I love coco, and I love soil. They are definitely different beasts unto themselves and there is a bit of a learning curve coming from one into the other. There's no one way to tell you what to do and how to grow but I hope that as you learn more about coco it becomes less intimidating.
My first few grows with coco were really rough. There is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of misinformation and just outright bad advice floating around the forums. To solve my issues it took me to stop reading what others do and to start doing what I thought was logical and sensible. Blanket statements like "you need cal-mag" or "you should use RO water" can be misleading as each locale and individual will have impossible to predict variables when dialing in their own systems. So taking advice is great but it is better to take it with a grain of salt and depend more on your understanding of the media and the science behind it than user accounts.
At this point, maybe 8 or 10 coco grows deep, I think the stuff is super easy. I don't pH. I don't watch the EC. But that's because I have a familiarity with the needs of the media and that comes more with time and experience than what you can read online. If you are willing to treat this as an experiment, or a hobby, it's much more fun than it being your source of medicine or financial support.
So, having said all that, here's how you idiot proof coco coir.
1 gallon containers of pure media using Botanicare CNS17 Coco/Soil as directed. Alternate full strength and 1/2 strength feedings - full on Monday, 1/2 on Wednesday, full on Friday, 1/2 on Sunday, until you can hit daily feedings. Recover 20% of the solution as runoff, maybe more like 15% on full days and 25% on half days to keep costs lower, but you definitely want abundant runoff when you're learning this media to keep buildup from being a factor. A reliable nutrient program for coco with a great feed chart will go miles for you to make the transition more simple, especially with one-parter formulas (Grow, Bloom, Ripe), and while CNS17 isn't my end all be all best program it is damn close and extremely inexpensive to try out (<$10 a quart).
If you want to get into coco I strongly recommend this program for a transition into the media as problem free as possible. I would be glad to mentor you and offer advice as you progress if that would help get you into hydro-coco.
