Please Help, Beginning of 3rd Weed Veg

Elliesdaddy said:

What do you mean when they altarnate?

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Thedillestpickle said:

Don't put them into flower. Its not a good idea to put your plants into flower unless they are healthy and you have everything dialed down, so that you don't run into any problems during flower. You dont want any issues with your plants in flower because this will slow bud production and hurt yeild. If you going to stress your plants at all you should do it during veg.

Your plants are going to die within the next week or so unless:
You go buy some coco specific nutrients a pH meter and preferably even a ppm pen
You may not have known this but what your growing in is not soil
its a soilless medium called coco-coir and it is treated exactly like hydroponics. All of the nutrients the plants get will be given them in the feed water, there are no nutrients available to your little plants in this medium
this means you need to add all of the nutrients into the coco with the feed water, unlike soil where the nutrients are in the soil.
So what you need to do is, get yourself a pH pen, a ppm meter, some calibration solution for both as well as storage solution, and a line of hydro nutrients specially formulated for coco. There aren't alot of coco specific nutrient lines, I only know of House and Garden Cocos A+B and Canna Coco A+B. either of those are high end high quality nutrients. The good news is that coco produces better yeilds than soil(or so most people will claim). The bad news is you gotta get that stuff pretty quick cause your plants wont last very long in that medium with no nutirents. And your also going to have to spend some money getting that stuff.
You will also need some pH Down, to adjust pH. I also recommed getting a silicate product to use as a pH UP, I use Pro-Tekt pro silicate for my pH up(I only need pH up if I add too much pH down and need to correct).
I also recommend getting a small plastic syringe for measuring out exact ml of nutrients, a small medicine syringe works or if your hydro shop has a larger plastic syringe they will probably throw that in for free with the other stuff.

Let your tap water sit out for 24 hours between waterings to evaporate the chlorine, then mix in your nutrients, you should be aiming for around 400ppm at this early stage. As with any other form of hydroponic growing you should aim for a pH of 5.8 anything much higher or lower will lead to deficiencies

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Elliesdaddy said:

Thanks fam, how do i know which ph supliments are usable with coco coir? i knew they were coco beans but i thought it still had nutrients in as the coco website says there is enough soil in them to grow 2 harvests

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Thedillestpickle said:

yup thats what you need right there, though thats a bit of a cheap one, ive been told they break usually within a year if you get the cheap ones, but itll do the trick. Id suggest getting House&Garden nutrients, they have a nutrient line specifically formulated for growing in coco, you wont need anything else other than water ph down and the base nutes. It's quite a bit more work than simply watering soil, but soil often has its own issues to deal with. This way is kinda fun anyways and gives you an idea how to run hydro, youll have enough experience after this to try an ebb and flow or DWC or other hydro setup if your into it.

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Elliesdaddy said:

+ i have some ace of buds, it's for the flowering stage but should i add some anyway just to put some nutrients in till i can get some ph up + down?

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Thedillestpickle said:

pH down will most likely be what youll need to use

What you do is this

fill a large container, a 5 gallon pale works well with regular tap water

let the tap water sit at room temperature uncovered for 24 hours to allow chlorine to evaporate

add your coco nutes until you have a ppm of 400. You will raise the ppm to 800 or 900 over the next couple of weeks but start off at only 400 or youll hurt the seedlings

check the pH of your solution and adjust by adding small amounts of pH down until you acheive a pH of 5.8

Your nutrient solution is now ready

For hydroponics a pH meter is a must. You can get away without using a ppm pen but they arent that expensive and it takes the guesswork out. To mix your nutrients without a ppm pen you will have to calculate how many ml of nutrients to add to your water to acheive the desired strength. You will also have to compensate for the ppm's already present in your tap water. You can do this, but I find its much more accurate to use the ppm pen

now your nutrient solution is ready, before I water I like to whisk the solution with an egg beater for a few minutes to bring air into the water. Oxygen dissolved into water is very important for plants roots and is the reason why hydroponics works so well.

Slowly pour the solution onto the coco and allow for 20-30% runoff. You can prop the pots up onto a milk crate and have a bucket under the milk crate to catch the runoff, or something similar to that.

With coco you can and should water quite frequently. Unlike most soil mixes, coco has very good drainage and watering frequently will not cause as much problems as with soil. I recommend watering every 2 or 3 days for now. as the plants get bigger you can start watering more frequently as they will be using more water. Never let the coco becoming completely dry throughout or your roots will dry out and die, but do not water constantly as you will drown the roots. The time in between waterings allows air to seep into the coco and provide much needed oxygen to the plants roots

If you go longer between waterings ensure you have more runoff around 30% if you water at shorter intervals you don't need to have as much runoff and 10% should be good.

You should try to get all this happening as soon as possible, your plants wont last forever with just water.

Can you tell me the NPK of the bloom nutrient you have? If there is no Nitrogen at all then I don't suggest you try using it. If there is at least some Nitrogen in the nutrient then you can use it at very low doses to hold them off until you get the proper nutrients. Is the bloom nutrient a hydoponic formula? I don't suggest you use it if it is not meant to be used for hydroponics.

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Elliesdaddy said:

+ I am considering getting some perlite but i want to learn the in's and outs first
https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-pics/images/1698/1_albopshot_24082008_04.jpg
That link is a picture of perlite being used with cannabis plants
Is that how it is ment to be or is that too much perlite?
PS how do you know when the soil (coco medium) is dry + in need of watering if it is covered in so much perlite?

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Thedillestpickle said:

dont use the ace of buds

Your still missing NUTRIENTS!

you add nutrients to water until you have the right ppm then you adjust the pH with pH up or down... pH up and pH down don't feed your plants... You need to give them nutrients! I recommend House and Garden Cocos A+B

I'm really expecting your plants will be dead by the time you order that and it all arrives. if you have a hydro store near you go there and buy it now

I'm amazed your plants are still alive lol

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