Idiots Guide To Coco Coir

thewhitelotus

Active Member
My hempys are top fed by hand daily via a 5gal res with a gravity fed watering wand attached to it...no recirc.

i water until i get about 20% runoff out the drainage hole. i think tonight ill just flush it was some very lose dose nutrient solution until i can bring it down to a normal reading. i presume ill have to do this weekly or biweekly until chop. During feeding, ive never exceeded 1.2 and thats with my PK boost weeks as well
 

kilorg

New Member
Hey all!!! I'm starting a hydro grow this month 4 1000w lights.


how many plants can I grow and typically how much can I expect to yield each plant?


Also what are some techniques or tricks of the trade to maximize yield?


What strain the best quality and yield ratio?


I'm a brand new grower so any and all tips will help
Thanks!!
 

jondamon

Well-Known Member
Hey all!!! I'm starting a hydro grow this month 4 1000w lights.


how many plants can I grow and typically how much can I expect to yield each plant?


Also what are some techniques or tricks of the trade to maximize yield?


What strain the best quality and yield ratio?


I'm a brand new grower so any and all tips will help
Thanks!!


Ok here goes.

You could grow between 4 plants up to around 200 plants depending upon the style you choose.

You could harvest nothing up to 4000g.

The biggest tip or tool of the trade anyone can give you is research how to grow INDOORS. Not just cannabis but any plant.

Don't over feed and don't underfeed.

Make sure your temps stay below 85F and above 65F.


Other than this you just have to read.




J
 

Voidling

Well-Known Member
Is that 60 cm x 60cm?

I use flat white paint, mylar I assume is better.

doubt you could afford enough led to over do it
 

Feroce

Well-Known Member
I've been growing in coco for close to three years now, so I think I have a handle on it somewhat...I am gonna say that these rules work for me, and work well. YMMV, as always. I grow drain to waste, so if you're doing recirc, I can't really presume to give advice.

I'm also not going to go into nute choices and specific feeding schedules, that's something you'll have to work out for your own.

#1-Always rinse your coco before use. Always. I've seen enough salt-burned seedlings and clones to know that supposedly "clean, rinsed" coco isn't necessarily so. It only takes a few minutes and it can save you a lot of grief later.

Technique-I'm way too lazy to rinse a whole bag at once, so once I fill my container I rinse that thoroughly with clear tapwater, then pre-charge with a light nute solution.

#2-Never let the coco dry out. Nothing will make healthy plants sick faster than letting them dry out. Nute lockouts, the whole depressing litany of ills and diseases. If the coco looks dry on top but moist underneath, water it. You can't hurt a well-rooted plant by over-watering in coco. Within rational limits of couse...

Exception-The only time you want to let the coco get a little dry is when you're trying to encourage root growth, for seedlings, freshly rooted clones, and transplants for example. Even then, just a little dry, not enough to let the plants wilt. If the top inch of coco is dry and the container feels light, water it.

#3-Feed with every watering, and water to overflow. Drainage is good, it helps remove salts. I grow DTW, and like to get around 20% as drainage every time I water. I believe that interrupting the plants feeding cycle by clear water flushing is a bad idea. I tried it and the results were invariably poor compared to uninterrupted feeding. Even if you have sick plants, flush with a light nute solution, not clear water.

Technique-During the latter plart of the flowering cycle, about 3 weeks before finish, I start tapering off on the nutes until the final watering is a clear water flush. That's the only time during the plants entire life that I clear water flush it.

#4-Coco is hydro, not soil. Don't treat it like soil, because it isn't, even if it looks like soil. If you want to go organic, use soil. This is hydro. Use hydro techniques and nutes. Yeah, I know some of you do get decent results from organics in coco, but that's for more experienced growers, not first-timers.

That's pretty much it. It's hard to go wrong if you pay attention to those basic rules. There are a lot of tricks to learn of course, but these are the basics.

Finally, like anything else, there is a learning curve with coco. Don't expect amazing results your first time growing in coco...the amazing part comes a little later:mrgreen:

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Trouttsmash

New Member
This is my first indoor grow and buddy of mine recommend using coco and i love the stuff very forgiving with ph and over watering. I'm in week 5 of flowering right now and would like to run my setup by you guys, because though my flowers are beautiful i would like to see them exploding more. So right now i have 2 7ft tall ladies in 7 gal buckets with saucers under them with a 600W HPS cool tube hanging above them. They are in coco rox with about 30% perlite I average 3 to 4 days in between feedings and i give them about 1.5 gals EA. I alternate watering and feeding all top fed with about 10-15% runoff, I'm using floranova bloom, koolbloom and calmag im feeding between 1400-1600 PPM and there are looking happy just not seeing the yield. Now some say that might be a little high but my experience with OG which isn't much is that you can through a lot at them and they'll take it and love every minute of it have never shown any signs of nute burn. Now a guy at my local hydro store suggested this Incredibulk which is just a PK booster right? Has any one used this stuff before? What are some other boosters out there that might help me out? I only have about 2 or 3 more weeks before I start flushing so need these babies to start poppin off, any suggestions you guys might are welcomed. This is my first post so try not to be to critical. Oh yea and im using RO water.
 

jondamon

Well-Known Member
This is my first indoor grow and buddy of mine recommend using coco and i love the stuff very forgiving with ph and over watering. I'm in week 5 of flowering right now and would like to run my setup by you guys, because though my flowers are beautiful i would like to see them exploding more. So right now i have 2 7ft tall ladies in 7 gal buckets with saucers under them with a 600W HPS cool tube hanging above them. They are in coco rox with about 30% perlite I average 3 to 4 days in between feedings and i give them about 1.5 gals EA. I alternate watering and feeding all top fed with about 10-15% runoff, I'm using floranova bloom, koolbloom and calmag im feeding between 1400-1600 PPM and there are looking happy just not seeing the yield. Now some say that might be a little high but my experience with OG which isn't much is that you can through a lot at them and they'll take it and love every minute of it have never shown any signs of nute burn. Now a guy at my local hydro store suggested this Incredibulk which is just a PK booster right? Has any one used this stuff before? What are some other boosters out there that might help me out? I only have about 2 or 3 more weeks before I start flushing so need these babies to start poppin off, any suggestions you guys might are welcomed. This is my first post so try not to be to critical. Oh yea and im using RO water.


Your issue is the fact you've got 7ft tall plants under a 600w.


3ft tall is your max for best penetration from the 600w.


Boosters etc are not going to help.

Plant training is all you need.


With a 600w you can utilise a 3.5ftx3.5ft floor space.

Look into TOPPING, LST, FIM, etc these techniques will help you control plant height.


7ft tall plant with your 600w above them is only lighting the top 3ft of the plant with enough light energy to actual produce.




J
 

jondamon

Well-Known Member
Why not just use your normal coco in small pots or seedling trays?


The wafers would need water every few days. Not DAILY.




J
 

Sunbiz1

Well-Known Member
Why not just use your normal coco in small pots or seedling trays?


The wafers would need water every few days. Not DAILY.




J
This is my means of introducing myself to coco, I do organic soil...which I have mastered. But coco I am lost on, still reading up on the manual here.

B/C they hold a LOT less water than peat pucks, I just figured they would need more of it.
 

jondamon

Well-Known Member
This is my means of introducing myself to coco, I do organic soil...which I have mastered. But coco I am lost on, still reading up on the manual here.

B/C they hold a LOT less water than peat pucks, I just figured they would need more of it.
In a propogator there is plenty of humidity that helps plants to grow more without the roots having to work as hard.

It wouldn't dry out very quick but even if you were late watering while finding your feet the high humidity would save them from any under watering.


I've found quite a simple way to grow in coco if you are going to be using EC/ppm/TDS meter?

With coco I monitor EC in vs EC out and watch plant responses.

For example.

Seedling/rooting I use 0.6-0.8EC.
First 2 weeks of veg 0.8-1.0EC
Further veg 1.0-1.2
Flowering stretch 1.2-1.4
Flower setting 1.5-1.7
Rest of flowering 1.2.-1.5.

If any of these feeds comes out higher in EC in the 20% runoff then I back off the next feed by 0.2EC.

Rhus along with watching for signs of Ca or Mg defs and you're set.



PH everything at 5.8.


Easy.



J
 

rob333

Well-Known Member
i use a brand of nutes rock ignite very good shit i feed every day once a day from seed never have a prob done it like that for about 3 years all this people say water one every 3 days use are trippen the more u feed the better they grow u watch ur salts and flush once a week there is no prob. in flower i have it going at least 3 times a day for 1 min at a time
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
I just got a bag of Canna brand, and it is finely divided, almost but not quite a powder. But, it still drains, and so is not dirt. :) At least not the dirt around here.

IAC, I measured some flushing data. I used a 16 oz cup with holes in the bottom and 16 oz of 6.5pH RO water @ 70 ppm (high bypass)

I measured before and after, for both. My results said greater than 3 x the water to coir to get the excess salt out.

#1 - 240 ppm
#2 - 120 ppm
#3 - 80 ppm

For the pH, it was strange. It came out 7, even when #3 was 4.8 pH water at 70 ppm.

I like it so far. But, I will use mostly hydrotron with the coir as a rooting matrix, about 1/3 coir. I will feed on a timer twice a day.

I have also began to measure the run off. She should not be drinking only water and concentrating minerals. A Nute stall is in my future.
So, measuring is the only way to keep them fed at max and no more.

I do like the idea of diluting the mix a bit and keep measuring.

JonD, how often do you feed them?
 

jondamon

Well-Known Member
I feed my coco plants whenever the top of the coco looks dry.

During the height of flowering this equates to once every other day.


J
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
i use a brand of nutes rock ignite very good shit i feed every day once a day from seed never have a prob done it like that for about 3 years all this people say water one every 3 days use are trippen the more u feed the better they grow u watch ur salts and flush once a week there is no prob. in flower i have it going at least 3 times a day for 1 min at a time
Yes, I am finally understanding, feeding is not watering. And watering is drowning without major drainage. Feeding is what separates hydo from soil.

And measuring runoff is the way to feed properly if you have roots. The age of the plant is not meaningful.. Only the health of the root ball has any meaning for feeding.
 
Okay, if you've read this far you're obviously intrigued by the prospect of growing in coco coir. If you know any little tricks, please add them on.

Choosing a brand or type of Coco.

There are a lot of different brands out there. We won't name any one type. There are also a lot of different grinds and varieties of coco. They range from plain long strands, which come in bags or in pucks ( see profit disks ) to coco croutons, essentially very course chopped coco nut husk, to very fine chopped which has a few fibers and little chunks of coconut husk. We like the kind that comes from the pet store and is used for reptile bedding. It has a lot of long fibers and a good mix of small to large chunk coco husk. We use this in hand water to waste. We've seen profit disks used in ebband flow, and croutons in drip, but the beauty part is you could use any one of them for almost any system. Scope them all out and choose one that meets your needs.

Hydrating (Fluffing ) Coco.

This is pretty easy. You will want at least one big rubbermaid tub with small holes drained in the bottom, ands a pair of elbow length rubber gloves.

First of all coconuts are grown by the sea. They are harvested by the sea, and up till recently really the husks have been discarded by the sea and lain there absorbing salt. No matter what brand of coco you choose, flushing it out is a good idea.

So here's what we do. We take a couple of bricks of coco and throw them in a 10 gallon bucket. We add 3 gallons of warm to hot water per brick. Then We leave it alone. The coco will slowly absorb the water. If you're in a big hurry, put the gloves on and kinda peel it while it's sitting. The wet outside layers come right off. We don't like bending over the bucket so we go watch tv or play with the cat while this is going on.

After the coco has absorbed all the water, put the gloves on and reach in and fluff it all up, make sure there's no large clumps. While doing this, Keep an eye out for chunks of salt. We have found about a ping pong ball size chunk in a bale one time. It can happen. Now each brick hydrates out to about 3 gals. of coco. So if you have a bad back, this next part sucks. Ours are not the greatest but we can still manage it. Dump the coco into a large rubbermaid tub with a lot of small holes drilled in the bottom. Get your bucket and start dumping warm to hot water thru it, flushing out all the salt. Figure at least 3 times the water to coco. We'll pour a bucket thru,wait for it to filter thru, then we have another rubbermaid tub that slips inside on top and we'll stand in it to press all the water we can out. Pull the top tub out, fluff the coco again, and repeat. Do this till you've poured 2-3 times the amount of water to coco thru it.

That's it. Your coco is now ready to use, as is. Wait a sec, no additives?no perlite? no nutes? no lime? bone meal? wormcastings? guano? Nope. Nada. You really don't need any of that stuff really, because you're going to be watering everyday so it doesn't dry out. You'll also be feeding everyday. Depending on which system you use you may be feeding more than once a day. Coco is essentially a hydro system. The biggest mistake we made, and we made every mistake there was, was to insist on treating it like soil. You'll be tempted we know. It seems wrong to water everyday till you get 10-15% runoff. Do it anyway.

ph and Nutes for coco.

We have one friend who keeps his ph at 5.2. Ours is about 5.5. The safe range appears to be 5.4- 6.2 . IMO 6.2 is the very high end, and you see better results under 6.0
The good news about nutes is you can still use organics, but we'd recommend using them in liquid form. Liquid guanos, worm poo, teas. we've seen growers add them directly to the coco and get great results. Seen other growers add them and have nightmares. IMO it's easier to control them when adding them into your daily water schedule. You may need cal/mag and extra N to offset the naturally high level of K in coco. This is particularly a problem if you let the coco dry out or the ph gets out of whack. We like hygrozyme 1 tsp per gallon with every watering. Suffice it to say, almost anything works, you just have to get to know your plants and to figure out the formula that's working for you. If you want simple and easy, get a 1 step coco specific nute like CNS17, about 1/2 tsp per gallon a day works for me. We like the KISS approach to nutes and coco. Keep It Simple Stoner.

That's about all the knowledge we have to impart on this subject.
Many Thanks to you for sharing this is valuable information this made all the difference to gain the edge between success or failure for me.
 

Doer

Well-Known Member
I feed my coco plants whenever the top of the coco looks dry.

During the height of flowering this equates to once every other day.


J
I figure from my res draw down, a 3 foot plant will take a 1/2 gal of water a day during flower time.
 

kupihea

Well-Known Member
Okay, if you've read this far you're obviously intrigued by the prospect of growing in coco coir. If you know any little tricks, please add them on.

Choosing a brand or type of Coco.

There are a lot of different brands out there. We won't name any one type. There are also a lot of different grinds and varieties of coco. They range from plain long strands, which come in bags or in pucks ( see profit disks ) to coco croutons, essentially very course chopped coco nut husk, to very fine chopped which has a few fibers and little chunks of coconut husk. We like the kind that comes from the pet store and is used for reptile bedding. It has a lot of long fibers and a good mix of small to large chunk coco husk. We use this in hand water to waste. We've seen profit disks used in ebband flow, and croutons in drip, but the beauty part is you could use any one of them for almost any system. Scope them all out and choose one that meets your needs.

Hydrating (Fluffing ) Coco.

This is pretty easy. You will want at least one big rubbermaid tub with small holes drained in the bottom, ands a pair of elbow length rubber gloves.

First of all coconuts are grown by the sea. They are harvested by the sea, and up till recently really the husks have been discarded by the sea and lain there absorbing salt. No matter what brand of coco you choose, flushing it out is a good idea.

So here's what we do. We take a couple of bricks of coco and throw them in a 10 gallon bucket. We add 3 gallons of warm to hot water per brick. Then We leave it alone. The coco will slowly absorb the water. If you're in a big hurry, put the gloves on and kinda peel it while it's sitting. The wet outside layers come right off. We don't like bending over the bucket so we go watch tv or play with the cat while this is going on.

After the coco has absorbed all the water, put the gloves on and reach in and fluff it all up, make sure there's no large clumps. While doing this, Keep an eye out for chunks of salt. We have found about a ping pong ball size chunk in a bale one time. It can happen. Now each brick hydrates out to about 3 gals. of coco. So if you have a bad back, this next part sucks. Ours are not the greatest but we can still manage it. Dump the coco into a large rubbermaid tub with a lot of small holes drilled in the bottom. Get your bucket and start dumping warm to hot water thru it, flushing out all the salt. Figure at least 3 times the water to coco. We'll pour a bucket thru,wait for it to filter thru, then we have another rubbermaid tub that slips inside on top and we'll stand in it to press all the water we can out. Pull the top tub out, fluff the coco again, and repeat. Do this till you've poured 2-3 times the amount of water to coco thru it.

That's it. Your coco is now ready to use, as is. Wait a sec, no additives?no perlite? no nutes? no lime? bone meal? wormcastings? guano? Nope. Nada. You really don't need any of that stuff really, because you're going to be watering everyday so it doesn't dry out. You'll also be feeding everyday. Depending on which system you use you may be feeding more than once a day. Coco is essentially a hydro system. The biggest mistake we made, and we made every mistake there was, was to insist on treating it like soil. You'll be tempted we know. It seems wrong to water everyday till you get 10-15% runoff. Do it anyway.

ph and Nutes for coco.

We have one friend who keeps his ph at 5.2. Ours is about 5.5. The safe range appears to be 5.4- 6.2 . IMO 6.2 is the very high end, and you see better results under 6.0
The good news about nutes is you can still use organics, but we'd recommend using them in liquid form. Liquid guanos, worm poo, teas. we've seen growers add them directly to the coco and get great results. Seen other growers add them and have nightmares. IMO it's easier to control them when adding them into your daily water schedule. You may need cal/mag and extra N to offset the naturally high level of K in coco. This is particularly a problem if you let the coco dry out or the ph gets out of whack. We like hygrozyme 1 tsp per gallon with every watering. Suffice it to say, almost anything works, you just have to get to know your plants and to figure out the formula that's working for you. If you want simple and easy, get a 1 step coco specific nute like CNS17, about 1/2 tsp per gallon a day works for me. We like the KISS approach to nutes and coco. Keep It Simple Stoner.

That's about all the knowledge we have to impart on this subject.
Thanks for this. Cheers
 
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