gonzo`
Member
So I'm not in the US or Europe and this country has like two hydro shops which are totally crap because they have such a narrow range of products that I've never used before. I'm used to growing with canna products, their nutes and soil etc... So this has been a challange.
What i've done is create 4 "beds" if you will that measure 3x2 feet and filled them up with the only medium they have at this hydro shop: 50/50 mix of coco and perlite. Now this stuff you buy gets mixed at the shop and the coco they use comes in these bricks which they rehydrate etc... Now I got home and put a handful of this mix into a bit of water and let it sit for 10 minutes. I came back and took a pH and EC reading. I found that it was the pH and EC of my tap water so I figured okay, cool, I don't need to flush this because they obviously did for me and they guy at the shop didnt say anything about it...
So I plant like 550 USD worth of seeds directly in these beds and wait... They all come up and things seem to be going fine until I notice discolouration on the leaves... So I figure something is wrong and I know that I didn't measure I measure my run off so on the second watering I measure and its 2.9EC!!!! So fuck, that mix obviously wasn't flushed properly. So i take out all my baby seedlings and put them into cups. I then flush this whole mix and end up with run off that measures my tap water 0.2 and then I transplant these guys back in...
So these are my new problems:
1. What pH should my run off be?
2. How wet do I keep this mix? I've noticed that the next day after watering the mix doesn't really have much moisture in it, I've taken a handful from the bottom of the beds and when i squeeze it, a bit of water comes out, is this too dry?
3. Adding to the point above, when I water the mix doesn't seem to hold very much of the water, it pretty much drains a lot out.. What the hell is going on? Has my mix lost its ability to hold moisure? Is there anything I can do now?
Thanks!
What i've done is create 4 "beds" if you will that measure 3x2 feet and filled them up with the only medium they have at this hydro shop: 50/50 mix of coco and perlite. Now this stuff you buy gets mixed at the shop and the coco they use comes in these bricks which they rehydrate etc... Now I got home and put a handful of this mix into a bit of water and let it sit for 10 minutes. I came back and took a pH and EC reading. I found that it was the pH and EC of my tap water so I figured okay, cool, I don't need to flush this because they obviously did for me and they guy at the shop didnt say anything about it...
So I plant like 550 USD worth of seeds directly in these beds and wait... They all come up and things seem to be going fine until I notice discolouration on the leaves... So I figure something is wrong and I know that I didn't measure I measure my run off so on the second watering I measure and its 2.9EC!!!! So fuck, that mix obviously wasn't flushed properly. So i take out all my baby seedlings and put them into cups. I then flush this whole mix and end up with run off that measures my tap water 0.2 and then I transplant these guys back in...
So these are my new problems:
1. What pH should my run off be?
2. How wet do I keep this mix? I've noticed that the next day after watering the mix doesn't really have much moisture in it, I've taken a handful from the bottom of the beds and when i squeeze it, a bit of water comes out, is this too dry?
3. Adding to the point above, when I water the mix doesn't seem to hold very much of the water, it pretty much drains a lot out.. What the hell is going on? Has my mix lost its ability to hold moisure? Is there anything I can do now?
Thanks!