New to coco. Think I'm overwatering...

Hi all,

This is my first time on any weed forum. I've been growing in clay to some degree of success for a while and have just switched to coco and my clones are yellowing.
I used jiffy pots for my cuttings, Hy-Gen coco bags which I transplanted into 10cm pots. I buffered the coco (ph) for an hour. Transplated and hand watered (only plan on hand watering till i get them in bigger pots and set up the drip irrigation system) with water (ph'd only) for the first couple of waters and my plants are stunted and yellowing. After a couple of weeks i started adding hydro nutes at 1.2 EC (I know now a mistake) and some cal mag. Following that I did the same thing but upped the nutes to 1.7 and used a microscopic amount of hydrogen peroxide (also prob a mistake)
Basically I think I've over watered using the wrong nutes.
Being new to coco any help would be hugely appreciated.

Cheers!

Great coco info...

For my coco grows...
Never plain water
Prep coco
Ph 5.8 thru 6.3
Consistent Ec.
I tend to feed lower ec, once roots are mature I do multifeeds per day.

Thanks for the response.
So nutes from the beginning?
Any advice if I'm hand watering?

captaincaveman13 said:

Thanks for the response.
So nutes from the beginning?
Any advice if I'm hand watering?

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Lots of good information - easy to get lost of the site too. It hurts my old hands to type.

Start at about 1/4 strength nutes. Every watering use nutes. I water everyday in the beginning until decent run off. Then when they are good size and about to go to flower I’ll water twice a day

Cheers!

420drummer said:

Start at about 1/4 strength nutes. Every watering use nutes. I water everyday in the beginning until decent run off. Then when they are good size and about to go to flower I’ll water twice a day

Click to expand...

I’ve been watering every 2-3 days in coco+perlite 70:30 in 2.5gallon/12Litre fabric pots and my plant is still droopy. I know it’s not due to underwatering because after I gave water+nutes it’s even more droopy compared to before water. 15 days old so far.
I thought you’re meant to water coco everyday?

EastLondon said:

I’ve been watering every 2-3 days in coco+perlite 70:30 in 2.5gallon/12Litre fabric pots and my plant is still droopy. I know it’s not due to underwatering because after I gave water+nutes it’s even more droopy compared to before water. 15 days old so far.
I thought you’re meant to water coco everyday?

Click to expand...

I think your problem may be not watering enough. 2days is stretching it 3 days is def too long.
I had a similar issue when I started with coco and the problem, while it looks like over watering, is actually not watering frequently enough. As the water slowly evaporates or the plant takes it up it will leave behind some salts in the coco. So what’s happening is after 24 hrs the amount of nutrients/salts in the soil become too high and the plant will start too droop.

I’d water at least once a day and at worst would only skip a single day in veg rarely. Once in flower they need a MINIMUM once a day watering with multiple feeds a day being better.

EastLondon said:

I’ve been watering every 2-3 days in coco+perlite 70:30 in 2.5gallon/12Litre fabric pots and my plant is still droopy. I know it’s not due to underwatering because after I gave water+nutes it’s even more droopy compared to before water. 15 days old so far.
I thought you’re meant to water coco everyday?

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You are mate. Couldn't over water it if you tried but what you're doing is bad practice.
If you let the coco dry out the nutes turn back into salts and build up in the pot.
Check the ppm and ph of your nutes then run them through. Collect the first 200ml of run off and check the numbers on that.
You'll be able to see the build up.
Can essentially fry a pretty big plant with a relatively tiny dose if you don't water every day.
200ppm for seedlings.
400-500ppm for veg.
Ph5.7-6.3
Feed every day to run off at least once.
Can't go wrong.

EvilScotsm@n said:

You are mate. Couldn't over water it if you tried but what you're doing is bad practice.
If you let the coco dry out the nutes turn back into salts and build up in the pot.
Check the ppm and ph of your nutes then run them through. Collect the first 200ml of run off and check the numbers on that.
You'll be able to see the build up.
Can essentially fry a pretty big plant with a relatively tiny dose if you don't water every day.
200ppm for seedlings.
400-500ppm for veg.
Ph5.7-6.3
Feed every day to run off at least once.
Can't go wrong.

Click to expand...

Hello mate thanks for the help and advice. I’m on day 34 now, I’ve been watering 2-3 days up until week 5 where it’s every 1-2 days. My ppm runoff has been around 1200-1400, once it gets over 1400, I give it plain ph balanced water with calmag.
My current feed ppm for veg has been 700-800ppm.
So far so good, plants are thriving and growing fast. I’ve not had one single issue or deficiency yet, I think the droopy leaves earlier on was more to do with genetics rather than over/under watering and as it’s my first ever grow I was just over stressing. Here are my plants now at day 34...