insidemusic
New member
Hello all,
I've grown in soil pretty successfully for over 10yrs now, but today I come to you with my tail between my legs. With the help of ICmag i've read and read and read thousands of topics, and the past couple years I've been reading a lot about coco coir. I read the entire coco trees thread twice, and have spent countless hours reading about growing in coco.
So I felt pretty confident giving it a try. After almost two weeks now and half my coco plants dead, and the rest on their way, I need to understand my failure, which I don't have a clue how i could have f'ed up that bad, and it makes me feel pretty stupid because I feel I have a good understanding of the science of growing cannabis.
So, here's what I did:
I germinated 14 seeds of two different strains, 3 "BC Kush" and 11 Copperchem from greenpoint seeds. And put them in rapid rooters. As soon as they sprouted i put them in 3" by 3" pots.
I was only able to find Black Gold's Just Coir, and mixed that 50/50 with perlite. I washed this mix with tapwater until clear, then made a nutrient solution at 250ppm, Sensi Coco A&B, RO water, and let it soak for about an hour. After that I planted the rapid rooters in them.
This is them at 3 days old. The copperchem stretched like crazy.
These are in a room at 80f 60% humidity. Light breeze blowing on the seedlings.
A 180W LED light is hanging 12" above seedling tops.
I let them sit a couple days, the mix never dried out. The first leaves started to droop though, so I watered with a 250ppm solution with RO water.
I was also noticing the rapid rooters were extremely wet, like soggy. And I am betting the RR's were holding to much water. After a couple days I had 3 die on me from damping off.
I think rapid rooters are great for cloning, but seedling don't develop a root mass quickly enough to escape the water logged plug. Usually i plant seeds in soil, and clone using rapid rooters at a 99% success rate.
This is two days later. They are 5 days old here.
Then everything just went south, they wouldn't stand up, I noticed the leaves getting really light green, stems not strengthening, I upped the nute solution to 300ppm then 350ppm. I flushed them and tested runoff at around 350ppm. I had two more copperchem just wilt up and die.
Here is them at 11 days old. 3 BC Kush on the far left, and remaining 6 copperchem.
I dont understand how i have such varied results. One BC Kush is fine, one is super twisted, the other one in the back that looks ok in this photo I checked on today and is pretty much dead like it dampened off. And the remaining copper chems all look like shit.
The best guess i have is that the soaked rapid rooters have caused issues with the stems.
Did I water them too much? I don't see how with 50% perlite.
Is 300 ppm too much/too little for a 7 day old seedling?
Is 50/50 coco perlite not good for seedlings?
Does 50/50 get watered daily? 2x a day? Less?
If the coco medium just doesn't dry out at first, isn't it good to water anyway every couple days to introduce fresh oxygen and nutes?
I am at a loss, this is my worst grow ever, even my very first grow when I was 19 didn't start like this. I mean how hard is it to start some f'ing seedlings!!
Im not giving up on coco, but before i scrap this and try again I would sure love some ideas on how I messed this up so bad.
I've grown in soil pretty successfully for over 10yrs now, but today I come to you with my tail between my legs. With the help of ICmag i've read and read and read thousands of topics, and the past couple years I've been reading a lot about coco coir. I read the entire coco trees thread twice, and have spent countless hours reading about growing in coco.
So I felt pretty confident giving it a try. After almost two weeks now and half my coco plants dead, and the rest on their way, I need to understand my failure, which I don't have a clue how i could have f'ed up that bad, and it makes me feel pretty stupid because I feel I have a good understanding of the science of growing cannabis.
So, here's what I did:
I germinated 14 seeds of two different strains, 3 "BC Kush" and 11 Copperchem from greenpoint seeds. And put them in rapid rooters. As soon as they sprouted i put them in 3" by 3" pots.
I was only able to find Black Gold's Just Coir, and mixed that 50/50 with perlite. I washed this mix with tapwater until clear, then made a nutrient solution at 250ppm, Sensi Coco A&B, RO water, and let it soak for about an hour. After that I planted the rapid rooters in them.
This is them at 3 days old. The copperchem stretched like crazy.
These are in a room at 80f 60% humidity. Light breeze blowing on the seedlings.
A 180W LED light is hanging 12" above seedling tops.
I let them sit a couple days, the mix never dried out. The first leaves started to droop though, so I watered with a 250ppm solution with RO water.
I was also noticing the rapid rooters were extremely wet, like soggy. And I am betting the RR's were holding to much water. After a couple days I had 3 die on me from damping off.
I think rapid rooters are great for cloning, but seedling don't develop a root mass quickly enough to escape the water logged plug. Usually i plant seeds in soil, and clone using rapid rooters at a 99% success rate.
This is two days later. They are 5 days old here.
Then everything just went south, they wouldn't stand up, I noticed the leaves getting really light green, stems not strengthening, I upped the nute solution to 300ppm then 350ppm. I flushed them and tested runoff at around 350ppm. I had two more copperchem just wilt up and die.
Here is them at 11 days old. 3 BC Kush on the far left, and remaining 6 copperchem.
I dont understand how i have such varied results. One BC Kush is fine, one is super twisted, the other one in the back that looks ok in this photo I checked on today and is pretty much dead like it dampened off. And the remaining copper chems all look like shit.
The best guess i have is that the soaked rapid rooters have caused issues with the stems.
Did I water them too much? I don't see how with 50% perlite.
Is 300 ppm too much/too little for a 7 day old seedling?
Is 50/50 coco perlite not good for seedlings?
Does 50/50 get watered daily? 2x a day? Less?
If the coco medium just doesn't dry out at first, isn't it good to water anyway every couple days to introduce fresh oxygen and nutes?
I am at a loss, this is my worst grow ever, even my very first grow when I was 19 didn't start like this. I mean how hard is it to start some f'ing seedlings!!
Im not giving up on coco, but before i scrap this and try again I would sure love some ideas on how I messed this up so bad.