Growing in Coco 10 years. Lost my way

siftedunity · Jan 16, 2018

BakedBandit said:
Do you ever try flushing your pots with a high volume of low level nutrient solution? Have you ever tried using drip clean?
Aside from those two little nuggets I'd say go with ro water. Maybe do a side by side with some ro water and see if there is a difference.

Hello man. Yes I've tried everything. But never had to go through all this shit before. The plants looked great. It was easy.
I used drip clean years back for many runs but decided to drop it and it made no difference for me. Had plenty of good runs after that to know I don't need it.
I have done light feed flushes but then other issues appear overnight so that seems not to work either.

siftedunity · Jan 16, 2018

dansbuds said:
because canna coco nutes are formulated for tap water & have lower levels of the NCM in them.

if it were me ..... i'd invest in a good RO system & use only that . that takes out any of the variables that might change in the tap water . its worked for years for me !

Thanks for dropping in man. Yes I've seen your grows and results, definitely one factor that needs to be changed. I guess after that the only real issue it could be is watering and nutrient schedule. But then I can't see why my roots would look lush as they do if I was under or under watering. And the nute schedule ain't exactly rocket science to understand. I know the sensi can be higher on the end but I already lowered the a bottle dosage to account for that. And have used the canna stats calculator to work out the profile. The Nitrogen isn't too high as far as I can tell.
Idk man.. Lost.

siftedunity · Jan 16, 2018

OK so I'm I've ordered a ro unit. I won't abandon the thread just case anyone has the same issues or are interested in my cure.. But will update after I've got the ro running and see what happens.

What's the general concensus with adding cal mag to ro water? I've been reading around and most people seem good with 5ml per gal. Is that OK?
Ro water newb here! Thanks for the comments if anyone else has any input please do share

stoney917 · Jan 16, 2018

Dan said it all... Just get a ro n your problem will be fixed... starting @0 takes out all variables about the water source, tap can change like the weather, not sure how big of grow but the smaller ro systems are only a few hundred n worth every penny...
another factor I was considering is the coco I got a bad pallets of coco a few times , canna once but the length of time this been going on kinda eliminates this idea... unless u been using stuff from the same batch the whole time ...

stoney917 · Jan 16, 2018

U posted when I was typing... good man... I start @ 2.5 ml gallon and go from there most strains are happy there . It's really base nutrient brand dependent but Start light n go from there
5ml is way to much

OldCoolSativa · Jan 17, 2018

Have you verified that your meters (pH and TDS) are calibrated and accurate? Do you re-use your coco? How well do you flush your coco before you first use it?

I had a problem with my second grow in coco hempy buckets. I had reused the coco. Two of the plants had issues, brown spots on leaves...looked like a nute lockout issue. I found that no matter how much pH 5.8 water or nute solution I used and flushed with, the drainage always had a pH of about 4.4, even after flushing many volumes of water through the media. I ended up tossing the coco.

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

OldCoolSativa said:
Have you verified that your meters (pH and TDS) are calibrated and accurate? Do you re-use your coco? How well do you flush your coco before you first use it?

I had a problem with my second grow in coco hempy buckets. I had reused the coco. Two of the plants had issues, brown spots on leaves...looked like a nute lockout issue. I found that no matter how much pH 5.8 water or nute solution I used and flushed with, the drainage always had a pH of about 4.4, even after flushing many volumes of water through the media. I ended up tossing the coco.

Hello man, ok...I use canna Coco straight out of the bag, it is apparently pre charged and buffered. And rinsed. I've used it pretty much since my first coco grows. Yup you get bad batches but like stoney says, its very unlikely its one batch since I've bought from different sources and over different time periods.

Never re use coco at all..
Yup blue lab pen Is frequently calibrated and tested. And use the blue lab ec meter which is fine also. but at 2ml per litre I know I'm in the correct ppm range anyway.
Tbh I see that run off doesn't always clearly indicate what's going on I find. I've had great healthy plants before with shitty run off tests of high ppm and pH out of wack.

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

stoney917 said:
Dan said it all... Just get a ro n your problem will be fixed... starting @0 takes out all variables about the water source, tap can change like the weather, not sure how big of grow but the smaller ro systems are only a few hundred n worth every penny...
another factor I was considering is the coco I got a bad pallets of coco a few times , canna once but the length of time this been going on kinda eliminates this idea... unless u been using stuff from the same batch the whole time ...

Thanks for dropping in buddy.. I've got 5 lights And feeding Bout 25litre per day. Using 6 litre pots which is like 1.5 gal. I'm not really sure if Im putting enough fluid through these as its the first time I've gone with 6s. Before I used 11ltrs but I thought maybe this issues was salt build up so the plant was to drop down to the 6litre and multi feed. There's hydroton in the bottom and roots look good so doubt it can be over watering.
Yup ordered a 4 or 6 stage ro unit for £100. Tbh it looked decent for the price. And obviously only need 25 l a day so not gonna need a massive industrial one. Will add as well that when things were going good I used to hand water the coco with no run off. But started keeping my vegging plants Instantly moist and they seems much more vigourous so do the same in flower now.

Only other thing that confuses me is that if it is the tap water, how come my vegging plants are great? Idk..

dansbuds · Jan 17, 2018

stoney917 said:
Dan said it all... Just get a ro n your problem will be fixed... starting @0 takes out all variables about the water source, tap can change like the weather, not sure how big of grow but the smaller ro systems are only a few hundred n worth every penny...
another factor I was considering is the coco I got a bad pallets of coco a few times , canna once but the length of time this been going on kinda eliminates this idea... unless u been using stuff from the same batch the whole time ...

i forgot about that . had the same problem with the bags being bad . switched to the block canna at that time & have had no problems sense .

dansbuds · Jan 17, 2018

siftedunity said:
Thanks for dropping in buddy.. I've got 5 lights And feeding Bout 25litre per day. Using 6 litre pots which is like 1.5 gal. I'm not really sure if Im putting enough fluid through these as its the first time I've gone with 6s. Before I used 11ltrs but I thought maybe this issues was salt build up so the plant was to drop down to the 6litre and multi feed. There's hydroton in the bottom and roots look good so doubt it can be over watering.
Yup ordered a 4 or 6 stage ro unit for £100. Tbh it looked decent for the price. And obviously only need 25 l a day so not gonna need a massive industrial one. Will add as well that when things were going good I used to hand water the coco with no run off. But started keeping my vegging plants Instantly moist and they seems much more vigourous so do the same in flower now.

Only other thing that confuses me is that if it is the tap water, how come my vegging plants are great? Idk..

different needs in veg than flower . veg needs alot more of the nutrients in veg & transition than they do in flower . they need less nitrogen for one thing & more P & K .even calcium can build up to toxic levels after 4 weeks or so in flower if your adding it in .

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

Ok boss I get you. Yeah knowing my luck the block Coco will go bad on me too haha.
I've thought about using it, but does it need loads of prep? And precharging/ rinsing etc?

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

I wonder what happen to their bags then..?
Definitely worth considering. They do the natural version which night be better. Maybe when they are precharging it, they are messing it up some how.

dansbuds · Jan 17, 2018

siftedunity said:
Ok boss I get you. Yeah knowing my luck the block Coco will go bad on me too haha.
I've thought about using it, but does it need loads of prep? And precharging/ rinsing etc?

no rinsing needed . i just precharge it with my base & 2ml of calmag at 400tds & a PH of 5.8
each little square block needs about a gallon of mix to hydrate them .... 4 bricks per pack , 4 gallons to hydrate them in a 18 gallon tote . mix it all up by hand after it sits for a half hour or so ... get all the chunks broken up & mixed up good & its ready to go .
just as good or better than the bags imho

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

dansbuds said:
no rinsing needed . i just precharge it with my base & 2ml of calmag at 400tds & a PH of 5.8
each little square block needs about a gallon of mix to hydrate them .... 4 bricks per pack , 4 gallons to hydrate them in a 18 gallon tote . mix it all up by hand after it sits for a half hour or so ... get all the chunks broken up & mixed up good & its ready to go .
just as good or better than the bags imho

Wow sounds good.plus they must be really light to carry around. Will defo consider a change. Do you multifeed in coco Dan's?

dansbuds · Jan 17, 2018

siftedunity said:
Wow sounds good.plus they must be really light to carry around. Will defo consider a change. Do you multifeed in coco Dan's?

2 maybe 3 times during the lights on .... depends on how fast the pot dries out . this time of year they stay wet longer so 2 feeds is usually good enough . all i really do is make sure the pot doesn't dry out at anytime during the 24 hr period .

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

dansbuds said:
2 maybe 3 times during the lights on .... depends on how fast the pot dries out . this time of year they stay wet longer so 2 feeds is usually good enough . all i really do is make sure the pot doesn't dry out at anytime during the 24 hr period .

Ok I get you. I always think the dryness thing is so subjective. My idea of dry is generally when you can see the coco starting to lighten up very slightly on the surface but remains moist, but the pot is lighter. Other peoples idea of dry might be different. I read djm's coco trees a hundred times. I'd love to be able to multi feed many times but with these issues I can't really figure out what is going on in a vmbasic level so feel like my wings are clipped until I sort out this issue. I saw one of your threads and the coco looked pretty dry or perhaps it was the lighting. But the buds looked great.
I had my best results watering similar to soil. But mostly now it seems that multifeeds are the thing you should do.

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

I used to have 11 litre pots, wait till the coco started to lighten and feed 1 litre of nutes. Then wouldn't even water till they were at the same point. This was every day or every other day sometimes. But these were the best yields I think. Keeping them moist seems to be great in veg and root health is way better. But obviously not happy at all with flower atm

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

Thanks for the support you guys. Means a lot. Wished I'd reached out sooner but I'm a stubborn ahole

siftedunity · Jan 17, 2018

mushroombrew said:
Get a chlorine test strip. Check how many ppm's are in your tap water. If it hurts your throat it may be high? Pool test strips are fine.

Just wanted to mention Chloride toxicity. It makes plants super dark green. I have a hard time believing it's N toxicity at your ppm's. I suppose the coco could hold onto it if you overfeed N throughout veg? But unlikely. Plants use way less chloride in flower so maybe why the toxicity manifests.

How do you measure pH? How often do you calibrate?

Man I didn't see your post .. Thanks for chiming in.
Yes I agree how can I have N toxicity at these ppms?
I measure pH with a blue lab pen. Its always correct. Its was calibrated about three days ago so probably ever week or two.
Very smart suggestion though. I have never looked up chloride toxicity but will do that now..

ULMW · Jan 17, 2018

Canna Coco
Canna Buffer Agent
Canna Coco A & B Nutes
Half the suggested schedule sees me fine even with tap water.
I also use 18l pots so maybe that helps spread the nutes over a wider area and seems not to causes toxic nute build up.
Best wishes and happy growing.

Growing in Coco 10 years. Lost my way

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