complete coco noob needs some clarification

[spencetron]

Id like to start a straight coco grow from seed (hand watering) but I've done hours and hours of research but I still have a few questions. I've looked pretty extensively through this forum, but I just want to make sure I work out some of the details before I go though with this.

I know that coco is completely barren of nutrients and it is advisable to add ca/mg to it. Now how exactly do I do this? Since it has no nutes, will Botanicare pro Grow, Bloom, and Liquid Karma suffice throughout the plants life? Or would it be better to use "Technaflora's recipe for success" kit? When do I use them and how much? Coco-specific nutrients are rather pricey. So it would be nice if I could get away with conventional nutes.

I've heard you need to flush it with ph balanced water to get the salts out, isn't simple distilled/spring water balanced? I don't exactly have anything to measure PH yet, is it imperative I get something?

Is coco friendly to seedlings? I know seedlings like nute-free media, so wouldnt coco be a great media for seedlings before the addition of nutes? Or do seedlings actually like a little nutrition to start off? If so, what should I add?

How often should I transplant? I'm only going to 1gal pots so I'm thinking I only have to do it once. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

Would the addition of mycorrhiza benefit the plants at all in coco?

Any other coco tips are welcome! Thank you everybody for reading, and please help!

 

[swampdank]

from what i gather, you would use those nutes at around half strength so they arent ASA expensive as they seem.

 

[bambam]

Hey man nice to have you in the coco world! It's for sure a very nice way to grow. I am on my 1st coco grow ATM. I used Botanicare pro grow and bloom w/ LKarma(in veg). I am using Kool bloom with my bloom reg. I can tell you how i am doing to help but its just a outline. You should take what i give you and adjust it a bit to your plants as they will tell you what they need.

1. I get the pressed bale of coco. Break it up and wet it down with a 5ml per gallon solution of calmag.

2.I then press out the water and load it up in my 1gallon pots(clean your pots). Ready to plant in.

3.For my seedlings and clones (clone and seedlings are done in RWcubes 1inch) I use 10ml of PBP per gallon and 5ml LK per gallon(tap water). Works like a charm. Gives me a ppm around 500-600.

4.Vegg plants get tap water and 15-20ml of PBP grow with 5ml of LK. PPM of 1100-1000 and i dont go over that ever. See no need to go higher.

5.Flower 15-20ml per gallon PBP blom and 5ml of kool bloom. 1100-1000ish.


I hand feed and I like it. Run to waste. 10%run off and you should be good. 1 time a day and thats all. Simple but it's working. So i hope this helps a bit. Let you know how it ends up when i get done.

20 days in and i am looking at this. Should be good. Like the coco!

 

[Tony Danza]

Ive seen two very simple, and very effective coco recipes in this forum. One is the "H3ed" formula or "The Recipe". H3ad formula uses 6ml of GH flora micro and 9ml flora bloom per gallon basically all the way through from vedge to flush, with a 3ml increase in bloom during peak flowering, no additives whatsoever. The Recipe is basically the same only 7ml of Kool Bloom liquid is added during peak flowering instead of 3ml bloom. Both of these regimens support excellent growth and finished product for very low cost. I used this formula for my first coco run and yielded a half pound of good herb with a nutrient cost under $10. Read the "H3ad goes coco" thread at the top of this sub forum or "the Recipe" thread in the Reservoir Seeds forum for details. One of the benefits of this technique is that little runoff is required and the low nute concentrations allow you to skip the weekly flushings that some regimens require.

The other very simple coco nute is the canna coco a+b 5 ml per gallon system. This also can be run all the way to flush with no problems. I have never tried this myself, but I believe all the plants in Zoolander's(leonidas) zoo cage were grown with this formula and the results speak for themselves.

Neither of these methods require the addition of cal/mag, unless you are using RO water. Although it is a good practice to break up your brick with a little cal/mag solution like bambam said.

People get some nice results with many other nutes systems as well, but these two seem to be the most beginner friendly. Botanicare makes some good products that people use to grow some nice plants, I tried it and to me it was a little more finicky than the GH, it seems to lend it self to the additive merry go round. I can't think of a thread on IC where someone was using Pureblend as a stand alone nutrient without having to add Liquid Karma, Sweet, Cal/Mag or some other product, and those get expensive. Not to denigrate their products, I've got 5 different bottles of Botanicare stuff in my cupboard right now.

As far as seedlings and cutting goes, start with 1/2 or 1/4 strength nutes and work you way up to full strength, if you plants are healthy, you should be up to full strength after only a handful of feedings.

peace and have fun with the coco, it rocks.

 

[bambam]

Coco does rock mr.Danza! Nice post. As for the botonicare PBP being one that you kinda need to use additives with.........I can say i feel the same way about it. GH flora or nova no but the pbp line yea its needed. Thats why i got me some CNS17 to mess around with. Said to be a "COCO" nute so i will give it a shot next time in the coco.Hell i am going to use it in my DWC buckets also.

 

[Tony Danza]

on ph

on ph

I spent a bunch of money on a PH monitor, now I hardly ever use it. Unless your tapwater is subject to big ph swings, the same nutes will give the same PH every time. So you could probably get away with a simple test kit to start with, once you get a good grasp of what your nutes do to your water, you should only have to check PH occasionally or when you change your formula.

A PH between 5.7 and 6.2 seems to work well for coco. Although if you are consistantly feeding at 6 to 6.2 you might want to occasionally feed at 5.7 or 5.8 just to make sure the low PH elements get a chance to uptake. And vice versa. Some people will say that PH swings are bad for the plant, but I've never seen a problem with an occasional 4 tenths swing.

Start with the cheap test kit and upgrade later if you need to, you might save yourself $100.

 

[spencetron]

I don't even drink my tap water, let alone feed it to my girls. Spring water should be fine, right? I really need to pick up some ph indicator.

Ive taken a look a GH products, and I think I'll go with them. But I'm seeing a bunch of 3 packs with flora gro, bloom, and micro. Is gro just unnecessary for use with coco? I'm definitely going to pick up some calmag to flush the coco with too.

Tony- I just read H3ed's thread, did he stick to using nutrient water every other watering like the lucas formula? Ive heard you should water coco every day, because it shouldn't ever get dry, and because its nearly impossible to over water. Is nutrient water every other day too much?

What does 'run to waste' mean exactly...?

 

[~fvk~]

So you refuse to use tap huh? If I told you that plain tap water or diluted tap water eliminates the need for cal/mag, would you change your mind? Unless your spring water comes from my faucets, it's not going to cut it without the Cal/Mag. But anyways, have fun with Cal/Mag, if that's where you're going.

No, you don't want to water everyday. It all depends on how big your plant's roots are and how big your container is. For seedlings and clones, I use dixie cups and raise the light a little. Smaller containers is the key, especially for seedlings and clones. I've even cut them in half and still got some fucking amazing results like you wouldn't believe. As far as feeding seedlings or whatever, I just use plain undiluted tap water until the cotyledons start eating themselves. There's no point in feeding it beforehand unless it needs it. The plant isn't going to get it's ass in gear any quicker when giving it stuff it's not hungry for yet.

Run to waste is watering until you get at least 10% run off and disposing of the waste.

But yeah, Head's formula and GH nutes both win it for simplicity and effectiveness. With Head's formula you only use the Micro and Bloom. You'll of course need to adjust the strength to your plants need... If you got over your tap water phobia that would pretty much be all you need, keeping it very simple, which I would highly recommend. At least for the first time around, ya know?

 

[spencetron]

My tap water has a ridiculous amount of chlorine in it, its like diluted pool water. I could probably leave some out for the chlorine to dissipate, it still freaks me out though. I guess you can call it a phobia. But if it means saving me $15 on a bottle of cal/mag, I'm game.

 

[straight reggie]

Ive seen two very simple, and very effective coco recipes in this forum. One is the "H3ed" formula or "The Recipe". H3ad formula uses 6ml of GH flora micro and 9ml flora bloom per gallon basically all the way through from vedge to flush, with a 3ml increase in bloom during peak flowering, no additives whatsoever.

hol up, where is this extra 3ml during peak flowering coming from. so your saying 6ml micro 12ml bloom during peak flowering.

this is takin from head's thread

I use 6ml/gallon GH flora micro and
9ml/gallon GH flora Bloom

1/2 strength for seedlings and freshly rooted clones

Full strength from the beginning of Veg until they begin bud formation
then

9ml/gallon GH flora bloom up until 2 weeks prior to harvest

Then plain water to finish.

 

[Tony Danza]

Letting your water sit out overnight should solve the chlorine issue, (the chlorine will actually benefit you in the cloning stage as it keep pathogens off the cutting the the first day or two). Water hardness can be more of a problem than chlorine, that "spring water" from the store often has more impurities than tap water.

I'm gonna have to disagree with FVK on the water frequency issue, there's people watering there coco 3 times a day on this site with great results. True, when plants are small and lacking a well developed root structure, you can lay off the water a little bit, and when a small plant is in a big pot without roots throughout the media, too much watering can give you a rot issue. But growing in 1 gallon pots watering every day is the way to go. IMHO the biggest benefit of coco over soil is that you CAN water every day and reap the benefits of fresh oxygen to the roots every day. You will probably find out that your one gallon pots will NEED watering multiple times a day when the plants get big anyway.

You want to include nutrients with every watering in coco, unless you are flushing before harvest.

With H3ad formula you can water to a very minimal runnoff (just barely dripping) because you ppm is only in the 600s. This is nice because you don't have to incorporate a drain system into your grow, the puddle is usually dried up the next day if you have good airflow.

Reggie: It is (or was) a few pages into H3ad's thread where he describes upping the bloom 3ml for a week or two before he drops the micro out of the mix a few weeks before dropping the bloom and beginning the flush. It seems like hes was adjusting his technique as he was documenting the grow. I'm much too lazy to find quotes of it as I read that thread waaaaaay too many times during my first coco run. I do recommend reading that thread at least through the end of the Orient Express grow that he starts with, he has a lot of valuable insights on coco in there.

later

 

[bambam]

1. If its your first coco grow and you have no other growing under your belt. USE TAP!

2. I use larger than 1g pots and i water everyday.

3. Do whatever you want and post the results.

4. If you come into a forum and ask ? expect people to tell you what they do. Hell thats just how we learn.

5. Good luck and you will do good if you run any of the ways listed above. ITS HARD TO KILL A PLANT.


Be safe and dont tell. KEYS to a good grow.

 

[~fvk~]

I suppose I could have worded that a little better. I told the guy not to water everyday because he's talking about seedlings and I overwatered the shit out of my seedlings when I first started in coco. Getting off on the wrong foot sucks and I know how it feels. But yeah, my original point still stands and is pretty much the end all... The frequency of waterings all depend on the size of your roots and the size of your container.

But yeah, Tony gave you some good info. Feeding single/multiple feedings daily takes full advantage of coco's benefits. I'm feeding twice daily in 1 gallons in flower at the moment and my girls are straight up monsters. Before a transplant they were all in 6" squares and it got to the point of where twice daily wouldn't have been enough. It didn't take long to have to work it back up to multiples though, maybe a week and a half TOPS...

But other than all that, do you have hard or soft water? If you have soft water, forget about using it. If you don't, you need to find out the PPMs of your water. If you have a hydro store near you and don't want to shell out a whole 15 bucks on Elame for a TDS meter, go there and ask them to test it for you. Btw, have any idea what kind of coco you're looking into using?

But yeah, everyone's added some good info/advice in this thread for you. Take everything that you can to the dome and you'll be gliding through the shit in no time. Sometimes it's hard to sift through all the shit and determine what's true/what isn't and what's useful/what isn't. So if you got questions, just ask them...

 

[spencetron]

Thanks everybody, you guys are a HUGE help.

I have hard-ish water. Its certainly not anywhere near soft though. I think I'm going to use sunleaves brand coco brick. But I may go with botanicare cocogro brick.

 

[tobaaaac]

I never flush my Botanicare Coco Gro. I just hydrate it with plain water. Then, I feed the H3ad's formula or use the spreadsheet that spits out nutrient profiles for any nutrients to calculate something really close. The lucas formula thread in the Hydro forum will explain a whole lot of what H3ad used to calculate his nutrient profile. Just remember that all of the information that lucas provides specifically pertains to his experience in grow rocks and DWC. These methods don't employ a medium that accumulates nutrients the way coco does, so the numbers given are generally high. I read that he feels like in coco, his formula adjusted to an appropriate ppm does work. I've seen him recommend feeding his formula at 1/3 strength every feeding or full strength every third feeding. The H3ad's formula is a redesign of the lucas formula that has a more functional nutrient profile for coco, based on his experience.

 

[Dee9]

On Mycorrhiza

On Mycorrhiza

Would the addition of mycorrhiza benefit the plants at all in coco?

Yes, as long as you dont run a system where you have a lot of run-off - you might wash them away.

Mycorrhiza needs roots to live. A symbiotic relationship with the plant roots exists, where the mycorrhiza supplies the plant with needed nutrients and the plant supplies the mycorrhiza with nutrients. The mycorrhiza acts like extentions of the roots. Almost like a hunting dog. You feed the dog, the dog feeds you.
Not that I condone hunting.

Mycorrhiza are aerobic - coco is a very good medium for their survival. As long as you dont use a run to waste system.

have a look here at the organic hydro guys' forum:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=5690

 

[godspeedsuckah]

There is alot of great information on this site and I really appreciate it. This is my first grow with coco and so far I do like it better than soil. I mixed in peralite, worm castings, alfalfa meal and bone meal with my coco. I am growing in 5 gallon pots because I want to try re-veg on my females, weed out the problem ones and then clone. I am finding that even with 5 gallon pots I need to water every day or the plants start to wilt. Does anyone else have this issue?

 

[spencetron]

My coco, ph indicator, ph up/down, and Gh nutes came in the mail friday, and I transplanted my 2.5 week old plants from 16oz cups (in soil) to coco, carefully removing as much soil as possible from the root ball. I mixed in some mycorrhiza and humic acid also. in just 3 days, the plants just exploded with growth. They probably doubled in size. I need to pick up some epsom salt though, one of my plants appears to have a mild mg deficiency.

 

[Dee9]

Epson salts

Epson salts

I need to pick up some epsom salt though, one of my plants appears to have a mild mg deficiency.

lo brother, be carefull with epson salts! you could help your plants from a mild deficiency to a sudden and violent death! Ok, not that bad, but you could burn them.

Have a look at H3ad goes coco (sticky) - search that for epson salts - he has experience with it - my only experience is the time I burned my plants with it.

Good growing brother.

 

[godspeedsuckah]

I agree with Dee9 on Epsom Salts, I have had a problem using that before. I had a lock up because of it and had to flush everything out, in turn my micro-organisms were flushed out which took a few weeks for everything to get back to normal. There are supplements you can add which will increase magnesium.