[The Budfather]

im a bit confused on this so far im on my first coco/soil mix i wanna kno how should i prepareit to be reused. can i just add a catalyst to it and let it bake under the light with my other bush. im just doing 2 large plants at a time and would have room to store inunderneath the bulb thus like a natural enviorment. if it takes to long im just gonna ditch and go full dwc! info is appreciated

[Fonda Trichs]

If I were you, I'd water it with cannazyme with about 10% runoff for a few days. On the instructions they recommend a higher concentraion of cannzyme during flush if you do plan to resuse the media, and none if you don't. Other zymes make work the same. But you do want something to break down the remaining micro-roots in the coco, and not let any bad things get started.

Of course you can use it right away, unless there was problems with the plants that were previously planted in it. I just throw the coco in my plastic bin with lots of tiny holes in the bottom( after removing as much of the roots as I can) and run a few gallons of tap water through it. I don't worry about a few roots left over in the mix. I never understood why people get so anal about a few roots in the mix.

I use cannazyme once a week in my nute schedule, so the little dead root fibers will be taken care of eventually.

Cheers,
SH

[gaiusmarius]

you can reuse coco for a long time if you want to, using a zym product on a regular basis, keeps the coco in good condition, turning left over salts and dead roots into usable food for the plants. so if you do a flush at the end of your grow like you should, only a few days in coco, then your coco will be ready to be used again right away, were you not to flush before harvest you'd need to flush before putting in new clones. when using pots you can just break up the old coco and fine roots only pulling out the main tap root and getting as much coco off the main roots ball as you can. in coco slabs i just cut the rw cube off the slabs and replace the old cube with a new clone, i do this 2 times in one hole, then i cut 4 new holes in the slab and do another 2 runs using the new holes cut in the spaces between the first set of holes. this way i get 4 runs from my slabs, i have a mate who was growing even longer with the same slabs, he was talking about 7 runs. but it is certainly true that 2 or 3 runs are no problem at all. you just have to keep an eye on the slabs and react should you get gnat larva. in fact if you let a pot or slab of coco dry out, you will cause the gnat larva to die. so if one could store the coco while using another batch one could probably keep using it for ages. as it's always the gnat larva that force me to react and get new slabs in the end.

if you let the slabs get totally dry, you will probably have to reintroduce some trichoderma to the coco, trichoderma is a kind of micro organism that helps make the roots thrive so well in coco.

[The Budfather]

trichoderma?
will earth juice catalyst work well? and will in reintroduce trichoderma? i have no drainage in my pot so i will have to let it dry out then flush it with catalyst. so do u think i can pull it off?

[Fonda Trichs]

you need to get some sort of drainage situation to flush and aerate at the same time. sure you can stick a new plant in there, but you've got to get a flow of fresh zyme in an aerated environment.

you don't want to stick in a closed place with no drainage. ya gotta drain. ya gotta runoff just a little.

[gaiusmarius]

can't you make drain holes in your pot? would make the flush much easier. let me know how it goes. if you didn't go to heavy on your ferts and let the plant use up as much as poss before harvest, then your coco shouldn't be too salty.

[The Budfather]

so im gonna take it easy on the nutes then when the plants done im gonna move it to a bucket with drainage then flush it for a few days with earth juice catalyst solution.

i have another question once i get them into buckets wiht proper drainage do i ever have to emove th coco from the buckets to airate or what not? cause my cab is in my living room and the better half is threatening to make me stop because of the mess i have a habit of making.
also in the coco im not using i have a major fungas gnat problem can i microwave it for like 3 minutes then seal it off?

[gaiusmarius]

well with my slabs i just cut the cube off and place a new one in it's place. but i do give the slab a quick massage to loosen the coco up again.

as for the gnats, they will die out if you let the coco get dry, the gnat larva can not survive if you let the medium dry out. so as long as it's in storage that seems the easiest solution. you can also get gnatrol or some other liquid BTi product to add to your water. or you can get nematodes. the microwave should work too, but it will kill a whole lot of your beneficial bacteria too.

you need to get a large tarp to do your coco loosening in between harvests, lol.

[The Budfather]

how about just sealing it off like totally then letting it sit wouldnt it deprive them totally of oxygen? thanx for the tarp idea ill try it, if it doesnt work im gonna lose my taste to hydro.........