DWC to coco

If you want the best results with coco you have to treat it like you would a hydro system meaning 1-2 gallon pots and multiple feedings per day. I highly recommend a drain to waste set up that way your res has a constant nutrient ppm that never fluctuates and your ph never swings. I just got done with a trial run of 8 plants in 2 gallon pots and watered 30 seconds every 5 hrs and a 33 gallon res of solution lasted me about a week so there was no difference in how much nutrients was used vs a hydro setup. i cant stress enough how important a small container is for a coco setup. you need that run off water or you would need to flush every week and cant feed as often witch is a pain in the ass. also i do not recommend using air pots or fabric pots. keep with plastic pots because you do not want the sides of the medium to dry out or you will get salt build up. you can go with big 5 gallon pots and water only once every 4 days, but you wont get hydro results and will need much bigger feedings. Also I feel that there is good coco and bad coco out there. I have had amazing results with royal gold tupur coco (comes in an orange bag) Its already mixed up and ready to go no need to add anything and the nutrients i went with was the canna coco nutrient system couldn't be any happier with both. never had a nutrient deficiency and never had any weird root problems.

So would I need coco specific nutes?

Do you have a gravity fed res or do you use pumps?

Id like to use gravity but say a valve fails ill have water all over my floor.

firsttimeARE said:

So would I need coco specific nutes?

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hey first, i know you are familiar with Lucas. go with H3AD's formula for coco. i think it's 6 M/ 9B adn 1g/gal Epsom. you could probably even use your dry nutes to figure out a similar ratio to H3AD.

#motoracer110
thanks for that info - not to hijack, could be relevant - was your 30 sec feedings during lights off or only during lights on? This is not relevant, I'm in fabric pots (1&3 gals) with tupur, anything to watch for on the salt build-up front, maybe a little extra runoff per feeding?

firsttimeARE said:

So would I need coco specific nutes?

Do you have a gravity fed res or do you use pumps?

Id like to use gravity but say a valve fails ill have water all over my floor.

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get yourself some jacks and you can use it no matter what media you use. you can use jacks 321 recipe or do like me and use calmag instead of epsom salts in the same ratio. i used it with great results in coco but i seem to be getting better quality out of rockwool. i am finding it easier to flush as well. could just be me idk. jacks is dirt cheap and there are a ton of people who swear by it. the money you save can buy you some additives and you will have a really bad ass mix. im running jacks, calmag(only seems to be needed with the LEDs) liquid karma, mammoth p and drip clean. never seen happier plants in my garden.

the additives arent truly needed, you could do 321 with epsom and get amazing results on the cheap.

DesertHydro said:

get yourself some jacks and you can use it no matter what media you use. you can use jacks 321 recipe or do like me and use calmag instead of epsom salts in the same ratio. i used it with great results in coco but i seem to be getting better quality out of rockwool. i am finding it easier to flush as well. could just be me idk. jacks is dirt cheap and there are a ton of people who swear by it. the money you save can buy you some additives and you will have a really bad ass mix. im running jacks, calmag(only seems to be needed with the LEDs) liquid karma, mammoth p and drip clean. never seen happier plants in my garden.

the additives arent truly needed, you could do 321 with epsom and get amazing results on the cheap.

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I do use Jacks 5-12-26 with calcinit

I found I didnt need epsom and it was jist fuckong with my Ca to Mg ratios making them,nearly 1:1 at 3:2:1 mix:calcinit:epsom

firsttimeARE said:

So would I need coco specific nutes?

Do you have a gravity fed res or do you use pumps?

Id like to use gravity but say a valve fails ill have water all over my floor.

Click to expand...

You dont need coco specific nutes, but they sure do make life easier. coco has the tendency to want to hold different nutrients more so than other medias therefore a coco specific nutrient really helps combat a deficiency. Personally i like to make things as easy as possible. I had it set on a timer with a pump. I bought a 33 gal trash can then used a 700gph pump that went to 1/2" pvc piping and at the end of the pipe i threaded an 8 flex splitter for drip irrigation with each line going to its own pot. i used a hydroponics cycle timer that is a must. next to get the amount of time needed for each feeding just hook everything up get out a stopwatch and turn it on. when you start seeing runoff stop your timer (depending on your flow 10-30 seconds) and you are all set. there will still be a run off when the pump is off and that is a good thing. then set the timer to feed once every 4-6 hrs and you are set. I was completely automated for 5-7 days and didnt need to do anything until the nutrient solution ran out. I even took it one step further and once i figured out how long i needed the timer to be on I placed all the feeder tubes in a measuring cup and turned on my pump to see how much water was flowing at each feeding and saw i was using about 1.5 gallons per feeding. with that number you know exactly how long before you need to fill up your res and can calculate about how much nutrients needed to buy for the grow.

upnsmoke13 said:

#motoracer110
thanks for that info - not to hijack, could be relevant - was your 30 sec feedings during lights off or only during lights on? This is not relevant, I'm in fabric pots (1&3 gals) with tupur, anything to watch for on the salt build-up front, maybe a little extra runoff per feeding?

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I did my feedings throughout the night as well just a constant cycle of every 4-6 hrs. I know at night my plants were not uptaking any nutrients but you dont want any dry spots in the coco so thats why i did the night feedings. the key is keeping everything moist. upnsmoke you can do more of a feeding to get more runoff but that might cost you more nutrients. because you are in fabric i would suggest just doing a water flush once a week (more time but less expensive in your case with the fabric). I did a test during flower to see how much build up was being flushed out and was feeding at 900ppm, but my runoff was over 2000ppm. thats showed how much salt and nutrients were trapped in the coco and were being flushed out every feeding which is a good thing. no run off and that number keeps climbing until you are nutrient locked out.

motoracer110 said:

You dont need coco specific nutes, but they sure do make life easier. coco has the tendency to want to hold different nutrients more so than other medias therefore a coco specific nutrient really helps combat a deficiency. Personally i like to make things as easy as possible. I had it set on a timer with a pump. I bought a 33 gal trash can then used a 700gph pump that went to 1/2" pvc piping and at the end of the pipe i threaded an 8 flex splitter for drip irrigation with each line going to its own pot. i used a hydroponics cycle timer that is a must. next to get the amount of time needed for each feeding just hook everything up get out a stopwatch and turn it on. when you start seeing runoff stop your timer (depending on your flow 10-30 seconds) and you are all set. there will still be a run off when the pump is off and that is a good thing. then set the timer to feed once every 4-6 hrs and you are set. I was completely automated for 5-7 days and didnt need to do anything until the nutrient solution ran out.



I did my feedings throughout the night as well just a constant cycle of every 4-6 hrs. I know at night my plants were not uptaking any nutrients but you dont want any dry spots in the coco so thats why i did the night feedings. the key is keeping everything moist. upnsmoke you can do more of a feeding to get more runoff but that might cost you more nutrients. because you are in fabric i would suggest just doing a water flush once a week (more time but less expensive in your case with the fabric). I did a test during flower to see how much build up was being flushed out and was feeding at 900ppm, but my runoff was over 2000ppm. thats showed how much salt and nutrients were trapped in the coco and were being flushed out every feeding which is a good thing. no run off and that number keeps climbing until you are nutrient locked out.

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Wow... knowledge like this.. right when I got my tax money coming!! Thank you And I'm using your setup for a test run for sure!

there is an amazing article that someone wrote that was my inspiration and it was spot on. The problem is the article is on a different site and im not sure if im able to share that link on here, but it goes into better detail what i am talking about with pictures and makes better sense. let me know if im able to post that link and ill do it. not trying to promote another site just promote great success in your grow.

motoracer110 said:

there is an amazing article that someone wrote that was my inspiration and it was spot on. The problem is the article is on a different site and im not sure if im able to share that link on here, but it goes into better detail what i am talking about with pictures and makes better sense. let me know if im able to post that link and ill do it. not trying to promote another site just promote great success in your grow.

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Just keep sharing the info of what they have on their site.. and leaving these awesome clifnotes you been leaching! Thanks!

How did you agitate your 33 gal trash can? I'm using 5 gal buckets, almost daily! I've got my 8 site splitter & diy rings aound each plant but have a 5 minute till runoff. Should I up my flow for a quicker feeding?
I'm liking your info too, thanks

Right on well im going to talk your ears off . upnsmoke I use a pretty big aquarium pump in the 33 gallon trash can to keep things nice and fresh. one oversight many people do with a setup like this is they forget to punch a little hole in the pipe coming out of the trash can facing down towards the water as a anti siphon hole. if you dont do this you will keep feeding when the pump goes off and run out of water real fast.

Lol, I hear ya! I canoe in the creeks not my room (hopefully)!
So are you using the aquarium pump to agitate & irrigate or do you use two pump. I was thinking air stones, with a pump for the drip rings.....I got my pen & paper out

yes all you need is that aquarium air pump to agitate and add oxygen to the water, it moves the water around pretty good. you'll need one of the bigger ones to be able to get air to the bottom of that can. I think my air pump is rated for like 120 gallon fish tanks. the water pump is only for the feeding times. I would stay away from adding a circulating water pump because of the added heat that would give to your water.

That's what I was working towards. Now, in the 5-7 days of solution, did you have ph swings or was it pretty stable. Do you use tap or RO? If tap, do you bubble before mixing, how long?

upnsmoke13 said:

That's what I was working towards. Now, in the 5-7 days of solution, did you have ph swings or was it pretty stable. Do you use tap or RO? If tap, do you bubble before mixing, how long?

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the PH is very stable that was the beauty that I love with this type of setup. I did use tap water that was filtered through a sediment, chloramine, and chlorine filter. my water is not the best after that filter i was sitting at about 320ppm. I contemplated getting an ro setup then adding back the minerals that were taken out but i didnt like how damn long those ro systems take to fill. I guess i could have had a holding tank for the ro but i would have been adding more work than i needed. starting with a higher ppm i did have to cut my nutrient strengths a bit, but it all worked out. You can mix right away from the tap then add your air stone and your done. i think keeping it simple is good.

to give you an idea how nice this setup was. I went on a 10 day cruise and ar the 5 day mark had my friend fill up the tank with fresh water, add a pre measured amount of nutrients, ph adjust and he was out of there in 20 min. when i got back everything was still thriving. I could have never done that with a flood and drain system or DWC because of the constant changes to the water day by day.

motoracer110 said:

Right on well im going to talk your ears off . upnsmoke I use a pretty big aquarium pump in the 33 gallon trash can to keep things nice and fresh. one oversight many people do with a setup like this is they forget to punch a little hole in the pipe coming out of the trash can facing down towards the water as a anti siphon hole. if you dont do this you will keep feeding when the pump goes off and run out of water real fast.

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Vacuum breaker? Uhhm wint water come out the hole?

firsttimeARE said:

Vacuum breaker? Uhhm wint water come out the hole?

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yes the hole has to be on the pipe inside the trash can very very small hole. when the pump shuts off you need air to get into the pipe to kill the siphon effect or else water will keep flowing to your plants.

motoracer110 said:

yes the hole has to be on the pipe inside the trash can very very small hole. when the pump shuts off you need air to get into the pipe to kill the siphon effect or else water will keep flowing to your plants.

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I get it. We use vaccuum breakers in the plumbing world which is basically the same idea. Lets atmospheric pressure in to keep the water from,siphoning out.

This is only the case if your res level is higher than your pots, correct?

I was going to use a flood and drain table with a reservoir underneath the table that pumps up and the table drains to a separate container.

I hope im not hijacking your thread too bad! I'm in the middle of trying to get automated on watering, found your thread, prolly got carried away! I'd like to get a ebb&flow table. Are you planning to top feed?
Btw, I'm around 2.5,3 weeks into flower & never had plants that look this good!