Who does a continuous feed to waste here?

[richyrich]

I'm running coco and feed continuously until the last week and then I flush. I run low ppms with adequate runoff.

Please, share your regiment and experience.

I run RO water and add cal mag up to an ec of .3 (150ppms at .5) and add flora nova up to a total mix ec of 1.0 (500ppms). My runoff comes out at around 700 consistently as the old stuff goes out. I hand water every day or other day depending on stage of growth.

 

[paranoidalien]

I use GH by Head's formula, watering once a day right now and my plants have never looked better! It's all about the details. I keep the RH at 50 and the temp at 75 and my plants worship me, I the GOD bringer of the sun lamp. Woot woot!

 

[jocat]

set/forget

set/forget

i'm doing a run to waste with a 110 G res, two 55G barrels tied together, well water that gets PH'd, no airstone, no mixing pump, on a timer it waters 2 times daily, till runoff, pots are 5 G filled with atami coco, one dripper ea pot. ac,dehumifier,co2, humidity 50-60%, temps 84-87 degrees.2 wks veg/8 wks bloom, avg. yeild 4 oz. pr plant. i fuckin' love the coco, this system can be set/forget for 10 days. can you say ROADTRIP. jc

 

[Work2much]

i'm doing a run to waste with a 110 G res, two 55G barrels tied together, well water that gets PH'd, no airstone, no mixing pump, on a timer it waters 2 times daily, till runoff, pots are 5 G filled with atami coco, one dripper ea pot. ac,dehumifier,co2, humidity 50-60%, temps 84-87 degrees.2 wks veg/8 wks bloom, avg. yeild 4 oz. pr plant. i fuckin' love the coco, this system can be set/forget for 10 days. can you say ROADTRIP. jc

Interesting, you dont feel the need to mix the nutes up in the rez? Its something I've been pondering latelty as I build my new setup.

 

[asher1er]

i'm doing a run to waste with a 110 G res, two 55G barrels tied together, well water that gets PH'd, no airstone, no mixing pump, on a timer it waters 2 times daily, till runoff, pots are 5 G filled with atami coco, one dripper ea pot. ac,dehumifier,co2, humidity 50-60%, temps 84-87 degrees.2 wks veg/8 wks bloom, avg. yeild 4 oz. pr plant. i fuckin' love the coco, this system can be set/forget for 10 days. can you say ROADTRIP. jc

110gal last you 10days? how many 5 gal buckets do you feed with it? also how long does your feed pump run for when it feeds?

what lighting do you have over your plants durin flowering?

 

[richyrich]

That's great. I especially like the set it and forget it. I need to make a dripper set next with open lines myself. Currently hand watering.

I know my plants can handle about 1.7-1.8 ec (850-900 ppms, .5) max so I feed at 1.0-1.1 ec (500-550 ppms, .5) and my runoff comes out 1.4-1.5 ec (700-750 ppms, .5). I prefer to underfeed a bit. Never have to flush this way. PH always goes in at 5.8-5.9.

What ec or ppm (.5 or .7 conversion?) are you guys feeding at and how much runoff are you allowing?

 

[jocat]

hey guys, work2much you asked about mixing the nute solution and i was for awhile, ran a smaller pump that sat in the res bottom, it didn't seem to make any difference, yields where the same, i ran an airstone for awhile and the only thing it did was make the ph shift, without it, set & forget, asher1er, the 110G tank set is good for up to a dz pots, water comes on 2x daily 3-5 min. ea time, as the plants get bigger the time gets longer, i want water to run out the bottoms of the pots for 30 sec, a little flush every watering, over this hangs 2 600w hortilux, i run co2, control humidity, control temp, during the night i run an exhaust fan & pull in lots of fresh air, i try to get my night temps to 50 or lower. this system is like a john deer tractor, it is hard to stop it. in the past iv'e played with some hydro stuff that was more like a ferrari, ran hard but crashed hard too, coco is the real deal, it did take me a few crops to dial this system in, i tried some different nute lines & have settled on House & Garden, i follow there coco schedule to the letter and run my nutes at 14-2000 ppm, i go with a six week flower cycle and then run straight water for 2 weeks. hope this helps someone else find success, jc

 

[Peat]

Hey jocat,
When I saw this question, I hoped you'd be in here!

How did you plumb your 2 barrels together?

Do you use any kind of "central environmetal contoller" for your co2, ac, dehumid ???

I sho wish I could take a peek.

rep. to ya, bro!

 

[jocat]

Hey pete and all, yea i plumb those barrels together with a hydroshop fitting, they come with different size outlets, like 1/2", 3/4", 1", i used the 1" and the some tubing from home depot, zip ties around each end, then it's easy to remove it every once in awhile and run a bottle brush through the thing, i wash out the barrels every couple weeks.
i don't use a controller, i have a cap co2 monitor controller on the same timer as the lights, through trial & error i have found the right combination of lights, fans, ac & dehumidifier, i use 4 600w lights in parabolic reflectors and i could run 1000's in the winter, when i was first setting up this room my intent was to switch with the seasons but the 600's have given great results and save a little juice.

 

[jocat]

here's a few shots from my room.jc

 

[Tony Danza]

Low ec works great in coco, the coco kinda regulates how much nute it wants to hold, and if your ec is low, you don't have to get a lot of runoff, which saves even more nutes and water. Drain to waste is much less wastefull than it sounds, especially when you don't ever dump out rez to change nutes, you just change nutes.

 

[TwinTurboGuy]

Yes. Low EC is amazing in coco.

I went with canna full feeding schedule and I had some nasty nitrogen toxicity. In addition to that, I only let it runoff 10%. When I checked my runoff EC, it was at 6.0+EC!!!! Learned my lesson the hard way.

Also, I find that using full RO is a pain in the ass because the nutes really make the PH go down like crazy. I use canna A+B and I always have to adjust the PH by adding tap water.