First Time in Coco

[dgr]

First Time in Coco

First Time with Casey Jones

Oh wait, it's my first time, period!

I've been a long time lurker here and many years ago on OG. I wanted to post a couple pictures of what the results of a first grow can be if someone were to read, listen and absorb all of the information you guys and girls are giving out for FREE!

My entire grow is based off of information that I obtained on this site. My setup is
Two - 2x4 trays
Ebb and Flow coco in 1 gallon square pots
1000W HPS
Homemade Panda Tent
Lasko Fan
Phat Filter
Rezipe

I ran seven Casey Jones in one of the trays. They were clones I took from an Oaksterdam clone. All of them got too tall for my setup and had to be bent over. 5 of the plants were lollipopped and had 5-6 branches, each. 2 of the plants were untrimmed. The untrimmed plants yielded half the weight of what the others did and took twice as long to trim.

They were flowered for 71 days.

Final weight was 385 grams off of HALF of a 1000W light. I'm sure another 50 grams would have made it into the jars if the untrimmed plants had been lollipopped.

Not a perfect grow but I'm tickled with the results and there are some happy 215 patients right now.

Sorry for the lack of grow pictures. But here are a couple money shots.

 

[benzo]

awesome! can you explain your ebb and flow with coco tables some more? maybe some pics? im interested

 

[dgr]

Sure thing benzo. Here's a pic of some different plants in the same setup. It's the only picture I have of the setup right now.



I built the tables out of 2x4s. They have 35 gallon storage tubs underneath that I put about 32 gallons in. In one I use a 258 GPH pump that has a foam filter built into it (Harbor Freight). In the other, I have a 190 GPH pump. Both seem to work well and fill the trays about equally fast. The trays are Botanicare 2x4s that aren't 2x4. You can see the line of coco on the pots that indicates how high the water floods until it hits the overflow. I put a nylon sock on the outlet of the overflow to help keep the coco out of the tanks.

The Casey Jones were hand watered for a week or three but I had to convert to something automated due to a week long trip. It seems to work great. However, I had a root problem that I really didn't recover from in a different tray that I attribute to watering too often when first transplanting. I am testing not watering at all after transplant into moist coco until roots are showing at the bottom of the pots. So far so good as seen in the photo.

I change the tanks every two-three weeks. I only had one tank get nasty and I had put Roots Excelurator in that tank. I can't blame Roots yet as it was the first time but I will be watching for a recurrence.

Hope that provides some insight and I will try to get some more pictures soon.

 

[gaiusmarius]

nice first posts man, welcome to icmag and the coco section.

it's always great to see how first time growers can be so successful. good job and sweet way to do a quick automation for watering.

impressive

 

[dgr]

Thank you GM! I owe all the success to the hard work of everyone on here like you.

 

[buddin_904]

so you do ebb and flow on your homemade tables and just run it till the 32 gal of solution nears an end??? do you have to pH your res daily? at all??

 

[dgr]

so you do ebb and flow on your homemade tables and just run it till the 32 gal of solution nears an end??? do you have to pH your res daily? at all??

buddin,
Remember I'm just a newbie. Here are my thoughts on the subject but they are constantly being evaluated.

When I first set this up, I was gone for 8 days after the first watering. When I came back, the plants told me that everything was A-OK and the tank told me that I could have gone a few more days before the pump was sucking air. From my notes, the plants had used 12 gallons of water and the pH had climbed from an initial 5.6 to 6.8. However, I don't know how much of that was the water buffering the solution back up from what I initially set it at (where's Carl?). Even though the pH had climbed that high, the plants didn't show any signs of deficiencies.

Here are some notes that may help show the pH drift
6/10 Changed Reservoir EC 1.8 pH 5.5
6/15 Addback EC 1.5. added 0/30/50ml EC 1.8 ph 6.3 pH down to 5.5
(I didn't note how much water I added but the EC was 1.5 after I added the water.)
6/21 pH 5.9 EC 2.0 tank down ~7 gallons. Added 7 gallons 0/10/15 pH 6.1. pH down 5.6 (this was a waste of time as on 6/23 ...)
6/23 Changed Res 0/0/9 pH 5.5

I'm using tap water. I try to pH the solution down to 5.4 when I initially make it up. I then pH it down once or twice a week, usually accompanied by a water and nutrient addition. HOWEVER, I need to look into the buffering capacity of my tap water as I let a tank sit for a week without being used and only an airstone running and the pH climbed about as fast as when I'm using the tank.

I use Lucas calculations to hit my EC mark when I add back water. I then either A)try to change the tank when I have added back 100% or B) change the tank anyway as I am switching the ratio from 6/9 to 0/9 or whatever. When I change the reservoir, I flush each plant with about a gallon of tap water.

My newbie opinion on the Rezipe. It cut the nitrogen too soon. My plants started yellowing two days after the switch and yellowed rapidly. I actually top fed them once with 0/6/9 and that slowed the yellowing to what I thought was acceptable. Then again, if I hadn't flushed when switching to 0/0/9, maybe it would have been the same? Maybe they wouldn't have yellowed as quickly if I had been growing two oz. plants in large containers? Always more questions than answers.

My thoughts on E&F coco. I'm gonna keep at it. It's a bit messy. The fungus gnats love it. You WILL get coco into your tank. If that bothers you, you need to screen the flood (pump sock? drip irrigation filter?) and the overflow (sock on the outlet) in a futile attempt to stop the coco from migrating. Once the initial coco flows out of the pots, they stop leaking it unless you bang them around. I haven't noticed any problems with the coco being in the tanks. I thought a tank had gotten funky but when I drained it down, it was just some small piles of coco in the bottom. The one tank that did get funky is being tentatively blamed on Root Excelurator from my experience and one other in this forum. You really need to let the roots establish before flooding.

sorry for all the rambling. I'll probably refer back to this myself so I thought I'd just on the screen.

Maybe I'll show you guys a pic of my ghetto E&F I setup to keep my bonsai moms going during the same trip?


Hope that helps

 

[buddin_904]

no rambling.....thanks for the detailed notes.....very curious about coco E+F setup as yours is....most concerned about the pH having to be daily adjusted which is a pain in the ass to me......so it seems you always start yours out a lower than accepted value pH for coco 5.5ish and then let it climb in a few days....thats all cool.....just playing the game....im all for a wide spectrum of pH values over a couple days! thanks for the great info.....keep it comin people like you are the reason why people like you and me, are on here!

 

[dgr]

benzo,
Here are couple more pictures of the tables. Any questions, just ask. A couple things that might not be obvious. The legs on the tables are staggered so they can butt against each other. The sides of the tables hold the tops of the reservoirs from spreading.

 

[Stond_Face]

Nice show man

Nice show man

Hi DGR,

Nice setup. I have a similar one. One 2x4 table with 2 400W HIDs.

Coco with perlite. I had trouble with straight coco on the last two runs. I think I didn't have the root system well enough along before I started flooding 2x a day. Anyway, this run now is rockin.

So I'm running GH Maxi Bloom. Cana coco with ~30% chunky perlite.

 

[buddin_904]

love the new pics DGR!

 

[theHIGHlander]

nice set up bro,,,,get as much info down a poss,,(and pics if you can). i could be intrested in this kinda set up...hand watering is starting to do my box in

keep it green
highlander

 

[dgr]

Stond,
You put sunscreen on them?
I had a problem on my second run. Plants looked like they had nitrogen toxicity. Leaves very dark green. Bud leaves cupped and curled down. After scratching my head awhile, I tried to stop flooding for a bit to cure them. A few days into that and I realized that I was driving the EC up in the medium by letting it dry out so I flushed them well and then tried to let them dry. Some sorta recovered and some didn't but it was a three week loss of flowering time. The root systems on them were pathetic on harvest. The plants were "brittle" even when just harvested. Hopefully letting them dry out some during the first 10 or so days of flower will help with that. I guess we'll see in 7 or so weeks.

HIGHlander, problem is, I don't know what I don't know if you know what I mean. I'll try to get as much info down as I can so others can either benefit from it or shy away from trying it

 

[StealthDragon]

hey thanks alot for taking the time to log all this stuff.

I recently started in coco, handwatering and I want to switch to ebb and flow...my biggest concern is that I run alot of different stains. I think you said you run a few different ones too? Do you run different strains off the same rez? If so how does that work out? I worry about different strains having different needs...and I'm wondering if 6/9 would keep them all happy, I guess I wouldn't mind supplementing a little with handwatering or foliar, just wondering how much of that I would need to do though.

thanks.

 

[buddin_904]

^ stealthdragon....hope u dont mind if i chime in.....running coco pots RTW over here....multiple strains....the best option i can do is find a happy medium for them all and try to keep my handwater supplimentation to a minimum....HOWEVER, if you do ebb and flow....handwater supplementation is practically pointless?? the run off will drain back into your rez.....tainting the solution to how you want it....sooooo it can be done on RTW, but ebb and flow...i dont think its very possible.....well it wouldnt be recommended, IMO

 

[kungfuhands]

Hope I can experience similar success my first time. Planning on a diy panda tent as well. Organic soil w/ coco though as I hear organicly grown bud is great tasting.

Would be cool to see pictures of your setup and exhaust.

Ebb & flow is interesting. I like the aspect not having to water daily.

 

[dgr]

Stealth,
I'm running a few different strains right now in my grow journal
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=185484
It looks like I'm having a small problem with nutrient requirements even between the three different Deadhead OG plants I'm running right now. I also have a white widow in there that looks like it could use more food. Nothing serious but I think I'd like it to be a little greener than it is.

 

[dgr]

kungfuhands,

I don't know about organic. I'm a bit analytical and to my mind, the plants have to consume chemicals to grow. Whether those chemicals are fed directly to them or indirectly by allowing microbes to break down what the plants can't consume (organic) in my mind makes no difference. There may be some trace something or others that might, possibly, contribute to flavor.

My personal opinion is that it is all about the flushing. Organic "tastes better" because there wasn't an over abundance of nutrients in the grow at any given time so there doesn't need to be a flush. I can tell you that an improper flush makes the bud taste like old ass dipped in paint thinner. I bought some top-shelf GDP recently and I thought I was smoking the rice crispy elves while they were playing with fireworks. Very unpleasant.

Here are a couple more pictures of my tent. I can't take a picture of the whole tent but just think a big black shiny box with a pair of tarp zippers on one side. Definitely not stealth. Exhaust is ran into the attic. The A/C vent in the attic was disconnected and a rectangle to round duct adapter was mounted to the vent in the room. I plan on eventually building a light trap for the window. Then I will be able to not use conditioned air for cooling the light, take advantage of cool outside air during lights on and put a speed control, thermostat and humidistat on an exhaust fan.

LASKO fan, light and Phat filter


Fan, Filter, desk fan


Tank and table


Any more questions, please ask away!

 

[kungfuhands]

Thanks. Appreciate the photos.

Mind sharing how your exhaust system works?

I plan on using a 6" hydrofarm radiant air cooled hood in the future. I see you have the lasko fan on the left with some ducting and some ducting on the right connected to a large carbon filter.

Also any good links to some ebb & flow reading? The more grows I see of this the more I want to tackle it.

 

[dgr]

kungfu,
That's about the sum of the exhaust system. The pink stuff in the picture is the insulated ducting on the outlet of the Lasko. That ducting runs to the round-to-rectangle adapter that I mentioned in the prior post. The Lasko has TWO intakes. One is the obvious one which is the fan grill you see the ducting on. This is perfectly covered by a 6" duct starter. The other intake is on the back side and looks to be for cooling the motor. I simply taped over that as I don't want to be pushing unfiltered air anywhere.

So, Lasko pulls through carbon filter then light. Lasko pushes out into the attic. Not the best as it means I have to pull enough air out of the room to cool the light which indirectly keeps room temps down. There are also many failure points on the low pressure side. That means that unfiltered air IS escaping into the attic. It would be better to go filter --> fan --> hood --> attic

I might have mentioned this isn't the ideal setup. Ideally, I'd like to use outside air to cool the hood. I would also like to pull outside air into the room when the temperature is appropriate. I would also like to use a thermostat and humidistat to control a separate exhaust fan for the tent. I have it all worked out on paper but lack the funds right now to make it work.

Advanced search for ebb in titles only in this and the hydro forum. Most of the reading I found in the coco section said DTW was better. However, there is some more info around for E&F in coco.

All the successful coco growers on here said treat it like hydro. So I did. I took the info I could find on E&F, forced fed it information from H3ADs thread (stickied in this forum) and AAA Reservoir's ==The Recipe== thread (in AAA Reservoir seeds forum).