problems for several years then I think that switching to coco is probably not the cure and all you probably really need is to have a successful grower walk you threw a entire grow one time...Somebody that has skills to come over and show you their tried and true routines... Do you have any connection like this?

Please dont take this the wrong way, Im here to help, I have a very similar set-up to yours and will try to answer questions you have.

First of all, why the different size pots? Using the same size pots is a better method, that way the plants are at the same height, will grow more uniform and have the same water and fertilizer requirements... Different size pots will produce different size plants that dry out on different days. Also, you do not need very big pots when using coco (its not like soil)... your ceiling is 7' so you dont need big pots because you cant really grow any big trees or anything too tall.

Next tip is dont use co2 during the end of flowering, it will only hurt the situation... you should keep it below 600 ppm's during the last 2-3 weeks imho. Do have a sensor and regulator for the co2 tank or are you just opening the valve? Do you have your room sealed? A 20 pound tank doesnt seem like it would last long at all in a room that size. Best time to use it is as the nodes are forming imo.

Definitely use the the small boy, your water is not too bad (good compared to most in the bay) but your water contains chloramine and it does not evaporate by letting the water sit over nite like chlorine does. If you dont use the small boy then the chloramine will kill your beneficial bacteria or at least keep them from thriving. Coco is a great home for the beneficial bacteria/fungi and that is a huge part of what makes coco such a good choice when going hydro.

You have the potential to do big things here!! -you should be pumping out 10 packs every 8 weeks like clockwork!


buraka415 said:
- I want to be able to re-use the coco - so I'm inclined to not go w/ the shooting powder. perhaps after 1 cycle I can do some side-by-side experimenting. the store down the road has HydroFarm's Roots Organics Coco mix ( http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=8192) - it does seem to have a lot of stuff great stuff in it - but it seems if the pure coco from canna combined with their nutes & regular tap water - that it will keep things simple. I've tried a variety of different nutes and soils & honestly I'd just like to approach with the K.I.S.S method. I've had a lot of set-backs with soil & really can't afford anything major to go wrong and to affect my yield.

- using distilled water - well, I do have a "Small Boy", but I usually use about 20 gallons to water/feed, and the Small Boy is sooooo damn slow & my water pressure sucks. It takes a LONG ass time to fill up the rez with that. Hence again going with pure coco + Canna nutes, that way I can just use tap water for right now. I tried to do a PPM reading today and last night, I think my Sunleaves TDS meter is FUBAR - its reading 065 on the PPM readout?! that can't be right.

- speaking of using tap water - I live in SF Bay area - check out this table/chart breakdown on their water analysis, specifically the PH reading - http://sfwater.org/Files/FactSheets/SFPUC_WQ_Table_thumb2.jpg - 8.8 average? WTF? but when I test my tap water from the faucet I use with a Hanna PH meter, I get an even 7.0

my lights? that brings up another good question I have been wanting to ask, and it deals with the size of my room, # & Wattage of lights, and how many plants to use to best optimize the space & light output

room dimensions:
- 7ft 6" (H)
- 12ft 6" (W)
- 15ft (L)

using (4) 8ft x 2ft tables

lights:

(9) 1000W HPS Hortilux

my question is this: for many cycles I was instructed and led to believe that maxing out the tables with as many pots as I could fit (which is about 18 - 20 per table with a mix of 3 & 5gal pots) was the way to go. I believe this may not be the best approach, as they always seem so crowded. I have been wanting to experiment with bigger pots, less plants, with the hopes that the yield would be better or comparable to what I've seen. I'd much rather just do like say, 60 plants, in 5gal buckets & get 3oz per plant (which seems doable!). That would be huge. BUT.. I just have not ever tried. Last spring I got some bad genetics from a cloner, and the veg time was just ridiculous. The plants just wouldnt effin grow (a friend of a friend got same genetics from the guy and he experienced the same thing). I wound up putting some of them in what I think are 10gal pots, and one of the girls churned out I think 45gs.. Which is not bad, but not great. I guess I've always been too apprehensive to lower my # of plants down to 50 - 60 b/c I'm not confident I was going to get what I needed.

Now with coco - it seems that I'm going to get some good growth, and I've got another week or two to crunch #'s and do math. I also wonder if given the room dimensions and the wattage I'm using, if that is overkill in terms of lights. What's it about 12 plants per 1000w light?

Plus, I'm using CO2 via 20lb tank + regulator valve. I JUST added this to the equation actually during the last 10 days of my previous cycle (I'm effin desperate :( ) - so I can't say that it helped last round, but I do hope it works for next round.

Thanks

-B415-
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