Non-Newb with a coco problem

Alright guys, I'm going to lay this out there. I've been growing for years, all sorts of systems. Ebb n flow, aero, organic etc,... this past year I've been trying out Coco and I see so much potential but it's making me work my ass off to keep the nutrients from locking out.

So I'll try my best to layout the details and hopefully someone with real coco experience can lend me some insight.

Plants: Green House White Widow & TGA Cheese Quake

Veg time 4 weeks
Bloom time 8-9 weeks

Pots: 5 Gallon Root pots (Aurora innovations)

Coco: Sanctuary soils - Big City Hydro (reused)

Water: RO >10ppm

Nutrients: I don't use all these at the same time. I've been running a 2-1-1 1.0ec veg, 1-2-1 1.4ec early flower and 1-2-2 1.6-1.8ec late flower. Canna Coco ab(entire grow), CaMg+(veg) cali magic (entire bloom), canna zyme (entire bloom), canna pk 13.14 (wk 3-5) Kangaroots (entire grow), Diamond Nectar (entire bloom),
Infinity (wk 1-5), Big Swell (wk 3-7), PeaK (wk 7-8), cyco potash (wk 5-7), Dutch Pro Potash+ (wk 7-8)

Example: today is week 7 so this is what I mixed up. Everything is added in equal parts (about 3ml/gal) except here noted.
Canna AB 5-4-3
CaliMagic 1-0-0
Canna zyme 0-2-1
Kangaroots .8-0-0
Diamond Nectar 0-1-1
Peak 0-12-7 but I use 1/2 strength so I measure it at 0-6-3.5
Potash+ 0-4-9 I use 1/2 strength so I measure it at 0-2-4.5

Total - 6.8-17-17.5 or 1-2.2-1.9

Feed schedule: 1x-3x a day little to no runoff

The plants were doing great until around week 4 and I started seeing deficiencies and burns so I flushed and my runoff was


2.5-4.0 (I know). So I flush them down to .3 and next day water with 1.0 and the runoff is still at 1.9-2.5. I backed the nutrients down to 1.0 and I'm still getting run off in the 1.8-2.0 range

I know that I'm doing something wrong here, please help!

Im not sure exactly, but just my .2 cents worth. I had similar results after changing over to Coco and it wasnt until I went down to 3gallon pots (Coco does very well in smaller containers) and made sure to NEVER let the coco dry out that I was able to get the deficiencies eliminated. In my case I decided to go with tap water/ no cal/mag. I also follow the KISS technique and keep a consistent 1.0 EC until flush. Ive now settled on Veg+Bloom formula and use Earth Juice catalyst to lower my PH to 5.6-5.9, best results so far.
Sounds like you need some runoff if your EC is going up that high.
IMO 5 gallon is too big for Coco unless you have a massive root system to handle and then you are feeding 3-4 times a day or more.

Experience can be your worst enemy when switching to coco If your root zone temps are ok then the lockouts are caused by that insane ec they are living in as you probably already know. Not much you can do except flush it down to an acceptable range. I learned my lessons, I stay in nothing larger than 2gal fabric pots with 100% coco and never go above 1.0ec in veg and 1.2ec in bloom. Up to 6' trees. Goodluck with the flush.

I'm pretty heavily invested in 5 gallon pots already, maybe I should consider growing some real trees.

Stoned you grow 6' trees in 2 gallon pots?!?

calcium carbonate

calcium carbonate

if you're re-using your slightly amended coco after a cycle with the same nutrient regiment as last time you probably have extra lime built up in your medium and it might not be playing well with coco. If you are using those two cal-mag (calcium carboante) products to re-mineralize your ro water thats fine, but if with just the canna base you don't have a real pH drift problem in your rez then why add it. if you are doing it to control pH a bit, using those supplements with tons of organic acids is going to drive your pH all-over anyway? work with the base and pk only?

.02

For gg4 it does better in 3s but my cooks/og you can get 6 ft plants ez in 2 gal of coco

Also, you don't understand nutrient profiling yet.

http://http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm

dynamitejack said:

Pots: 5 Gallon Root pots (Aurora innovations)

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A lot of people go a little too big with their container size. 5 Gallons is for trees, definitely with more vegetative time to use all that space. Excess coco, without roots present to uptake the solution, will have hot areas. These hot areas can be worsened with inadequate runoff. As the plant grows and the roots search out new room they are going to have a hard time with the high saturation of elements in the places in the media they haven't been to.

Smaller containers that match up with the vegetative cycle will improve nutrient uptake and the efficiency. It's not that you're feed is too strong, it just builds up, and over time that does a lot of damage. I use 2 gallon SmartPots and I do VERY well with them only 60-70% filled. I wait until the plants are about 16 inches tall with 10-14 internode sets to produce a plant 3-4 feet tall usually harvesting around 2-3 ounces dry weight. 3 Gallon containers are great for 40-60 day vegetative periods and I wouldn't go larger than that unless I was growing in full sun or an organic/coco mix.

dynamitejack said:

Coco: Sanctuary soils - Big City Hydro (reused)

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I'm not totally familiar with this brand but I did give it a glance. The Perlite and Lava rock are something I have stopped using in my system. Pure coco has really great properties and I think I can say that all of the grows I've done with coco/perlite have been much more difficult with smaller yields (unless it was an soil mix w/ organic nutrients).

You'll find most everyone prefers one brand of coco over another. I like Botanicare Cocogro personally, but Canna is a reputable brand, as is B'Cuzz. There are others out there to choose from and I've always felt that as long as you rinse it really well before planting all the brands produce a coir that is nearly indistinguishable. I would change your coco brand as well for the next cycle.

Coco will break down and decompose over time. You say this is reused, and you could be experiencing some of this in your impossible to decrease runoff. There's just a lot of sodium and potassium locked up when the coco is fresh and at this point you should probably expect your media to be a lot less inert than it was a few months ago. You'll need to maintain your runoff levels over 20% to deal with the maturity of the media and the cation competition it presents for the elements in your nutrient program.

dynamitejack said:

Water: RO >10ppm

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Canna recommends not using RO filtered water if you can avoid it. If not, then you'll want to start with your Cal-Mag products to provide some hardness and stability to the water. I usually ran 2.5ml/gallon of Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus to provide my soft PNW water with ~0.25 EC before adding other products, especially Canna Coco A+B.

dynamitejack said:

Nutrients: I don't use all these at the same time. I've been running a 2-1-1 1.0ec veg, 1-2-1 1.4ec early flower and 1-2-2 1.6-1.8ec late flower. Canna Coco ab(entire grow), CaMg+(veg) cali magic (entire bloom), canna zyme (entire bloom), canna pk 13.14 (wk 3-5) Kangaroots (entire grow), Diamond Nectar (entire bloom),
Infinity (wk 1-5), Big Swell (wk 3-7), PeaK (wk 7-8), cyco potash (wk 5-7), Dutch Pro Potash+ (wk 7-8)

Example: today is week 7 so this is what I mixed up. Everything is added in equal parts (about 3ml/gal) except here noted.
Canna AB 5-4-3
CaliMagic 1-0-0
Canna zyme 0-2-1
Kangaroots .8-0-0
Diamond Nectar 0-1-1
Peak 0-12-7 but I use 1/2 strength so I measure it at 0-6-3.5
Potash+ 0-4-9 I use 1/2 strength so I measure it at 0-2-4.5

Total - 6.8-17-17.5 or 1-2.2-1.9

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I've done it big, I've done it simple. I think that with Canna you are on the right track trying to dial in your ratios a little better than what they throw you. Adding together percentages like you're doing, without taking into account Calcium, Magnesium, and Sulfur - can open the door to overfeeding with that many bottles. Instead of adding it together like you are, try to understand your ppm's a little better.

The formula is easy too! Just take the Percentage on the bottle, the ml used per gallon, and multiply them together. Now multiply that by 2.65 and you've got a rough estimate of the ppm's for that element. Two elements need a little extra care in the US because of how those are labeled. The percentages on the bottle also include the Oxygen they are attached to. So, for Phosphorus, take the ppm number and multiply by 0.44. For Potassium, use 0.83. This will cut those numbers by 44% and 83% respectively to eliminate the extra, useless, oxygen in their formulas (P2O5 and K2O). But remember what is on the label is only the minimum guaranteed analysis. There can (and ultimately will) be more than promised on the bottle, in the bottle.

In your latest formula I count:
Nitrogen - 54 ppm
Phosphorus - 60 ppm
Potassium - 116 ppm
Calcium - 76 ppm
Magnesium - 22 ppm

I like where your Nitrogen is at, no problems there. The Phosphorus is a touch on the low side of normal, but pretty good there too. Potassium could be a lot higher, I'd like to see that at 180ppm+, but with your media age and strain requirements that's really more dependent on environmental variables like light intensity, leaf temperature, and VPD. Calcium for this stage of life is too high, even for coco. I think this is part of your issue and that you need to reduce your Calcium by 25% to about 55 ppm (or right about where the Nitrogen is at, and beneath Phosphorus). Magnesium is the other part of your issue at just 22 ppm. I find this element to be one of the first to lock out in coco and I definitely error on the side of caution these days. I prefer to keep my Magnesium ppm's between 40 and 60 during flowering. You'll need to double that number and that's the ratio you have the most out of balance. Many coco growers utilize Epsom salt as a cheap source of Mg for their systems without having to dose in other products. You'll need about 1/4 tsp per gallon for a solid 30ppm kick, plus some extra Sulfur that should help with flowering too.

The Big Swell could be an issue after looking into it's ratios plus CANNA. You might want to consider finding alternatives to the Aurora Soul Synthetics, and possibly that Diamond Nectar too. I like working with Advanced Nutrients Big Bud Dry 1-17-38 and Botanicare's Hydroplex 0-10-6 as flowering boosters when dialing in the CANNA program. I also like to use Botanicare's CNS17 Ripe 1-5-4 as a finisher beginning around day 42 and I drop everything else. Cutting Edge Solutions Uncle John's Blend is the best resin/potency enhancer that I have found, and at 0-0-2 it's really handy to bump the K another 20 ppm. General Hydroponics RapidStart is as effective as H&G Roots Excelurator, it's 1/2 the price and 1/2 the concentration which makes it great for people with reservoirs under 55 gallons. BioAg FulPower is the best humic/fulvic for hydroponics that I've found (Humboldt Nutrients FlavorFul is a good one too) and I really recommend it if you're going to stick on that route. Silica is about the only thing we left out.

Also, if you're running General Hydroponics pH Down in coco then I recommend dropping that right away. The Phosphoric acid just hasn't worked well and I see it as a product used in a lot of problem grows. Try using organic acids like Fulvic or Earth Juice's Natural pH Down Citric crystals. TechnaFlora's Nitric Acid based pH down is a winner too. Really, just anything but the GH Down and I think it's going to help.

dynamitejack said:

Feed schedule: 1x-3x a day little to no runoff

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In my opinion this is the last part of your problem. I've done no runoff grows but they really work best when you know the plants and the media intimately. You have to be on your game with the nutrient ratios and ppms, anticipating buildup and working in low strength (1/2) feedings with the regular strength feedings. Beginners in coco will almost always benefit from excess runoff, and I tell everyone I meet that is having an issue with the stuff to start getting 25% minimum. For some growers, like myself as an example, that's maybe 1 gallon of runoff a day. It's just a few pennies, and that's the best way to learn and to just be sure that what you're feeding the plants today is what they are eating, not leftovers from 3 weeks ago built up and stored away in some untouched corner of the container. Start getting runoff, at least a little bit, at each feeding and you'll have happier roots that grow bigger plants until you get this dialed in a little better. I appreciate where you're trying to get to without runoff and it will happen in time.

dynamitejack said:

The plants were doing great until around week 4 and I started seeing deficiencies and burns so I flushed and my runoff was 2.5-4.0 (I know). So I flush them down to .3 and next day water with 1.0 and the runoff is still at 1.9-2.5. I backed the nutrients down to 1.0 and I'm still getting run off in the 1.8-2.0 range

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That's pretty much when I would always have issues too. Its all tied together and the Magnesium is your element du jour. Flushing in coco is an issue because it doesn't release all the elements equally. Nutrient Burn is really nutrient deficiency as a result of imbalance and rinsing the media with clean water, while well intentioned, might only make it harder for the plant to get what she needs. Plant's are electrical systems, and they kind of ebb/flow with the conductivity of the media, so disrupting this balance abruptly has other consequences on hormone production and root/stem/immune system health. Always use a diluted solution, even 1/4 strength is good enough, to rinse out coco. Rinsing>Flusing in coco to maintain your CEC and establish a healthy balance to stop starving the plant of what she needs.

When I see that interveinal chlorisis coming I'll spray my plants for a few days with a foliar program to minimize the damage. The issue with having this nutrient deficiency at this stage of growth is how it impacts flower development and harvest yield. This is a "make or break" moment where the stress from the light intensity can also bring out those hermaphroditic tendencies.

In about 1L of water I will use a drop of CocoCat as a surfactant (Ivory Unscented dish soap is fine too), 1/8th teaspoon of Epsom Salt, and 1/8th teaspoon Fulvic Acid. Botanicare's Liquid Karma works really well as a foliar, as does CANNA CannaBoost, because they contain surfactants and organic acids already. Apply to the underside of the leafs at lights on for 2 days, then do a clean water spray on the 3rd day. Repeat this until they are healthy. I also raise the lights a few inches to reduce the photosynthetic response that is overheating their little chloroplast power plants and causing all that necrosis.

Runoff can also be a useful tool when trying to understand the impact of your feeding schedule. A one time reading is difficult to make a reaction on, maybe your runoff EC is normal based on where its been the whole grow? We can't say. But, if you begin with clean coco and keep a good record of your runoff at each feeding you can graph that data to see patterns. Graph your feed strength too and these patterns will start to show you when you needed a little more food, or maybe when you pushed too much. Take some other notes, temperature and humidity, plant appearance, how much solution they needed, and you can use all of this info to gain a ton of insight into this media. Once you have adjusted your mental concept of what the plants are doing from your previous experiences to this one, that's when you'll have the greatest opportunity to improve on base nutrients and their suggested supplements with your own ideas.

dynamitejack said:

I know that I'm doing something wrong here, please help!

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Time to recap:
1. Smaller containers. 2 gallon or 3 gallon is perfect. Root Pots suck (try to tear it with your bare hands) get yourself some Smarties and save over the long haul.

2. New Coco, no perlite, rinsed and clean. I like Botanicare CocoGro.

3. Nutrient program adjustments. More K+Mag, little less Cal. I just blew my own mind with a very simple program without all the supplements. One of my biggest yields to date and I didn't use more than 3 bottles. Botanicare CNS17 All Media or PureBlend Pro are both winners and could help you get a solid grow under your belt before getting back to the tinkering.

4. Runoff is king. Get that up over 20% and consider making a habit of recording your runoff EC every feeding. This will be handy down the road.

5. Foliar program with Magnesium to combat your issues. If the edges are curling up pull the lights up, drop the temperatures, raise the humidity, and increase the Potassium by 10-20% in your feed.

6. Get High!

dynamitejack said:

I'm pretty heavily invested in 5 gallon pots already, maybe I should consider growing some real trees.

Stoned you grow 6' trees in 2 gallon pots?!?

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Ya but there are trees of all types I have 6 trees in a 5x6 space around a 1k vert bulb. So they are tall but not bushy. I run a perpetual so that's how big they get waiting to make it to the bloom room with a long veg + the stretch in bloom. 4-8 zips per plant depending on strain. I'm a hacker, I never aim for perfection and optimum yield. I aim to fill mine and my buddies jars with the dank as easily and cheaply as possible

Notice that Stoned is growing Vertically. Trees with horizontal lighting usually have a whole lot of larf on lower half of plant, which is useless. -granger

Granger2 said:

Notice that Stoned is growing Vertically. Trees with horizontal lighting usually have a whole lot of larf on lower half of plant, which is useless. -granger

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Nothing could be further from the truth I trim all the branches up to 2'-2.5' before they go into bloom. I only have one strain left, It's a frikken frost monster and every bud is killer no matter where on the plant it grows. I strip all the fan leaves off that are facing the light in week 6 so they all color like the tops. I hang my light below the very tops of the plants for the entire bloom. You would be singing a different tune if you stopped over and tried the Canna caps and BHO I make from my larf I've been buying seed and popping them the all month. Getting ready to look for more Fire. Picked up 4 different gg#4 crosses, 5 Stardawg crosses, 5 GSC crosses, 3 WiFi crosses, Budda Tahoe, Larry og, Powernap and lots more

This is why IC is the only forum I use! Thank you everyone for your input!! Sov can you send another link? The one you posted doesn't seem to work.

Snow, Thank you for your reply, you answered many questions but I have a few more.

Whats VPD?

Whats CEC?

Snow Crash said:

I'm not totally familiar with this brand but I did give it a glance. The Perlite and Lava rock are something I have stopped using in my system. Pure coco has really great properties and I think I can say that all of the grows I've done with coco/perlite have been much more difficult with smaller yields (unless it was an soil mix w/ organic nutrients).

After thinking about it, the plants I'm working with now are actually in pure Canna coco but it has been used once before.

Snow Crash said:

You'll find most everyone prefers one brand of coco over another. I like Botanicare Cocogro personally, but Canna is a reputable brand, as is B'Cuzz. There are others out there to choose from and I've always felt that as long as you rinse it really well before planting all the brands produce a coir that is nearly indistinguishable. I would change your coco brand as well for the next cycle.

I wonder who Botanicare gets their Coco from, I doubt they are actually manufacturing it. I bet you could find the same stuff at a nursery for ¼ the price

Snow Crash said:

Coco will break down and decompose over time. You say this is reused, and you could be experiencing some of this in your impossible to decrease runoff. There's just a lot of sodium and potassium locked up when the coco is fresh and at this point you should probably expect your media to be a lot less inert than it was a few months ago. You'll need to maintain your runoff levels over 20% to deal with the maturity of the media and the cation competition it presents for the elements in your nutrient program.

If I use 3 gallon pots what can I do to catch and capture the run off so I can measure it and make sure I maintain 20-25% runoff? I'd don't want to use flood tables if I can avoid it.

Snow Crash said:

Canna recommends not using RO filtered water if you can avoid it. If not, then you'll want to start with your Cal-Mag products to provide some hardness and stability to the water. I usually ran 2.5ml/gallon of Botanicare Cal-Mag Plus to provide my soft PNW water with ~0.25 EC before adding other products, especially Canna Coco A+B.

I've been running .3 EC of CaMg+ during veg and wk 1-2 flower and Calimagic for the rest of flower

Snow Crash said:

The formula is easy too! Just take the Percentage on the bottle, the ml used per gallon, and multiply them together. Now multiply that by 2.65 and you've got a rough estimate of the ppm's for that element. Two elements need a little extra care in the US because of how those are labeled. The percentages on the bottle also include the Oxygen they are attached to. So, for Phosphorus, take the ppm number and multiply by 0.44. For Potassium, use 0.83. This will cut those numbers by 44% and 83% respectively to eliminate the extra, useless, oxygen in their formulas (P2O5 and K2O). But remember what is on the label is only the minimum guaranteed analysis. There can (and ultimately will) be more than promised on the bottle, in the bottle.

So for Canna AB 5-4-3 @ 3ml/gal I multiply (5*3)*2.65 = 39.75 for N, ((4*.44)*3)*2.65=13.99 for P and ((3*.83)*3)*2.65=19.79 for K. Do I have that right?

For the micronutrients, do I do the same formula that I used for N?

Snow Crash said:

I like working with Advanced Nutrients Big Bud Dry 1-17-38 and Botanicare's Hydroplex 0-10-6 as flowering boosters when dialing in the CANNA program. I also like to use Botanicare's CNS17 Ripe 1-5-4 as a finisher beginning around day 42 and I drop everything else. Cutting Edge Solutions Uncle John's Blend is the best resin/potency enhancer that I have found, and at 0-0-2 it's really handy to bump the K another 20 ppm. General Hydroponics RapidStart is as effective as H&G Roots Excelurator, it's 1/2 the price and 1/2 the concentration which makes it great for people with reservoirs under 55 gallons. BioAg FulPower is the best humic/fulvic for hydroponics that I've found (Humboldt Nutrients FlavorFul is a good one too) and I really recommend it if you're going to stick on that route. Silica is about the only thing we left out.

Also, if you're running General Hydroponics pH Down in coco then I recommend dropping that right away. The Phosphoric acid just hasn't worked well and I see it as a product used in a lot of problem grows. Try using organic acids like Fulvic or Earth Juice's Natural pH Down Citric crystals. TechnaFlora's Nitric Acid based pH down is a winner too. Really, just anything but the GH Down and I think it's going to help.

I never used any GH ph down. The Soul synthetics brought the ph to 5.0, I used ArmourSi .5ml gal to bring the ph over 5.5

How do you calculate the ppm of a powder like big bud?


When you say you drop everything Day 42, you mean you only run the CNS and CES?

How necessary are humic acids? I was using the Diamond Nectar because of the little bit of P&K

Thanks again everyone!

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Side note, do you guys know how to edit/delete posts on here? I can't figure it out for the life of me

sorry about the bad link, i'm new and must have made a mistake somewhere in the copy/paste/insert

google "canna stats" and it should be first. an angelfire website

snow crash is an asset to icmag coco users, he's posted about using almost every bottled nutrient pepople have tried. notice he used botanicare calmag+ which is calcium nitrate.

and this sticky thread:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=177807

should be shroomdr's thread from nutrients

I am also interested in how to get a good amount of runoff to measure. I have growbags and am in a tent with a bottom liner that can flood with no problem. But that would lead to the bags sitting with the bottom in just standing water, i did hydrate my coco the first time by just filling the bottom of the tent with clean water and letting them suck it up. Also, that doesn't seem like it would give a very accurate reading since it would pick up crap from the floor.

I was going to get a 5 gal bucket or a big tote and then stick the plants in there to water them so i could check the runoff, but that seems like kind of a PIA.

Good to know about container sizes, i don't feel bad for only filling my large bags halfway now.

RUNOFF BRO!!!
LOL . I always have issues when I dont water top runoff. Especially with built up salts. If your having this issue alot you can use H&G Drip Clean to help strip the salts from your medium. As for the small pots, none of that matters it just changes the amount of times you water. I am running 70 gal coco beds right now and they are BLOWING UP.

SOV76 said:

Also, you don't understand nutrient profiling yet.

http://http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/fourtwenty/articles/profiles.htm

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_Underscore_ said:

RUNOFF BRO!!!
LOL . I always have issues when I dont water top runoff. Especially with built up salts. If your having this issue alot you can use H&G Drip Clean to help strip the salts from your medium. As for the small pots, none of that matters it just changes the amount of times you water. I am running 70 gal coco beds right now and they are BLOWING UP.

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So are you saying that rather than switching to 3 gals and watering 3-6x day, stick with the 5 gals and water less? The Cheesquake is a beast, she can suck up all the moisture in a 5 gal in about 24 hrs.
My biggest problem has been how to capture the run off...

You don't need runoff and you don't need to check it unless you have a problem. You can do the entire grow with never having runoff, plain and simple. Run off works great and no run off works great. I just switched from handwater with run off to blumats with no run off 2 weeks ago in a perpetual grow. Same plants got switched in different stages of bloom. I'm seeing the plants like the blumats and no run off better than handwatering and run off twice a day. Go figure

stoned40yrs said:

You don't need runoff and you don't need to check it unless you have a problem. You can do the entire grow with never having runoff, plain and simple. Run off works great and no run off works great. I just switched from handwater with run off to blumats with no run off 2 weeks ago in a perpetual grow. Same plants got switched in different stages of bloom. I'm seeing the plants like the blumats and no run off better than handwatering and run off twice a day. Go figure

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This is entirely true. I water my plants very frequently to keep the medium evenly moist at all times, this way buildup isn't a concern.

I'm on the 6th week of flowering and the ladies seem more than healthy with zero runoff.

edit: would also like to add that I'm not using drip clean

Ww