Idiots Guide To Coco Coir

dudes...i have sum nirvana ak48 in coco coir/perlite...i just fed them some maxicrop liquid seaweed...theyr a week old...

Ok so I'm new to coco and had a couple questions.
I have some coco that I just hydrated and am getting ready to transplant the 4 afgan mazar seeds that I have in soil in cups. these next buckets are 2 gal and will be used to sex the plant before final homes in 15 gals. Do I need to rehydrate the coco to a ph at or below 6 or can I put the plants in it and water them in with the lower ph water. The instructions didn't mention anything about ph ing the h2o the first time and my water runs about 6.6-6.4.

I also have a few clones that I wanted to move into coco that are currently in 2 gals and have been for say two weeks maybe less. And if possible I'd like to just switch the mediums in the pots for the most part. What are your thoughts

MaintMan said:

Ok so I'm new to coco and had a couple questions.
I have some coco that I just hydrated and am getting ready to transplant the 4 afgan mazar seeds that I have in soil in cups. these next buckets are 2 gal and will be used to sex the plant before final homes in 15 gals. Do I need to rehydrate the coco to a ph at or below 6 or can I put the plants in it and water them in with the lower ph water. The instructions didn't mention anything about ph ing the h2o the first time and my water runs about 6.6-6.4.

I also have a few clones that I wanted to move into coco that are currently in 2 gals and have been for say two weeks maybe less. And if possible I'd like to just switch the mediums in the pots for the most part. What are your thoughts

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Did you just hydrate the Coco or rinse it......if you just hydrated and didn't rinse then go back and rinse it with 2-3 times the amount of Coco in water, preferably warm water because the point of rinsing is to rid the Coco of excess salt, if there is any, so warm water will do it faster.

Afterwards yes you will have to then correct the PH of the Coco by dumping another 2-3 times the amount of Coco in water (non-chlorinated and 5.5-5.8 PH) through the Coco again.

Then check the runoff after you have dumped the water through and it should be relatively close to what you set the water to. As long as the PH is at 6.0 or under you should be good, anything above that wouldn't work well with Coco.



As for the switching from soil (or I assume your using soil but you didn't say) to Coco that can be done but you won't be able to fully remove every bit of soil and also it will shock your plants for sure because the PH difference. Its up to you but if you want to you can take a 5 gal bucket filled with warm non-chlorinated water, take the plant out of the bucket and dip it up and down in the warm water to get all the soil off and the remaining root ball you could throw into coco. Like I said though you won't be able to get all the dirt off and there might still be things in it (while the Coco it would be going to is inert) so you might not know where to start nutrient wise because you won't know what is left in the soil and what came out.

Azadeh said:

Aloha!
I don't know what I did, but one of my seedlings first set of true leaves are getting yellow, it happened during night. I might have over watered. But I am not sure. I pretty much soaked the coco in water until water run from the bottom out. They were green and healthy in the rock wool and then I planted them in one liter coco. At that point I checked the PH for the first time, it was 7.5 (I did not have meter before) and I changed it to 6.5. Can that be a reason why they got yellow? Did they get stressed?
I have been giving them 0.25 ml/l Ionic nutes all the time.
Please help!
Thanks

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Flush the plant with ph 5.5 water. Then feed them 1/2 strength nutes ph'ed at 5.5-6.0. Any higher or lower will start slowing growth and showing signs of stress. Also, coco retains calcium so if your not using a calmag suppliment, it will be calcium and trace mineral defficient. Especially if your using distilled water. Some tap water has these trace elements, you'll need to have knowledge of. Or just use calmag suppliment anyway.
Also you should flush your babies once a week with at least ph 5.5 water, you may also use a flush solution your nute company may have.
Hey and once your plants root out of the plug,(rockwool or tree bark) and into the coco, the wetter you keep them, the faster they grow, just like a bubbler, takes a little practice to understand them, but just follow the basics for coco and you will look like a pro.
PS Your coco needs to be at least 15%-20% perlite to prevent over watering.

huffypuffy said:

Flush the plant with ph 5.5 water. Then feed them 1/2 strength nutes ph'ed at 5.5-6.0. Any higher or lower will start slowing growth and showing signs of stress. Also, coco retains calcium so if your not using a calmag suppliment, it will be calcium and trace mineral defficient. Especially if your using distilled water. Some tap water has these trace elements, you'll need to have knowledge of. Or just use calmag suppliment anyway.
Also you should flush your babies once a week with at least ph 5.5 water, you may also use a flush solution your nute company may have.
Hey and once your plants root out of the plug,(rockwool or tree bark) and into the coco, the wetter you keep them, the faster they grow, just like a bubbler, takes a little practice to understand them, but just follow the basics for coco and you will look like a pro.
PS Your coco needs to be at least 15%-20% perlite to prevent over watering.

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DRIP CLEAN HELPS!!!!

is it safe to reuse coco coir? really want to...had gnats, killed them and wanna reuse the coco....safe thing to do????

please let me know ASSAP its almost time to move them!

peace and happiness.

coco is cooler.

hahahahaha

Hey All ,,,, I'm on my 2nd grow with 100% coco... I'm using these pots called autopots that are gravity feed from my res,,the system does not involve recycling the water/nutes,,the plant decides when its thirsty and lets in more ... the nutrients ((advanced nutrients )) are at half strength and the ph is around 6.3..
I have veged these plants for 5 weeks or so and they have been flowering for 3 1/2 wks,, all I have done is top up the res,,not changed it during that time... they are under 2 x 600w hps lights and seem to be doing fine... I'm trying to follow the KISS ((keep it simple stoner)) principle with this grow...here they are

if your not watering every day u ant got enough light

Azadeh said:

Hi guys, I have just started my first grow in coco coir. I first germinated them in rock wool and when they had roots coming out of the bottom I moved them to coco. I wonder how much and how often I should give them nutes. They are 14 days old. I have Ionic grow as nute. Thanks!

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just wondering, do you take them out of the rock wool for planting in coco, or do you just sorta bury the rock wool in the coco mix? im wanting to do a coco/soil/perlite mix up for outdoors pots, (i do hydro with wool indoors) and am thinking about cloning and what medium to use for the cloning cheers!

always propogated in the same medium to be used. thinkin the less stress the better, and transplant just once. coco is a different beast, one in its own, and must be treated as such. its not quote soil, not quite hydro either.

coco does retain water like a spnge as you know if use it and over watering is less of an issue, although it can happen. the food also gets sponged in so constant feeding, thats the correlation to hydro really, thats all..

the coco is just something for the roots to wrap around. high H20 sotrage and superb drainage.

i was wondering on CNS17 did you use both grow and bloom? if so what was the ratio/schedule?

Hello everyone. I am so glad to find this thread. I have started to use coco/ perlite with a 70/30 mix in autopots. It has been done before with success by more experienced growers than me. After 15 days in the coco the plants seem to be healthy but maybe not growing fast enough. Normally in this system I don't have runoff since it is bottom fed.
My question for the experts is this: Can PH be properly tested using a method similar to soil? By that I mean mixing 1 part coco sample with 3-4 parts ph neutral water and testing the mix.
Does anyone know? I have tried it this way and the PH appears to be in the 6.5- 6.8 range.

Wats up ppl? got a lil coco grow goin at the min as an experiment. GREAT thread . subbed. peace out

should you flush using coco beofre harevest? as much so as if soil?

well, flushing, why not.........right?

So Coco is like growing in soil but you have to be accurate with feeding and PH?

Is it really this easy: Bucket with holes in, run of catcher, coco, ph tester, ph down and nutrients?

I found with my young plants that they would stay moist and the coco would dry out very slow. I bought clones from the dispencorys and they were in differnt mediums 16ozs of soil would keep the whole 5 gallon nurcery pot heavy for 3 WEEKS.I changed how I was watering (about a pint and a half at a time)for a few weeks and my growth rates exploded now they are big enough that they are drying out so i'm going to have to start watering till run off again.The pots took forever to dry out so I lightly watered around the brim of the pot 1 1/2 pints everyday or two untill the center of the soil could finally dry out I think this helped alot. next time ill do my own clones so I dont have to deal with soil at all.

My grows in coco straight

View attachment 1219511I also use straight coco with CNS17 here r results WWidow,ArmageddonView attachment 1219508