Cal Mag and FloraNova in Botanicare Coco coir

[surfingrob]

I have 40 lights and I need some serious help PLEASE, I have to yield well.

I have been seeing deficiencies in veg, nothing too bad, but I'm coming from RDWC and I'm used to big green lush plants, I haven't quite mastered this coco thing yet with it's CalMag intricacies and salt buildup dealio. I would like to take care of this ASAP.

I am using Floranova Grow, Liquid Karma, Calmag, and GH rapidstart in veg. I start with 50ppm RO water, add CalMag until it hits 200PPM, then add my LK, rapidstart, and FloraNova until it hits about 300 PPM for new clones and up to 750PPM for larger vegging plants. Does this sound right? This recipe works well for my mothers so far, they're green and lush and look great, but I've been seeing some strange yellowing on my main vegging plants, I'm concerned I might be using too much of the CalMag?

I just did a flush and watered with my regular recipe just in case I did overdo it.. I would just like the input of an experienced coco grower here on the CalMag issue. I can never seem to find a definitive answer in relation to starting PPM and base nutrient being used.

edit- PH is always adjust to 5.8 before watering and I water about every other day, I allow them to dry out between waterings and I'm VERY careful not to water too often.

 

[BlackBuds]

What is your Ph and how often are you feeding?

 

[dansbuds]

Your feeds sound good but you didn't mention the PH & how often your feeding the little ones . established plants can be watered everyday in coco , but smaller ones need the dry time to grow roots .
PH should be from 5.6 to 6.0 , they need to be fed every time , no plain water feedings . calmag at that ratio is fine & flora nova is a pretty good base nute . muddy but good .muddy enough that if not shaken very well before use can cause Def's .

 

[surfingrob]

What is your Ph and how often are you feeding?

After adding everything, it usually goes to 6.2-6.3, I adjust down to 5.8 then water.

 

[surfingrob]

Your feeds sound good but you didn't mention the PH & how often your feeding the little ones . established plants can be watered everyday in coco , but smaller ones need the dry time to grow roots .
PH should be from 5.6 to 6.0 , they need to be fed every time , no plain water feedings . calmag at that ratio is fine & flora nova is a pretty good base nute . muddy but good .muddy enough that if not shaken very well before use can cause Def's .

I do allow the plants to dry out, especially when they have been freshly transplanted. Once they get light from lack of water I hit them with water. I am very careful not to water too often.

Yes the FN is very mucky and sludgy. I caught myself pouring some in when it wasn't shaken well enough and it definitely comes out thinner with the heavy stuff still on the bottom. I will be buying a mixer for a powerdrill soon.

 

[Coconutz]

Hard to water too often.
Dont let them dry.
Water atleast once a day when you have established roots.
Read H3ad goes coco a few times during the grow.
Most issues are caused by not watering often enough, not calmag.
I doubt you need any of those supplements.

 

[surfingrob]

Hard to water too often.
Dont let them dry.
Water atleast once a day when you have established roots.
Read H3ad goes coco a few times during the grow.
Most issues are caused by not watering often enough, not calmag.
I doubt you need any of those supplements.

I am currently going through the head thread right now, quite a long read but very informative.

The cal mag thing has been killing me but yea I have gotten away with not using it for a while with good tap water at 250 ppm but when I got to the inner city it jumped up to 350ppm so I had to go RO, which takes it down to 50, so my understanding is I need to use CalMag now. But at a certain point you have to stop using cal mag because it will build up in the coco and cause a lockout right? Then you flush, restart regiment. Am I getting this right?

 

[Coconutz]

I use floramicro and bloom + silica with RO. I dont see any cal or mag deficiencies so I dont add to my nutes.
I do have a bottle of magical that I hit my plants with here and there. Ive been using it to try the old aptus schedule of altering weeks with blasts of calmag. I dont use much at all.
Epsom salts here and there too. They seem to want a bit of it during flower.
I dont flush during the grow. Just dont get carried away with supplements.
If you reduce or cut micro you drop cal considerably while keeping mg up with the bloom.

 

[dansbuds]

The calmag i'd use up till mid flower then switch to just epsom salts . by then the coco will have more than enough Cal built up & the plants need less Cal by then & more Mag .
at 50ppm RO water .... use the calmag .... start off with 2 ml per gallon & if you see a Cal or Mag def , bump it up another 2ml's
The heads thread is for flora bloom & micro .....not floranova so the feeding of it will be different . go by the bottles chart but start at half strength & build up from there .
yes by whatever means necessary .... shake that bottle up REAL GOOD before dosing from it !!!

 

[dansbuds]

After adding everything, it usually goes to 6.2-6.3, I adjust down to 5.8 then water.

I'm willing to bet that is what your problem was !!!! Like I said , your feed schedule sounds solid .... keep going that way but get your PH down to 5.7 or 5.8 when you feed .& shake the shit outa that bottle before using it !!!

 

[watts]

you shouldn't even need calmag every watering with those nutrients. Try adding it to 100ppm instead of 200, see how it goes.

Water at least once daily with a little bit of run-off if you have a decent root mass established in the appropriate size containers.

 

[Snow Crash]

First thing, ppm readings are very confusing. PPM is a conversion of the Electrical Conductivity. While the EC from one meter to the next will be about equal the conversion ratio to estimate ppm levels will not. When you are asking for advice online, and specifically for support on nutrient usage, it is always way better to use your EC (or uS/cm) rather than ppm so that we're all on the same page about the strength of your nutrients.

Second thing, your RO unit if functioning properly should be reducing your water to a 0.01ec at the most. You're getting "50ppm" out of there which indicates to me that there's an issue with your RO filter and that contaminants are still working their way through. Without knowing your unit's brand or the age I cannot comment on replacing the filters or looking into warranty for defective operation, but that might be useful here.

Your feed strengths don't seem too off to me on a 0.5 scale. Without knowing what sort of deficiencies that you're seeing I can only go off my own experiences. Early on the plants just don't need much. I prefer a solution of RO water, 2ml/gal Cal-Mag Plus, 5ml/gal Liquid Karma, 2ml/gal RapidStart, and 3-5ml of FloraNova Grow. Later on in Veg I would increase the Liquid Karma to the recommended rate and the FloraNova to allow for a 1.0ec to a 1.2ec, but leave the Cal-Mag Plus where it's at.

With the feed strengths not appearing to be too off we should address the environment. If you're outside of 68f at the low and 78f at the high then temperature stress could be a contributing factor here. 75.6f to 76.5f is the ideal, and the less the temperature swings from day to night the more steady and vigorous the plant growth will be indoors. Holding your humidity between 60% and 70% will also maintain a more healthy VPD and reduce transpiration stress on a young plant. If your environmental variables are off you want to address them as they are and not try to utilize your nutrients like a crutch to accommodate a less than ideal temp/humidity.

I have not personally used FloraNova Grow (but I have used a lot of other products, and use the supplements you are) but the one observation I can make is that it does contain a healthy amount of Potassium - an element that will compete for uptake with other cations like Calcium and Magnesium. So despite using Cal-Mag you might have too much cation competition due to the natural properties of the media and the high Potassium ratio.

Something that I always do, even when I have high quality coco, is rinse it completely before planting. There's a lot of variables that come into play with the starting charge of the coco and sometimes from when the coco is bagged to when you open it that media could have been sitting in a warehouse, or a pallet in the sun at a distribution center, for months. The decomp and the time spent sealed up can alter the intended characteristics of the media. So, rather than play the guessing game or blindly depend on a brand to somehow manage the variables which contribute to inconsistency, I just rinse it clean and give it a good charge myself (that 0.6-0.8ec solution). A good start is just too important! I depend on Botanicare compressed coco normally, expanded with clean water, and thoroughly rinsed inside of SmartPots. Rinsing is using a balanced nutrient solution and collecting an abundant amount of runoff until what comes out of the planter matches what is going in.

I will commonly see a magnesium deficiency just as the plant transitions from the seedling/rooting phase into more vigorous vegetative growth. Somewhere around the appearance of the 6th to 8th nodes, or about 3-4 weeks into life, and usually just as I'm thinking "I need to transplant these bitches to bigger containers." To avoid that issue I have begun using just an 1/8th - 1/10th of a teaspoon of Epsom Salt per gallon at this point. This will add 10-15ppm of Mg and that little bump seems to be what they need.

After a transplant, and during mid-veg, the plant is really cruising with the root development. We also tend to water less frequently after a transplant which increases the risk of elements precipitating out of solution and becoming unavailable for uptake. Coco has a natural affinity for making phosphorus very available but this reactivity of the element can also make it susceptible to lock-out with the excess calcium in our nutrient programs. So, the need for Phosphorus to support root development collides with non-ideal circumstances and the lower leaves on my plants are usually cannibalized for the necessary phosphorus. With your nutrient program it might be tough to get the phosphorus these plants need without also adding even more potassium in the process. Although, a little extra K tends to help my plants transpire and stay cool as they get larger and larger - especially when moving from lower wattage lighting to full strength HID. Transplanting to a smaller container (going from party cup to 1 gallon to 3 gallon, rather than party cup straight to 3 gallon for example) will allow more frequent watering and reduced opportunity for precipitate lockout.

One addition I have made to my program that has had noticeable results is removing Phosphoric Acid based pH down products. I'm not entirely solid on the science but the results I am seeing indicate that organic acids, Citric and Fulvic specifically, work much better as pH control solutions in coco coir than Phosphoric based pH down (like General Hydroponics or Advanced Nutrients). I use Earth Juice citric acid crystals and absolutely love them! In the past I used Humboldt nutrients FlavorFul also with great affect. TechnaFlora's Nitric Acid based pH down also seemed to work better than GH when it came to stability of the reservoir and health of the plants. It seems sort of nitpicky, but one thing I notice about the less successful coco grows is that Phos. based pH down is usually in use.

Hope something in here helps you out. In the future, try to be a little more accurate with your readings and descriptive about the problems you're seeing and the dynamics of your grow space and we'll be able to better direct our advice. Best of luck!

 

[dansbuds]

established plants can be watered everyday in coco , but smaller ones need the dry time to grow roots .

posted by snowcrash

After a transplant, and during mid-veg, the plant is really cruising with the root development. We also tend to water less frequently after a transplant which increases the risk of elements precipitating out of solution and becoming unavailable for uptake. Coco has a natural affinity for making phosphorus very available but this reactivity of the element can also make it susceptible to lock-out with the excess calcium in our nutrient programs. So, the need for Phosphorus to support root development collides with non-ideal circumstances and the lower leaves on my plants are usually cannibalized for the necessary phosphorus. With your nutrient program it might be tough to get the phosphorus these plants need without also adding even more potassium in the process. Although, a little extra K tends to help my plants transpire and stay cool as they get larger and larger - especially when moving from lower wattage lighting to full strength HID. Transplanting to a smaller container (going from party cup to 1 gallon to 3 gallon, rather than party cup straight to 3 gallon for example) will allow more frequent watering and reduced opportunity for precipitate lockout.

That explains the problem i'm having then !!!! so even after a transplanting .... i should be watering/feeding everyday instead of letting them dry out a bit ????? now i know why i was getting a Def i couldn't figure out if it was Mag or phospherous ...... its a K def cuz of letting them get dry.... Damn !!!! thanx brutha

I've said it before ... & i'll say it again .... Your Da man when it comes to coco !!!!!

surfinrob ..... listen to this guy (snowcrash) ..... he knows his shit & taught me a Helluva lot about coco !!!

 

[Snow Crash]

posted by snowcrash

That explains the problem i'm having then !!!! so even after a transplanting .... i should be watering/feeding everyday instead of letting them dry out a bit ????? now i know why i was getting a Def i couldn't figure out if it was Mag or phospherous ...... its a K def cuz of letting them get dry.... Damn !!!! thanx brutha

Well, I don't know about every day... Still more frequently than in soil but its kind of a finesse game. To be honest, I don't have the time to hit it perfect with each watering. I aim to keep the coco moist even after a transplant, but not daily waterings. Depending on a lot of factors it's usually every 2-3 days.

PK+Mag gets a lot less attention in coco formulas than N+Cal does and I find those are the elements I'm usually short on. They all play off one another so it's not really about "I need more of X" it's "I need the same amount of X, just less of Y because they are competing."

K deficiency is at the top of the plant. You'll see the leaf edges curl upwards and burn.

Mag deficiency can be top to bottom, usually most prominent in the upper 2/3 of the plant where it gets the most light. The "meat" of the leaf between the veins will bleach and die.

P deficiency is at the bottom of the plant but can be throughout if severe enough. Leafs should appear dark green near the top, have a downward curl or a lazy appearance, will lose color throughout the lower leafs, and become necrotic from the edges inwards in a way that will make you question it looking like mold.

Address each element appropriately. Adding just 10ppm more Phosphorus could be an extra 25% of that element, it doesn't sound like much but little moves can make a big shift. Magnesium is the same, just 10ppm is a lot for the ratios.

 

[dansbuds]

Quick question .... you know the canna line . should i be adding the cannazyme early in veg ??? it has a PK value as well as being a zyme for the roots . i did notice a big difference in my plants using it in late veg .... but was scared to use it early cuz the plants are building roots .

heres a few of my seedlings .... you can see the problem i'm talking about . they were under fed up till a few days ago when i upped the A&B to 4ml's per .
whatcha think brother ???

sorry for hijackin your thread surfingrob .... but SC don't come around much & i want to get his opinion while hes here .... hope ya don't mind

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