Fuken Coco!

Huge mistake switching from rockwool to CoCo. I can poor 8 billion gallons of water through with a PH of 5.5 and it still comes out 6.3PH. The sheer amount of water waste is infuriating, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna break my back at some point. 10 plants in 5 gallon buckets, that's 100 gallons of water. Transplanted my best Mango plant from a 2 gallon soil into a 5 gallon Coco.... instant problems. Plant will probably die and diagnosing is impossible. Damn leaves are so dark green and healthy looking, too bad they are all curled up and growth is completely stunted. First and last grow in Coco. Rockwool, twice as good for 1/8th the work. Flood Tables for the win. hand watering 100 gallons run to waste = back breaking fail. Don't listen to the hype. Watering coco is a massive problem.

Don't bash it just cuz you don't know how to use it.

I love coco and will never use anything else.

I would spend less time trying to get your runoff to 5.5 and more time reading. Your runoff is less important than you think and even 6.3 is fine for coco. As it dries the ph will drop. This is a good thing. As your coco dries the ph will fall from 6.3 and as it drops you will hit every range for maximum availability of nutrients.

If you need help just ask, id be happy to answer any questions I can, coco is the shit.

I mean if I pour 4 gallons of water in my Coco buckets, 3 gallons run out. Great for not over-watering but I can't think of another single advantage of Coco over rockwool. With rockwool you can do flood tables and use the same water, with coco you gotta toss it all. Are you hand watering?

Another thing, your fighting the cocos natural "auto buffering" just feed at 5.8-6.3 ph. And eventually your coco will buffer itself for that ph. I do 5.9-6.0

As I said 6.3 is acceptable. Your definately doing more harm than good by flushing with so much water. Huge changes in ppm are stressful to plants. Flushing is necessary but I will explain a better method. Your probably causing ph stress as well as the ph jumps around from your flushing.

If I had to guess, with no pics or info about what's wrong wth your plants, id have to say cal def. Coco has k in it naturally. It binds with and cancels out cal. It also leaches quickly from the coco. I recomend whenever you first mix your coco with water, add some cal mag, I always do it, it binds with some of the k.

The number 1 thing that's gonna go deficient is cal. You always have to add a litle cal mag, that's why coco specific nutes always have more cal in them.

Yes I'm handwatering.

if your doing a lot of plants then handwatering may not be for you. But on the other hand I follow a 20k watt handwatered grow on here.

Coco slabs and drippers on a recirc may be up your alley. Or drain to waste. Easier to keep ph stable.

Id be happy to help any way I can, the best thread I've found is on icmag in the coco forum, its stickied and titled "handwatering coco" or similar, author is bonecarver og

Also look up"let's talk coco slabs and drippers" and the other stickied thread by the same author, if your interested.

What I did to start was made some 6.0 PH rain water. mixed in 20 TSPs of : http://www.amazon.com/Technaflora-MagiCal-2-0-0-1-Liter/dp/B001GBOAU8 Magical. Mix in the Botincare bricks of Coco and soak it for 24 hours. All my new growth looks like ass. See on the budsites here, and they are completely stunted. I've also never seen a plant (Mango) so damn dark green.


OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA by JustAnotherHead, on Flickr

JustAnotherHead said:

I mean if I pour 4 gallons of water in my Coco buckets, 3 gallons run out. Great for not over-watering but I can't think of another single advantage of Coco over rockwool. With rockwool you can do flood tables and use the same water, with coco you gotta toss it all. Are you hand watering?

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Then don't pour 4 fuckin gallons in!

Hey bud another thing coco is hydro so small roots big buds. 5 gal pots is way big. Unless ur growing huge trees.

I used to use 3 gal pots, id grow a 6 month old 5 foot tall jack herer, after harvest, 75% of the coco was unused. Now I use 2 gal pots maximum. I don't really understand y but there is a big difference between a 2 and 3 gal pot, it seems like 2x as much.

I star in 6 inch or 1 gal pots, whatever I have empty, till they sex, then repot and flower.

I'm not familiear with the nutes you use but coco needs lower ppms than ebb and flow or other hydros.

I start seedlings or 1 week olds at 330-350 and go up 50-75ppm a week, maxing out at 550 ppm.

Oh yeah I said id tell yoou a better way to flush, instead of flushing by using tons of water, I feed every other day, and water with plain phd water every other day, always with 20% runoff

I'm using the Humbolt Nutrients 3 Part, MagiCal +, some silica (to deal with temps). Damnnnn! I wish I would have know this about the 5 gallon pots. I'm using Lowes 5 gallon buckets, 2 per plant. The planter with holes all in the bottom sitting in another collecting the run off. I do have some 3 gallon smart pots on the way. I'm gonna use those for the next transplants. Smaller pots would be HUGE for me.

Yeah its actually one of the benefits for me, switching from soil.

I've almost started an instructional here on riu, ppl (including hydro shop workers) are very misguided and misguiding when it comes to coco.

I know ppl that veg in 16 oz cups till they sex em. Its not like soil where there's only so much nutrients so the roots have to spread out to collect enough for the plant to thrive. Its like rockwool kinda, the root mass is there and its a direct injection of nutes. I also feed every other day becasuse altho coco is easily leached with water not all the nutrients are gone in a day, the next day I water pure water phd and it pushes out the old oxygen and old salts, reactivates what nutes are left and pulls in new oxygen. This way I avoid ever doin a conventional flush with 3x water to pot size ratio. I never flush. Just runoff everyday. So I also use 1/2 as many nutes

Botanicare nutes + botanicare aeration formula (50% perlite 50% coco) = great success.

Here is the proof, and yes those are strings holding those heavy buds up. Coco is the shit and i dont see myself using anything else ever again.

I had bad luck with that aeration formula.

Don't know what went wrong. I use botanicare blocks, the big ones.

Can't argue with your results tho!

I love coco.

TheLastWood said:

I had bad luck with that aeration formula.

Don't know what went wrong. I use botanicare blocks, the big ones.

Can't argue with your results tho!

I love coco.

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how often you feed/ water? and ph? very curious.
did u use their nutes as well?

I just explained my method on the first page.

Yeah I use botanicare pure blend pro gro and bloom, cal mag and hydroplex that's it. If I ever have a problem which is rare I use liquid karma or up the cal mag and it fixes it.

TheLastWood said:

I just explained my method on the first page.

Yeah I use botanicare pure blend pro gro and bloom, cal mag and hydroplex that's it. If I ever have a problem which is rare I use liquid karma or up the cal mag and it fixes it.

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Well i discovered that using coco is pretty unique.
The only thing id change about your method is skip using plain water every other day.
Just water, with nutes, every other day, anywhere from 575-700 ppm, 20% run off.
Also i noticed if you're using tap water, to not use calmag, because tap usually has plenty cal and actually will cause calcium toxicity and lockouts from too much cal.
Just fortify your water twice a month with 1/4 tsp p gallon of water magnesium salt (epsom salt) to take care of mag and let the tap its self take care of the cal aspect, it works great.
and i use liquid karma all the way through along with grow but obviously less of it than in veg, which is rather important to keep your crop green the whole time even when harvested.

I'm gonna throw a couple of quick questions out there. Is there anything I can add to the coco to make it hold water slightly better? I mean I have a couple bags of worms castings, a HUGE bag of hydroton, top soil, compost (cow shit), and more perilite. Should I mix some of this in with the coco or does that defeat the purpose of it. Also is it possible for a plant to be too green? Could it mean it's getting to much N?

JustAnotherHead said:

I'm gonna throw a couple of quick questions out there. Is there anything I can add to the coco to make it hold water slightly better? I mean I have a couple bags of worms castings, a HUGE bag of hydroton, top soil, compost (cow shit), and more perilite. Should I mix some of this in with the coco or does that defeat the purpose of it. Also is it possible for a plant to be too green? Could it mean it's getting to much N?

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Vermiculite will retain more than enough water mixed with coco. Old post but saw it wasn't answered.

tryingtogrow89 said:

Botanicare nutes + botanicare aeration formula (50% perlite 50% coco) = great success.

Here is the proof, and yes those are strings holding those heavy buds up. Coco is the shit and i dont see myself using anything else ever again.

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i agree, the Pure Blend Pro is the fuckin shiznit...i quit growing in coco but i still use those nutes in my pro mix....for the price there the best nutes on the market IMHO

Just started in coco as well, using Pure Blend Pro nutrients.

machnak said:

Just started in coco as well, using Pure Blend Pro nutrients.

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I originaly bought em cuz the hydro store guy recomended them to me for coco, after using the grow and bloom....i went back and bought liquid karma, calmag+ and clearex. Grab some clearex for yurself, its cheap and works well...Botanicare developes salt buildup soemtimes so it comes in handy