Experience needed

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Here is an easy way to wash your coco.

Get a 5gal bucket and drill as many holes in the bottom as you can. I even drill holes an inch or two up the side of the bucket.

Pour your coco into the bucket.

Place bucket in tub/shower and run warm, not hot, but warm water through it for 5 mins.
(you could also take it outside and rinse it really well with your hose, warm water isn't needed but I think it helps disolve any salt left over in the coco>what we're trying flush out)

Get another 5 gallon bucket of water, add 200ppm cal/mag and ph it to 5.8.

Pour this slowly through your bucket of rinsed coco.

*coco holds on to cal and mag so it's wise to 'buffer' the medium with some cal/mag after you rinse it. This way the coco will hold on to the cal/mag you supplemented and when you plant your seedling/clone/mature plant into it and water it with nutes the coco doesn't suck out the cal and mag. It's already holding onto some and won't steal it from your normal nutes. If you don't pre-charge your coco with cal/mag you may be fine. Not everyone does. In my experience, when I don't pre-treat the coco like this I usually see a slight cal/mag deficiency within 3-7days, however by that time it has corrected itself through the 200ppm cal/mag I feed them every watering, I just have to look at the damage until I trim those leaves off or they naturally bite the dust. When I pre-charge my medium with cal/mag that 3-7day cal/mag deficiency never appears. It's a result of it's first few feedings>if the coco doesn't have some cal/mag to hold ontop before you plant it, it's going to 'suck' some of it out at first. Like I said, if your supplementing with cal/mag they are usually getting enough by the time you notice the deficiency but charging your coco with cal/mag usually prevents this.
 

Bucees

Well-Known Member
Coco/Perlite mix with perlite rez? right?
then the other thing is...is my objective to basically keep the pot wet and loaded at all times? Im getting mixed understanding of watering everyday and/or using coco so i dont water everyday? wtf
and is coco reusable?
and how often do you think ill be needing to water under leds?
I was talking about drain to waste not hempy. I have used coco in hempy before and it's fine, but I hate waiting for that res to finish dripping. I grow my plants in 3 gallon fabric pots now.

You want to keep a majority coco medium damp. If the plant isn't consuming much then it is rather pointless to feed every day. It's like any other medium. Water when it's being used and don't when it isn't. I'll load a pot up and lift it to measure the full weight. When it gets light I water. Just can't let them dry out. I feed my 3 gallon girls every other day in flower. They do around a half gallon of nutes each day.

Coco is reusable, but it's just so cheap that it isn't worth my time to bother with it. Makes great filler in a garden after i've used it. If you are interested in learning how to reuse it there are several tutorials out there explaining how. I tried back in the day then said to hell with it and bought 20 bags of Canna.

Watering frequency will really be dependent on your particular situation. Heat, humidity level, etc..
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
Here is an easy way to wash your coco.

Get a 5gal bucket and drill as many holes in the bottom as you can. I even drill holes an inch or two up the side of the bucket.

Pour your coco into the bucket.

Place bucket in tub/shower and run warm, not hot, but warm water through it for 5 mins.
(you could also take it outside and rinse it really well with your hose, warm water isn't needed but I think it helps disolve any salt left over in the coco>what we're trying flush out)

Get another 5 gallon bucket of water, add 200ppm cal/mag and ph it to 5.8.

Pour this slowly through your bucket of rinsed coco.

*coco holds on to cal and mag so it's wise to 'buffer' the medium with some cal/mag after you rinse it. This way the coco will hold on to the cal/mag you supplemented and when you plant your seedling/clone/mature plant into it and water it with nutes the coco doesn't suck out the cal and mag. It's already holding onto some and won't steal it from your normal nutes. If you don't pre-charge your coco with cal/mag you may be fine. Not everyone does. In my experience, when I don't pre-treat the coco like this I usually see a slight cal/mag deficiency within 3-7days, however by that time it has corrected itself through the 200ppm cal/mag I feed them every watering, I just have to look at the damage until I trim those leaves off or they naturally bite the dust. When I pre-charge my medium with cal/mag that 3-7day cal/mag deficiency never appears. It's a result of it's first few feedings>if the coco doesn't have some cal/mag to hold ontop before you plant it, it's going to 'suck' some of it out at first. Like I said, if your supplementing with cal/mag they are usually getting enough by the time you notice the deficiency but charging your coco with cal/mag usually prevents this.
Great stuff here squido read and fed to the brain..really appreciate your time typing all of that...So basically the plan IS to stick with hempy for now if im correct on what I want
I basically dont like the idea of watering everday im an( excited lazy grower)..bad combo so anyway adding the coco to the perlite in my understanding will keep my medium damp/wet a tad longer than perlite alone.

So can I achieve the Feed,Water,Half Feed,Water schedule with just adding like 25/75 coco/per? or does that even sound like a good idea?
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
I was talking about drain to waste not hempy. I have used coco in hempy before and it's fine, but I hate waiting for that res to finish dripping. I grow my plants in 3 gallon fabric pots now.

You want to keep a majority coco medium damp. If the plant isn't consuming much then it is rather pointless to feed every day. It's like any other medium. Water when it's being used and don't when it isn't. I'll load a pot up and lift it to measure the full weight. When it gets light I water. Just can't let them dry out. I feed my 3 gallon girls every other day in flower. They do around a half gallon of nutes each day.

Coco is reusable, but it's just so cheap that it isn't worth my time to bother with it. Makes great filler in a garden after i've used it. If you are interested in learning how to reuse it there are several tutorials out there explaining how. I tried back in the day then said to hell with it and bought 20 bags of Canna.

Watering frequency will really be dependent on your particular situation. Heat, humidity level, etc..
Great stuff from you also bucees read and fed to the brain..you and squido both obviously are very wise men on this topic
I rather not feed everyday..and yea the waiting for rez thing was getting to me at one point then I got lazy and gave the plants only enough to fill the rez..and honestly in my experience they grow somewhat fine but im VERY sure not to full health/potential ..but when I see how lush and green and sometimes burn free shots of other hempy buckets on here..I feel even more amateur lol..but I understand ALOT more in these conversations than I have researching myself..thats why I rather just ask sometimes..and now I understand to keep these girls wet < lol and coco helps since im doin hempy..so main objective..feed water 1/2 feed, water etc..every other day atleast..thats the objective..and I hope this coco thing @ only 25% would bring help with the taste even ya think?
 

Bucees

Well-Known Member
I dunno about mediums effecting taste really. I think a lot of flavor issues are solved by a proper dry and cure. Drying/curing I have down to a science so my stuff is always consistent.

The real key to getting those picture perfect flawless plants is low ppm feeding. Start way low and slowly work your way up.
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
I dunno about mediums effecting taste really. I think a lot of flavor issues are solved by a proper dry and cure. Drying/curing I have down to a science so my stuff is always consistent.

The real key to getting those picture perfect flawless plants is low ppm feeding. Start way low and slowly work your way up.
got ya..ill let these 100% perlite grow finish and ill start prepping for coco/perlite mix hempy next
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
I dunno about mediums effecting taste really. I think a lot of flavor issues are solved by a proper dry and cure. Drying/curing I have down to a science so my stuff is always consistent.

The real key to getting those picture perfect flawless plants is low ppm feeding. Start way low and slowly work your way up.
I agree with this completely about dry/cure and lower ppm. Using RO water, in veg I think I will stay at 700ppm, 200 of that being cal.mag. My plants are approx 5-6 weeks old and I I don't think I'll go any higher then that. For an idea, that's 3tsp of Genreal Hydro cal.mag per 5 gallons and that's only about 3tsp(FloranovaGrow) per 5gallons. Gh recommends 1tsp per gallon in early veg and up to 3tsp per gallon in late veg! I can't imagine adding 15tsp per 5 gallons! I think my TDS meter would explode. Just a good example of why you should ignore the label and go by ec or ppm for a reference.

I have always found being patient and slowly increasing their feed no more then 50-100ppm per week and keeping it low produced healthier, more vigorous plants. Your plants will tell you if they want more food. That being said, you don't wan't to run the lowest ppm/ec possible either-that defeats the whole point of hydro in my opinion. I would say a conservative ppm is ideal. I guess I'm stating the obvious but to make things more clear I consider low ppm in veg 500-700. In flower I slowly increase and try to keep it under 1000ppm. I think those are pretty conservative.

Sorry if I'm rambling, this damn kali mist I've been rocking makes it hard to shut up. Seriously, I have to be careful who I smoke it around, I'll just start talking and be on some crazy shit before I realize it. Do you know nasa found ancient ruins on the moon?
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
I agree with this completely about dry/cure and lower ppm. Using RO water, in veg I think I will stay at 700ppm, 200 of that being cal.mag. My plants are approx 5-6 weeks old and I I don't think I'll go any higher then that. For an idea, that's 3tsp of Genreal Hydro cal.mag per 5 gallons and that's only about 3tsp(FloranovaGrow) per 5gallons. Gh recommends 1tsp per gallon in early veg and up to 3tsp per gallon in late veg! I can't imagine adding 15tsp per 5 gallons! I think my TDS meter would explode. Just a good example of why you should ignore the label and go by ec or ppm for a reference.

I have always found being patient and slowly increasing their feed no more then 50-100ppm per week and keeping it low produced healthier, more vigorous plants. Your plants will tell you if they want more food. That being said, you don't wan't to run the lowest ppm/ec possible either-that defeats the whole point of hydro in my opinion. I would say a conservative ppm is ideal. I guess I'm stating the obvious but to make things more clear I consider low ppm in veg 500-700. In flower I slowly increase and try to keep it under 1000ppm. I think those are pretty conservative.

Sorry if I'm rambling, this damn kali mist I've been rocking makes it hard to shut up. Seriously, I have to be careful who I smoke it around, I'll just start talking and be on some crazy shit before I realize it. Do you know nasa found ancient ruins on the moon?
Yes and there's supposedly a pyramid on mars also ...with a sphinx sorta ...and the moon thing has the "tower of babel" it's like a 100ft tower they say nasa keeps hidden in imagery ...I go hard on this stuff ;)
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
I agree with this completely about dry/cure and lower ppm. Using RO water, in veg I think I will stay at 700ppm, 200 of that being cal.mag. My plants are approx 5-6 weeks old and I I don't think I'll go any higher then that. For an idea, that's 3tsp of Genreal Hydro cal.mag per 5 gallons and that's only about 3tsp(FloranovaGrow) per 5gallons. Gh recommends 1tsp per gallon in early veg and up to 3tsp per gallon in late veg! I can't imagine adding 15tsp per 5 gallons! I think my TDS meter would explode. Just a good example of why you should ignore the label and go by ec or ppm for a reference.

I have always found being patient and slowly increasing their feed no more then 50-100ppm per week and keeping it low produced healthier, more vigorous plants. Your plants will tell you if they want more food. That being said, you don't wan't to run the lowest ppm/ec possible either-that defeats the whole point of hydro in my opinion. I would say a conservative ppm is ideal. I guess I'm stating the obvious but to make things more clear I consider low ppm in veg 500-700. In flower I slowly increase and try to keep it under 1000ppm. I think those are pretty conservative.

Sorry if I'm rambling, this damn kali mist I've been rocking makes it hard to shut up. Seriously, I have to be careful who I smoke it around, I'll just start talking and be on some crazy shit before I realize it. Do you know nasa found ancient ruins on the moon?
But yes...this ppm stuff if freakin me out..like I said my meter claims 200ppms when I do my regular feeding of 4ml each of the base ...I can't imagine 500-700! Then again I've only grown 2 strains so far perlite hempy and they both can't take over the 4ml each base...is this even normal numbers to a gallon?
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Every fertilizer is different. I go by ppm. 200ppm is like nothing though. My tap water is 230ppm and I used that for a long time with my fertilizer. I add JUST 200ppm cal/mag to my RO with feeding.

So if you have a meter it may either need to be calibrated or replaced.

OR

The other possibility is your perlite is just drying way to quickly and everytime you water, no mater what the strength, salt builds up. The perlite dries before the roots can absorb all the nutrients and salt builds up each time, eventually resulting in burned plants. Maybe that's why they can't take over 200ppm

My plants would hate me if I only fed them 200ppm.
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
So if you were going full, full, water, full, full, water then yeah, maybe 200ppm sounds right since there would always be a little left behind, maybe it accumulates and 200ppm is the sweet spot where nutes stay ok.

HAVE YOU EVER CHECKED YOUR RUN OFF? If not I bet your run-off would be way higher then 200ppm, and in all perlite what's going in should in theory come out. That would be a good way to tell if that is what was happening. So if salt is building up then the ppm of your run-off should be higher and that will give you a more accurate idea of what the ppm is in the resevior. I bet thats it because like I said, 200ppm is like nothing.

(I would like to point out buccess was right, in coco that is not always the case with run-off. Say you put in 200ppm, as long as the run-off comes out within reason of that it's okay. It's going to fluctuate depending on how much the plant is drinking but within say 100ppm range from what you put in is ok)
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
G
So if you were going full, full, water, full, full, water then yeah, maybe 200ppm sounds right since there would always be a little left behind, maybe it accumulates and 200ppm is the sweet spot where nutes stay ok.

HAVE YOU EVER CHECKED YOUR RUN OFF? If not I bet your run-off would be way higher then 200ppm, and in all perlite what's going in should in theory come out. That would be a good way to tell if that is what was happening. So if salt is building up then the ppm of your run-off should be higher and that will give you a more accurate idea of what the ppm is in the resevior. I bet thats it because like I said, 200ppm is like nothing.

(I would like to point out buccess was right, in coco that is not always the case with run-off. Say you put in 200ppm, as long as the run-off comes out within reason of that it's okay. It's going to fluctuate depending on how much the plant is drinking but within say 100ppm range from what you put in is ok)
Good stuff...I will be watering tonight and checking runoff and report back and let you know how I'm looking...I'll do it with my hopefully not broke ppmeter
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
Cool, keep us posted.
ok so I didnt water last night..and I just watered and I surely forgot to get runoff...but good thing out of all this is..today was start the flush day anyway..so..Ill dial in better from the start with the new set..also I have some Cataract kush clones in some hempy solo cups and I just watered one of the three clones with Club Soda to see if it has any affect over a week time o_O
 

Squidbilly

Well-Known Member
Cool, I've heard of the club soda thing let us know if it helps you out.

Did you ever pick up some coco? Are you rocking a perlite coco mix?
 

6 Leaf General

Well-Known Member
Cool, I've heard of the club soda thing let us know if it helps you out.

Did you ever pick up some coco? Are you rocking a perlite coco mix?
No coco yet..will do the coco perlite mix on my next round...the thread was initially referring to my 100% perlite hempy girls that are just about finished/flushing stage ...but I was getting intel for my future grow that I'm now considering the coco with ...and yea I took a pic of the clone so I can have a before and after shot after a week and I'll be able to tell also by the size comparison to the other cuts with the club soda
 

TexasHank

Well-Known Member
lol i hope thats the case man thanks for the reply..ever noticed the difference with flushing with an agent or not?
Like Clearex?

It's been a long time since I tried one, but, I remember the plants yellowing earlier with max dose of clearex..

I have noticed that herb that i feed perfectly tastes smoother and better than herb that gets over fed and shows signs of burn..

I like to keep nice healthy green leaves up until harvest.. In soilless mix (coco) I feed about 1/2 strength with Dyna Gro 9-3-6.. I do water, feed, water, feed, etc.. So, alternating plain ph'd water and nutrient solution at 1/2 strength.. When the plant is all green and well fed I cut the feed even lower..

IMO, flushing near the end has become popular because so many people over feed their plants.. ESPECIALLY near the end of flower..

The plant uses tons of N early in flower... all of that stretching takes a lot of N.. After stretch, the need for nutes goes way down.. Developing buds do not use tons of nutes.. the plant growing 3-4x larger in the first 3 wks does..

By mid wk 5.. my plants only need fed 2 times ro so at 1/2 strength..
 
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TexasHank

Well-Known Member
I'm not an expert on micros so i stick with tap water.
I foilar feed and spray with fresh water at least once a week.
I supplement my res with dolomite lime and on occasion some plant ash to up the micros but only to a point of ph balancing the res.
I do flood and drain in tables filled with lava rock and clay gravel.
Interesting.. you use lime in your res to buffer?

I know a lot of folks use it in peat mix to bring up the ph, working against the acidic peat, but I have never heard of using it in a res.. cool shit. Does it work well?
 

bird mcbride

Well-Known Member
It's like this. I can ph balance the res with dolomite lime; and a little plantash(if required).
A bag of dolomite lime will last a couple years in a 1kw hps HID grow where bottled ph conditioners...well it seems everytime a person turns around they need another bottle.
IMO, making too many trips to the hydro store can turn into a heat score.
I have recently turned to the low density rockwool that comes in bales and can be purchased from a lumberyard. It's more cumbersome to use but it works and a bale should do me for a couple years:)
Even with new hydrorock, the medium has to be thoroughly cleaned before it's used to avoid ph fluctuation problems..
 
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