Keeping it simple - Coco + Blumats

[xtsho]

I have grown using just about every method over the years. I've tried all of the popular nutrient lines at least once. I've obsessed with this and that. I've made all of the mistakes and learned along the way. What I have come to realize based off of my experiences is that simpler is better. There is nothing simpler than 100% coco and blumats. I'm on my fourth grow with this method and everything is going great. The first three were some of the best grows I've ever had and they were the easiest ones ever.
Here is my story.

First thing you're going to need is a nutrient. I chose VitaGrow. It works great with coco because it uses calcium nitrate for the nitrogen source so throw that bottle of calmag away you won't need it. It's a three part product and is very inexpensive. The only thing I add to that is fulvic acid during veg and epsom salts in flower. You're going to need a PH pen because PH is extremely important. Screw the PH up and you're going to have issues. I shoot for 6.0 throughout the grow. VitaGrow maintains that PH without any wild swings.

These are the nutrients I use and I use them according to the instructions except for diluting it for new clones and young seedlings. I also start reducing towards the end of flower so that when I harvest I am at 1/4 strength or less.

You'll need a reservoir to hold your nutrient solution. I just use an 18 gallon tote and run the line through one of the bottom vents on the tent. I also have a small pond pump on the bottom to keep the solution moving and aerated.

The plant on the left is a cross I made of Strawberry Kush and Ketama. The tall gal in the middle is a Pakistani Chitral Kush. It was the short one until it decided to stretch. Back right that you can't really see is a Night Nurse and the front right is a Black Domina that went in a week after the rest due to some issues I had following a PH issue from using a bad PH pen. They're all doing extremely well. No spots, blotches, yellowing leaves, curling tips, etc...

It's a set it and forget it method of growing. All you do is keep the reservoir filled. I can buy enough VitaGrow to last a year for what some people pay for one bottle of an additive. Epsom salts are $2.00 a pound. Fulvic acid is extremely inexpensive if you buy a pound of it in water soluble powder form.

That's it.

 

[Serva]

Nice! Subbed... I just tried blumats and soil, and want try coco next as first „hydroponic“ setup. I experienced within my 3g reservoir, that the pressure (though it‘s higher positioned than necessary) wasn‘t enough, when there was less than 1g of water inside. How this works for you? I saw you have positioned the tank pretty low. I saw blumat systems, where a water pump is constantly filling a reservoir from another, to maintain a steady pressure...

 

[Daveindiego]

Blumats?

 

[xtsho]

Nice! Subbed... I just tried blumats and soil, and want try coco next as first „hydroponic“ setup. I experienced within my 3g reservoir, that the pressure (though it‘s higher positioned than necessary) wasn‘t enough, when there was less than 1g of water inside. How this works for you? I saw you have positioned the tank pretty low. I saw blumat systems, where a water pump is constantly filling a reservoir from another, to maintain a steady pressure...

Tank is 3 feet off the ground and I usually keep about 10 gallons in it. There is plenty of gravity pressure to keep things moving.

Blumats?

Yes blumats.

 

[xtsho]

Previous grows using same method

You don't need a dozen or more bottles of stuff to grow good weed.

 

[Daveindiego]

Do you keep the reservoir outside the tent for space reasons?

What’s going on with the stakes? Is it watering below the surface? Is it a sensor that detects if water is needed, and then releases it?

That coco looks really dry in the picture. Is it? I just had a discussion with @Dynamo626 aboit needing to water coco everyday, which it appears this system does. But again, it looks really dry.

Have you run any other nutrients with that system? Looks like the reservoir can, or should be changed every week, right?

 

[xtsho]

Do you keep the reservoir outside the tent for space reasons?

What’s going on with the stakes? Is it watering below the surface? Is it a sensor that detects if water is needed, and then releases it?

That coco looks really dry in the picture. Is it? I just had a discussion with @Dynamo626 aboit needing to water coco everyday, which it appears this system does. But again, it looks really dry.

Have you run any other nutrients with that system? Looks like the reservoir can, or should be changed every week, right?

What’s going on with the stakes? Is it watering below the surface? Is it a sensor that detects if water is needed, and then releases it?
Yes

Do you keep the reservoir outside the tent for space reasons?
Yes

Looks like the reservoir can, or should be changed every week, right?
No I don't change it. This is not a recirculating system. Nothing but nutes ever go into the reservoir. There is no contamination from organic matter to cause problems.

That coco looks really dry in the picture. Is it?
The coco is dry on the top but wet below the surface. Actually the blumats were putting out too much water. I had to move things around and pulled them out without putting them into water so they started releasing water. Had to take a towel to the bottom of the tent.

Have you run any other nutrients with that system?
I have been using VitaGrow for years and I have no plans to use anything else. I know what the plant needs. VitaGrow is basically the same chemical salts used in all the other nutrient lines and supplements. I buy it at 1/10th the price. I have absolutely no plans to change to anything else. I might do some organic soil grows but that's about it.

 

[DesertHydro]

setting mine up currently. I did the same shit as you. chased all different methods and nutrients and now I'm back to the simplest form at its finest. now its just jacks at 1.2 ec and blumats in tupur. I say jacks but I'm actually doing a test run of veg plus bloom at the moment. its working well but its STUPID EXPENSIVE comparatively. I will be switching back to jacks when its out. should get these four plants all the way to harvest.

my current setup is elaborate as fuck. it works amazingly well once dialed for giant plants on limited plant count but there's lots of moving parts.

my plan is to test the boundaries of the blumats in small pots of tupur coco mix with giant plants. 9 weeks veg, 9 weeks flower. looking to hit a GPW. that's the goal. the pics of the small blumat setup are just a genetic tester tent that will just be set and forget it. the picture of the empty room will be all blumats on the LED COB row.

the first picture of plants are the ones going in tomorrow. the left two are males, one of which will be saved to make a few seeds. they are mycotek chemhead og and dog cage. I loves me some chem and gg4 so I had to have these.

the big room is my PPK setup. recirculating top feed system. its the bees knees for big plants on limited plant count.

the bucket setup is so that the top white bucket will be auto topped off and kept at a constant fill/pressure level pumped up from a lower reservoir at regular intervals. the elbow at the top is for the return/overflow that get sent back to the lower res and will mix things up as it returns. put some inline mesh filters to keep the sensitive 3mm lines free of clogs.

hope you don't mind me dropping these off here. I think more people would like growing if they switched to blumats and took the time to dial them in.

 

[xtsho]

hope you don't mind me dropping these off here. I think more people would like growing if they switched to blumats and took the time to dial them in.

I don't mind at all! In fact I'm jealous of your setup and all the room you have. Please continue posting anything you want about your grow. I want to see how it all works out.

I agree that more people would enjoy growing if they just kept it simple instead of fussing so much and wasting money on twenty bottles of bottled water with fancy labels and millions in marketing. It just amazes me how so many people get basically brainwashed into thinking they need to use so much stuff to grow a weed. Then they make a post because their plants are not doing well and end up getting different answers that usually are telling them to add this or that when what they should actually be doing is adding less and leaving the plants alone.

Some of the worst looking plants I see on this site also come with pictures of a dozen or more additives. Then they end up flushing their medium because they have turned it into a toxic cesspool of junk that is killing their plants. Now they have sick plants sitting in over saturated growing medium.

Jacks is a proven nutrient solution that will produce just as well and in many cases better than using any overpriced nutrient and the dozen additives they tell people to use on their feeding charts.

Once the Blumats are dialed in all you have to do is keep the reservoir filled. If I didn't have American Agriculture the shop that packages VitaGrow just down the street I would be using a product like Jacks. I like to support local small businesses.

Good luck. Happy growing and keep us updated.

I was going to change the title of the thread to "Keeping it simple or complicated - Coco + Blumats" but it won't let me.

Also, is that mold on the outside of the pots in the picture of the six plants in the tent? Mix 1 part white vinegar, one part isopropyl, and five parts water. Spray that on the outside of the pots. If not then disregard.

Happy New Year

 

[DesertHydro]

No mold. They are made from recycled plastic bottles and they are charcoal in color with lot of variation. Thanks for the heads up though. Always good when people are looking out for each other. I've posted a bunch of photos with plants with problems and someone's it's like people are too tomorrow to say anything. I'd rather then mention it so I can do the research and see.

I also made a booboo last night....I mixed up my concentrate bottle and regular bottle and watered one of my plants with some super high ec shit and killed her good lol. Now I'm down to three plants to test and looking for a unicorn. I don't like my odds

 

[OldMedUser]

Back right that you can't really see is a Night Nurse

What's that Night Nurse like? I'm thinking of buying some seeds of that from these guys as I could use a good sedative type pot to cross with my CBD project. https://oldschoolba.com/old-school-shop/indica/night-nurse-seeds

You definitely get good results with those nutes tho I think the P is way too high in relation to the K in the Giant Bloom. Reverse that ratio and I think it would be better from all the research I've done and I do a lot of that.

As to claims of simplicity there isn't much simpler than a tub full of water with some basic nutes and an air pump. No water pumps, nute lines and all the connections to cause leaks or plug up. No holes below the water line in my tubs means no leaks ever and with the basic pH Perfect nutes I haven't tested pH in the last four years whether I'm growing in ProMix or DWC.

If you count the 3-part nutes as 3 bottles I use two others, Rhino Skin and Big Bud powder from AN. A little GrowTek Calmag and some Epsom salts is the grand total of my growing arsenal. People that buy the GrandMaster line and dump in everything eventually cut way back to the basics or just give up growing altogether but there's a sucker born every minute.

In about a month or so I'll have my new 8x4' grow space built with 4 tubs doing DWC ScroGs all set up and running. Got to get it done pretty quick as some clones are rooted and need a new home PDQ.

Wish I had the space @DesertHydro has for growing. I could fit a hell of a lot of tubs in there! I'd be going with RDWC tho if the wife let me take over the 17x34x10h work shop. Already grumbling about taking over the spare bedroom and making her find new homes for her junk. lol

I also made a booboo last night....I mixed up my concentrate bottle and regular bottle and watered one of my plants with some super high ec shit and killed her good lol

Very nice grows!

 

[DesertHydro]

Wish I had the space @DesertHydro has for growing. I could fit a hell of a lot of tubs in there! I'd be going with RDWC tho if the wife let me take over the 17x34x10h work shop. Already grumbling about taking over the spare bedroom and making her find new homes for her junk. lol

Very nice grows!

thanks. with space comes complications! sometimes i wish i was back in the spare doing it simple and low overhead lol. but alas, you have to deal with she who must not be named the entire time.

i get all my shit tested at the labs and am going to be doing some side by side testing LED v HID, additives etc. got some monsters coming down in a few days
they are UGLY as fuck since they got accidentally mostercropped with a timer malfunction but thats ok. ugly girls need love too. the first one is the only pretty one of the bunch. shes an ethos collective harambe tested ~28% total. my chem d cookies hit 30.2% total cannabinoids

i made the mistake of filling a room full of untested genetics(oceangrown ninja fruit) because they were supposed to turn SOLID purple. a couple have like 2% purple spots and they are coming down. dropped the temps down to try and encourage it but now change yet. fighting the clock. a week tops left i think. again the monstercropping fucked me hard. delayed the transition to flower so now i have no idea when they will finish. the hormonal confusion delayed their transition by at least 2-3 weeks and they did almost nothing the first couple weeks in flower lol. had me worried for a bit. now they are chunking up.

i dont wanna derail this from blumats but here's a few pictures of my PPK grow about to come down. this is what the blumats have to prove themselves up against. gonna do 12 in this system and 6 in blumats. this round was utterly fucked. i had rootzone pathogens, timer malfunctions, overfeeding, co2 issues. you name it lol. still gonna pull some weight but my GPW will be god awful.

got all my blumat stuff in today for the most part. gonna go build my manifold for the 6 flowering plants today. well maybe, im just now getting out of bed from a hangover from new years. i dont handle alcohol well apparently. i finally stopped puking, so thats great. now my body hurts. on top of all that i already had a cold lol. good times. happy new year everyone! mine can only get better from here lol

 

[OldMedUser]

If those are crappy plants I'll take them off your hands.

Boozing never made me puke the the weeks long depressions drove me back to the bottle to ease that pain but now on the wagon now and had a Happy Dry New Year smoking some nice Critical Mass CBD that dear old ma got for me from a compassion club in Kelowna that I'm a member of.

Wasted a lot of my life with the booze and wish I'd wised up 40 years ago when I had a life left. Stick to the pot.

 

[DesertHydro]

If those are crappy plants I'll take them off your hands.

Boozing never made me puke the the weeks long depressions drove me back to the bottle to ease that pain but now on the wagon now and had a Happy Dry New Year smoking some nice Critical Mass CBD that dear old ma got for me from a compassion club in Kelowna that I'm a member of.

Wasted a lot of my life with the booze and wish I'd wised up 40 years ago when I had a life left. Stick to the pot.

im like a 3 time a year drinker. i mostly detest it. normally gives me terrible migraines and hangovers. easy enough to stay away except on the big nights when people expect you to lol

 

[xtsho]

What's that Night Nurse like? I'm thinking of buying some seeds of that from these guys as I could use a good sedative type pot to cross with my CBD project. https://oldschoolba.com/old-school-shop/indica/night-nurse-seeds

You definitely get good results with those nutes tho I think the P is way too high in relation to the K in the Giant Bloom. Reverse that ratio and I think it would be better from all the research I've done and I do a lot of that.

As to claims of simplicity there isn't much simpler than a tub full of water with some basic nutes and an air pump. No water pumps, nute lines and all the connections to cause leaks or plug up. No holes below the water line in my tubs means no leaks ever and with the basic pH Perfect nutes I haven't tested pH in the last four years whether I'm growing in ProMix or DWC.

If you count the 3-part nutes as 3 bottles I use two others, Rhino Skin and Big Bud powder from AN. A little GrowTek Calmag and some Epsom salts is the grand total of my growing arsenal. People that buy the GrandMaster line and dump in everything eventually cut way back to the basics or just give up growing altogether but there's a sucker born every minute.

In about a month or so I'll have my new 8x4' grow space built with 4 tubs doing DWC ScroGs all set up and running. Got to get it done pretty quick as some clones are rooted and need a new home PDQ.

Wish I had the space @DesertHydro has for growing. I could fit a hell of a lot of tubs in there! I'd be going with RDWC tho if the wife let me take over the 17x34x10h work shop. Already grumbling about taking over the spare bedroom and making her find new homes for her junk. lol



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Very nice grows!

I haven't had a chance to try the Night Nurse yet as it's my first time growing it. I will say that she's been an easy plant to grow. She bounced back just fine from the early PH issues I had. I have a week or two left before the chop from the looks of her. A smoke report will follow after that.

 

[DesertHydro]

got mine installed finally!

 

[xtsho]

Takes a day or two at most to get them dialed in but once they're set you're golden. Blumats sure take the hassle out of watering. Just keep your reservoir filled and that's it.

 

[DesertHydro]

Takes a day or two at most to get them dialed in but once they're set you're golden. Blumats sure take the hassle out of watering. Just keep your reservoir filled and that's it.

hey since i havent been running these in a while, how do your pots feel? do they feel "heavy" or "light" or somewhere in between? trying to dial in my moisture content. its hard right now because i fucked up and underfed and then i was worried it was a burn so i flushed them all and it made them so much worse lol. they are recovering now but they are really ugly lol. bumped the food up to what everyone else is running with jacks 321 and then ive added a little bit of extra calcium EDTA powder as well.

i noticed when i hand water it fucks up my fuzzy white roots up top. makes me sad lol

 

[xtsho]

hey since i havent been running these in a while, how do your pots feel? do they feel "heavy" or "light" or somewhere in between? trying to dial in my moisture content. its hard right now because i fucked up and underfed and then i was worried it was a burn so i flushed them all and it made them so much worse lol. they are recovering now but they are really ugly lol. bumped the food up to what everyone else is running with jacks 321 and then ive added a little bit of extra calcium EDTA powder as well.

i noticed when i hand water it fucks up my fuzzy white roots up top. makes me sad lol

You did the same thing I did but for a different reason. I hand watered my current grow mid flower for some dumb reason to about 20% runoff. Probably the single malt I had been drinking. But the result was not good. I thought that maybe I was getting a salt buildup so I hand watered with half strength nutes. Big mistake. I had nute burn symptoms the next day. Why I did what I did after three very successful grows in coco using blumats I don't know. I broke one of the cardinal rules. Don't fix what isn't broken.

I think the issue is that coco is able to hold and retain nutrients. When the moisture level is maintained by blumats those nutrients are able to stay in the coco and be used as the plants need them. If you disrupt that moisture level and add excess moisture to the point of runoff you break the bond between the coco and nutrients and release a nutrient flood causing nute burn. In fact I remember reading an article or two regarding that exact scenario. Minds smarter than mine might be able to elaborate on this but I'm just an IT guy and growing weed is a hobby. A fulfilling one but a hobby none the less.

I keep my pots feeling medium. Seems to work out.

Jacks should work well in coco. I think they use calcium nitrate for nitrogen so you'll not have any of the calcium issues people claim you'll have growing in coco. Vitagrow uses calcium nitrate and is used the entire grow so I never have calcium issues and don't use calmag.

Good luck with everything.

 

[DesertHydro]

do you know what you keep your ec at? i know they say that you feed less with the blumats since there is no runoff. i flushed the living hell out of my plants and they are booming back now. i think i had a bad batch of coco that was salty and caused lockout. it looked like a deficiency so i chased that which caused me to overfeed and burn the hell out of everything lol. vicious circle.
now ive got good clean growth and perky leaves. they sure are resilient.