CoCo & Ebb n' Flow

Rolls right off the tongue doesn't it? Anyways, I was chatting with Texas Kid and he swears by coco in his ebb/flow setups now a days.

That is all I will run from here on out unless something from outer space comes around and is better. Coco is hands down the best performance i have ever got out of any other media. I use the Botanicare Coco Coir, there is a difference and this one has proven to be the best all around.
I use Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro Veg and Bloom with Liquid Karma, Cal-mag plus, Sweet, Hydroplex, and Hygrozyme. Unbelievable the result I am gettin now and I got killer result before so ya know it's crazy badass.
Tex

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Seeing how TK isn't some chump, I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with coco and ebb/flow... Thanks Yall

this sounds pretty interesting i know. in one way i think it should work. although i don't see it beating the dripper set up, lol. in fact i clearly remember one guy having big problems, with just such a coco ebb and flow set up. that kind of put me off, but if it's done right i can see no reason why it shouldn't work. you would need to aerate the water though, just to help.

I guess I am going to be alone on this one. I really don't feel like setting up a gazillion drippers for a SOG, thats the only reason I want to setup an ebb/flow Oh well, maybe TK will stop by and help me out a bit more =]

ebb n flow is fine with coco,...just buy a 4x8 coco mat and cut sqaures or circles to line the bottom of your pot as a screen to prevent coco from seeping out,...i naturally do this to all of my pots because im always moving mothers around in my house and hated coco leaking all over the carpet...
just flood half way up the pot or the coco will rise when flooded and fall out sometimes.
I did this for a while and switched to run to waste with a garbage can and watering wand,.....I didnt like the idea of my plants being fed recycled nutes,...I make a fresh batch of nutes in a 32 gallon garbage can and feed 75 plants with 10% runoff

with f&d you also have to aerate the res 24/7 if your using organics and also have to have a seperate pump with 1/2 inch poly tube with holes punched in it the whole length of it to mix up the nutes 10 minutes before floods as the organics tend to settle to the bottom of the res.

you can see why I switched!

or better yet just buy the coco pots from GH,....they work excellent for f&d
these are my 1 qaurt pre veg pots

these are 1 gallon pots/yielded 19-20 oz per 1k


I now use these 2 g. pots and get 23-24 oz per 1k

So as long as I aerate the res and possibly use coco pots, I should be ok with recirculating the nutes? This would be a HELL of a lot easier for my current situation as opposed to hand watering and having to possibly feed them a couple times a day and mix up all those nutes =] Thanks for your input Hydro and gaius, I really do appreciate it =]

yeah either way is a pain in the ass imo,....I only feed once every 3 days in veg, and once every other day in bloom,...they could use a feeding once or twice a day in bloom,..but I cant be in my room everyday!
I have thought about an automated dripper setup but I dont want to run a loud power sucking pump and a shitload of dripper lines....
but I tell ya,...this hand watering is getting real old here,...especially knowing I could yield more if I gave them more feedings

I may have to suck it up and go with drippers so I can visit the garden less frequently and feed them more,...but I feel that drippers dont really saturate all the coco in the pots like a good watering wand can do...I would probably have to fabricate drip rings like the waterfarm have in order to wet all the medium in the pot.

what are your thoughts on this gaiusmarius?
do you have this problem or is the coverage of the drippers better than I imagine?

cool system indeed....and very well cured grow room set up.
sincerely complintes dude..can u explain better what is the feed method?
u run with straight water and feed pot by pot or mix the nutrients in the tank?
the roots not suffer for dryness during the unwater periods?

i've design in my mind a similar situation with the pot and soil...but this ones is so good with coco for water elevation in the medium....BIG UP BRO..AND THX FOR SHARING IT

in slabs with cubes a dripper is perfect as it runs into the slab from every plant. in a 5 lt pot one dripper is still enough although two is a safer bet. but either way i have never had problems with the plant when some coco at the top edges was getting a bit dry. the interesting thing is that even when the pots are all differently wet, the plants still all grow and look the same. even with drippers, i have a old dripper set up and many a dripper line has been cut during harvest, so they end up running faster then the full length ones, but it seems to make no difference. some coco slabs can be very heavy others a bit less so on a table of them, even this doesn't change anything for the plants. this is what's so amazing about coco, as long as water is coming it's kind of up to you how many times and how fast or much as long as you get some return from most of the slabs when watering.

for me with slabs, i don't think ebb and flow is ideal, i have the distinct impression that using coco for ebb and flow, makes things unnecessarily complicated. but i see no reason why it wouldn't work. although i have notice on my slab table that the plants that don't get water through the dripper directly, don't do well at all, even if the slab they are in is being watered by 3 other drippers to the 3 other plants and the slab is full of water. this makes me think that the plants prefer to be top fed.

but as we know these plants are very adaptable and can surely do well in any setup if one gets things right.

with a dripper set up there is no need to aerate the tank. it's just not needed. as every drop of water going in via dripper is surrounded by air.

i personally am a fan of recirculating the nutes, using a big tank. i like to save the water and nutes, but i have to admit that it require a bit more upkeep. i have it set up so i can run to waste as well when i do the end flush for example.

thanks filimagno!,...the feed method is pretty simple,...I just fill up a garbage can with water and add my nutes and ph it and I have a 1500 gph pump sitting inside the can with a 10 ft. poly hose connected to a watering wand,...I then water each plant individually,...the whole process to make nutes & water takes about 15-20 minutes but it gets old after awhile...
I only recomend the coco pots if you do f&d because when I was watering them with the wand,..the water was not going to the bottom of the pot,..it was seeping out from the sides about half way down.....which is why I use larger plastic pots now...anyone watering by hand should use a minimum of a 2g. pot or you will absolutely have to water daily....and still I should be watering daily myself but havent been...

I wish I had found this section sooner. I've been having a hell of a time with nutrients.

I like the idea of using coco pots. I could pack more plants in my cloning area. I use coco cubes for the plant and croutons to fill the rest of the table.



I like having a small hobby garden like this to experiment in and will probably try slabs and a recirc system next.

hey northcoastmed,..that works great when you add the diced rockwool because the roots will grow out of the pots and underneath the cubes,....only thing is it causes high humidity,...ive tried this with a coco mat and noticed I was getting a little powdery mildew on my lower leaves/branches from it always being moist,.....you may want to get some panda plastic and cut some ''x's'' in it where the plants are to poke them through and cover all the pots/table......that way youll have a nice humid environment for the roots below the plastic.

I've seen TK's Coco Ebb n Flow setup and performance and it's off tha charts.

Hygrozyme is tha ticket.

HYDROJUNKIE said:

hey northcoastmed,..that works great when you add the diced rockwool because the roots will grow out of the pots and underneath the cubes,....only thing is it causes high humidity,...ive tried this with a coco mat and noticed I was getting a little powdery mildew on my lower leaves/branches from it always being moist,.....you may want to get some panda plastic and cut some ''x's'' in it where the plants are to poke them through and cover all the pots/table......that way youll have a nice humid environment for the roots below the plastic.

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Actually humidity is not an issue. I actually wish I had more. During daylight hours I'm only at 20% and 70% with the lights off. The good thing about the panda film idea is keeping algea from growing.

I'm a first-time coco grower, and I'm extremely impressed with the medium..it's like plant steroids! However, I made the mistake of getting lazy and not transplanting from one- to two-gallon pots at the beginning of flowering. Ten or so days from harvest, I'm astounded at the size and yield of these plants--especially in those small pots!--but am of necessity a total slave to watering them daily. On top of other garden maintenance, it gets old. I'm seriously looking forward to getting the money to automate. I'll be recirculating in a top-feed system in two-gallon pots.