Where am I going wrong?

jarvild

jarvild

Well-Known Member
I came from DWC and switched to coir around 10 years ago. I waste less water, less nutrients, no daily pH adjustments. no water or nutrient top-offs.
 
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southernguy99

Well-Known Member
There is differences with running both no question and I am not shitting on coir in way,but i'm not sure your accurate in all situations, from all the rooms I seen and studied the ratio is about 5-1 5 plants in 3g coir to 1 in hydro, thats mine yours maybe 1-1 2-1 4-1 etc i don't know, so if someone is growing 20 to my 4 I can assure you i'm not wasting any more water, I have no run off and if I pay attention to what i'm doing I can have my res low and hardly dump any for my water change, in the end I think there both about the same. nutrients is not a factor I mix my own I can do a whole run for pennies, but either way my nutrients get eaten I don't have 10-15-20% in run off. with coir you guys flush with nutrients in hydro I don't. There should be no big ph swings, if water harness, nutrients, res size, temperatures environment etc are all in concert I probably don't ph for my week, remember I want my ph to swing up a little through the week. I don't need to do much at all for top offs. by the end of the day 6 ( in any week) I want my water lower and nutrient levels low as well, for day 7 I want my plants to use its stored nutrients and get a drink of water before I hit it with fresh water and nutrients the next day. I bet most coir guys spend more time checking ph and ppm run off then I check stuff in hydro, I know I do. I bet I burn my lights less time to. But I also seen the opposite where coir guys out preform hydro guys, but its always the experience of one grower vs the other
 
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jarvild

jarvild

Well-Known Member
southernguy99 said:
There is differences with running both no question and I am not shitting on coir in way,but i'm not sure your accurate in all situations
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I'm not arguing for or against either way you want to grow. I'm just talking about the differences I found from going from DWC to coir.
I use zero air-stones and pumps, no worries about high water temps.
 
Big Perm

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
Garythegoose said:
My tap water is 0.6ec, then 1ml/l Calmag takes it up to 1.0, then nutes on top bring it to 1.8ec.
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IMO you don't need the cal-mag. It's more for RO. Add cal-mag only if you start to see Mg deficiencies. You actually don't need the cal-mag at all 90% of the time with tap water, only the Mg. So, you could run epsom salt for the Mg and save some $ there. It will also give you more room in your EC. Check out the nutrient abundance chart also. A lot of people only know what 'burn' looks like from N abundance but couldn't tell you what an abundance of anything else looks like.
 
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Garythegoose

Member
OK, it's been 2 weeks since I first posted. Since then I have poured about 5 litres of 1.0ec water @ph6 through the pots, minus the calmag.

I let it dry out quite a bit which took until two days ago. Then I fed them until run off. They have grown a bit but still look rough as fuck.

This coco lark is pissing me off beyond belief, I honestly wish I never bothered.
Here they are today, compare them to my original photos from 2 weeks ago. Pathetic to say the least.

I'm considering throwing the fucking things in the bin and going back to dwc, but I've got this far so want to try and make coco work. Any suggestions to make these plants grow like they are supposed to?

Here's some photos of the pathetic pieces of shit.

 
Big Perm

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
They actually don't look that bad. Ignore the old growth. They look a little on the over watered side, imo. I don't know if you mentioned it, but are you running straight coco?
You're starting to get some deficiencies. N being the main one. But if you cut back, and are watering again now, that makes sense.
 
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Big Perm

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
Imo they are over watered. If they took days to dry out, that's not good. Watering to runoff is too much for them right now in those pots. A 60/40 coco/perlite mix is what I like because it gives a lot of air space, and the coco doesn't hold as much. I think they are sitting damp for too long. You might have started to get some root issues that lead to weird looking deficiencies. You let it dry up so it rebounded. You might want to let the roots fill out in there more before watering to runoff, or water less often.
 
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Garythegoose

Member
I fed them a bit around 10 days ago, then let them dry out as people said to do. Then.fed them a couple of days ago.

coreywebster said:
You ever check the EC of run off?
What exact coco are you using?
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Using canna coco. Run off ec is slightly higher than what's going in think this is down to me giving them 1.8 a couple of weeks ago. Now giving them 1.0 ec and getting 1.2 out. Although that's straight from the runoff tray which might skew the ec with residual traces.
 
Thegermling

Thegermling

Well-Known Member
Garythegoose said:
I fed them a bit around 10 days ago, then let them dry out as people said to do. Then.fed them a couple of days ago.



Using canna coco. Run off ec is slightly higher than what's going in think this is down to me giving them 1.8 a couple of weeks ago. Now giving them 1.0 ec and getting 1.2 out. Although that's straight from the runoff tray which might skew the ec with residual traces.
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NEVER let coco dry out (in my experience) this causes the salt from the nutrients to concentrate into the coco which can result in a lock out. In my experience you cannot over water coco. Grab a sample of runoff when its coming out of the bottom of the pot. I have all my pots elevated on elevators I made for catching and testing runoff ec of each individual plant. Of course the readings are going to be off in a runoff tray. Also each plant eats less or more than the others.
Also, dont clone them. Sorry but that big perm guy doesnt know shit (no offense mate). You should clone only HEALTHY plants.
OP water everyday and you will be ok. I used to tear my hair out trying to figure coco out. I kept researching and researching and filtered out all the stuff that doesnt work and got with the things that do work. Trust me water every day.
 
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Garythegoose

Member
Classic grow forum advice here, seems a bit of everything is the recommendation! :lol:

I've just dropped 6 more beans in some root riot plugs, when they surface I'll put these 3 in the flower tent so I get something at least in a couple of months (gotta make the electric bill worth it!) then by the time they are done I'll have 6 ready to flower. :bigjoint:

Next time I'll keep them in smaller pots, lots of people seem to use 6 litre pots so will try that and water every day.

My local water content - 75mg/l calcium, 8.1mg/l Magnesium. Is that hard enough to not need Calmag? Plants do seem better now I've not given them any.
 
Thegermling

Thegermling

Well-Known Member
Garythegoose said:
My local water content - 75mg/l calcium, 8.1mg/l Magnesium. Is that hard enough to not need Calmag? Plants do seem better now I've not given them any.
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Im not good with measurements but
days 10-21 (early veg) 50 ppm Ca, 15 ppm Mg
days 22-30 (mid veg) 80 Ca, 40 Mg
days 31-40+(extended veg) 100 Ca, 50 Mg
days 1-14 (transition to flower) 80 Ca, 50 Mg
days 15-30(flower set) 50 Ca, 60 Mg
days 31-48 (flower swell) 40 Ca, 60 Mg
days 49-60 (ripening) 0 Ca, 50 Mg
I use this mixed in one gallon. If you grow with ledsyou might need more Ca or Mg. Look at your plant she will tell you if she wants more. These numbers are for coco grows and should be a sweet spot for most strains.
 
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