Converting from promix to coco advice

Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
been growing for 5+ years in promix and sunshine 4 with perlite, and making the change to coco. I was just wondering if there’s any people out there that can give me some tips to shorten the learning curve.

Gonna be running a 8x4 tent, rooting in bubble clonner and transplanting into 3 gal smart pots in straight coco on 4x4 flood tables, ebb and flow. depending on how many clones root ima do 16-30 on a table. Planning for 1-2 week veg, throwing up a trellis just for support. First time Running a led in 8 yrs. i just bought a 1000w blackdog led pytomax 2 and planning to run it on a mover.

My nutrient brand of choice is dyna gro, but am familiar with an, and have GH, Botanicare, earth juice, and Humboldt nutrients lines on hand. (Although 2+years old)

I run dyna gro @ max 1.3ec in flowering. Been yielding bout 2-21/2 lb a tent with 1-1000w raptor hps on mover, @20 inches and hoping to double that with the led and coco just need a lil bit of guidance.
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Lil bit thru flowering in last run, ran a WiFi timer @ 9/12 light cycle, took 8 weeks altogether including stretch. yield was approximately 1.9 lbs off of 4 big girls trellised on one table and 25 in normal pots top fed on the other. Pics are from this last run, strawberry dosido and gelato
 
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LamontCranston

LamontCranston

Well-Known Member
Hey what's up man? I'm a long time soil grower who just started working in a commercial coco facility. For me, the hardest thing to dial in was when exactly to water the coco. A lot of the growers in the facility that I work at told me that I should treat it like soil and let it dry out between waterings, but this was completely wrong. Coco coir holds 10 times it's weight in water so it will appear to be 'wet' for a long time if you look at it like you would soil. I highly recommend that you start with a TOP QUALITY coco product like Cannacoco or Char. Cheap coco products are inconsistent in quality and will lead to issues down the road.

Don't be afraid to flush your coco regularly, it holds a lot of air and is very difficult to over-water. I'm having great results watering/flushing every 2 days in our facility, some bigger plants are almost to the point now where they need water daily.
 
Hank Mardukas

Hank Mardukas

Well-Known Member
Don't be stingy with the Cal mag. Water till you get some good runoff. Doing so will wash out some of the leftover salts. And despite what you may have already read, you don't necessarily need to feed with every watering.
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Thanks everyone for your reply’s. I’ll check out that link too thanks @TintEastwood

so to sum up the tips basically run cal mag with everything (was gonna anyways cause led) and run Fresh water thru them every couple days to flush salts.

I’m running RO as I’m out in the sticks and run my house off of catchment water with a 3 stage filter system including carbon, sentiment, and uv. My ppm outta any tap or water line on the property is 005-009, at about 6.0 ph cause I haven’t been mainting the ph on my catchment but it works for me because that’s close to perfect for hydro.

I wanted to stick with ebb and flow because of ease of watering, as I’ve had constant problems with clogging 1/4 inch feed lines. I run my grow off site and am trying to keep it that way. I’m away from the grow for anywhere from a couple of days to a week at a time but can control all my equipment remotely and could easily set up top feed lines just to flush them every couple days. But I don’t wanna rely on them to deliver nutes to the plants. Fresh water just for flush every couple days is easy but Once my Nute Rez gets a lil bit empty the pressure thru the vinyl manifold drops making it hard to consistently deliver the same flow to each plant. Some get more than others, some lines stop working completely once the Rez gets below 25%.
I got a 40 gal Rez that pretty much is perfect for ebb and flow for my shallow 4 inch tables.i also like having the option to just drop a plant on the table so I can replace plants that aren’t doing good; as well as with the right planning and time/clone management being able to perpetually harvest a row at a time, then instantly replace the harvested rows with ready to flower ones.

Could I get by doing a hybrid system? Like ebb and flow for nutes and top feed for flushing? I know it would prolly be easier to just stick with soil/promix with what I’m doin but I want to switch to coco cause out here in da tropics I can get a 3cuft brick for $15 and promix/ss#4 is $40-50 for a 4cu bag.

I’m also wondering on buffering my bricks, I have mag pro from dyna and calmag + from botanicare I’m thinking botanicare might be better to buffer them with?
 
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Hank Mardukas

Hank Mardukas

Well-Known Member
Growerandashower said:
Thanks everyone for your reply’s. I’ll check out that link too thanks @TintEastwood

so to sum up the tips basically run cal mag with everything (was gonna anyways cause led) and run Fresh water thru them every couple days to flush salts.

I’m running RO as I’m out in the sticks and run my house off of catchment water with a 3 stage filter system including carbon, sentiment, and uv. My ppm outta any tap or water line on the property is 005-009, at about 6.0 ph cause I haven’t been mainting the ph on my catchment but it works for me because that’s close to perfect for hydro.

I wanted to stick with ebb and flow because of ease of watering, as I’ve had constant problems with clogging 1/4 inch feed lines. I run my grow off site and am trying to keep it that way. I’m away from the grow for anywhere from a couple of days to a week at a time but can control all my equipment remotely and could easily set up top feed lines just to flush them every couple days. But I don’t wanna rely on them to deliver nutes to the plants. Fresh water just for flush every couple days is easy but Once my Nute Rez gets a lil bit empty the pressure thru the vinyl manifold drops making it hard to consistently deliver the same flow to each plant. Some get more than others, some lines stop working completely once the Rez gets below 25%.
I got a 40 gal Rez that pretty much is perfect for ebb and flow for my shallow 4 inch tables.i also like having the option to just drop a plant on the table so I can replace plants that aren’t doing good; as well as with the right planning and time/clone management being able to perpetually harvest a row at a time, then instantly replace the harvested rows with ready to flower ones.

Could I get by doing a hybrid system? Like ebb and flow for nutes and top feed for flushing? I know it would prolly be easier to just stick with soil/promix with what I’m doin but I want to switch to coco cause out here in da tropics I can get a 3cuft brick for $15 and promix/ss#4 is $40-50 for a 4cu bag.

I’m also wondering on buffering my bricks, I have mag pro from dyna and calmag + from botanicare I’m thinking botanicare might be better to buffer them with?
Click to expand...
You wanna use calmag every watering when using ro. When feeding/watering my plants I'll use 3ml per gallon (I use botanicare) when they're babies and gradually increase as they get bigger. When I run just plain ro water I still add that 3ml per gallon cuz it's ro water and something needs to be added back imo. Even if you need to do a flush for whatever reason. Ro is impossible to adjust the pH as there is almost nothing in it. Even 1 ml per gallon is better than nothing.
If I were to do an ebb and flow setup with Coco I'd top off my Rez half way through the week and I'd just top feed it with pH'd water with a lower dose of calmag (probably 2ml per gallon) and let it go into the reservoir but that's me. You'd also need to pH the reservoir after doing this.
As for buffering your bricks, 5ml botanicare calmag per gallon and pH the water (that I'm using to expand the bale) is what I usually do. I don't rinse my coco either and apparently that's supposed to be a big no-no. But whatever. Shit works for me and my plants don't seem to mind.
 
Hank Mardukas

Hank Mardukas

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
i agree with the other guy that warned against e&f in coco.

i'd do top feed drain to waste.

i wasn't a big fan of coco, a bit too finicky for me. went back to RDWC. and i'm gone up to 2 weeks at a time too doing it DTW.
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It's not for everyone. It's how I learned to grow tho. I got some horseshit advice from a grow shop employee and gave it a go. Everything worked out for me but I don't recommend new growers trying it for their first run. I did a few rockwool grows and I'm just finishing a peat grow now. I always end up going back to Coco lol. My rockwool grows went fine. I just didn't like the lack of flavor from using purely synthetic nutes. The peat has been nothing but bugs. Never had bugs in Coco except the one time I bought clones from someone. I'll never buy clones again either lol
 
JohnDee

JohnDee

Well-Known Member
Growerandashower said:
run Fresh water thru them every couple days to flush salts.
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When you said water...you meant fertigate? Pure RO water on coco will wash out the calmag buffer. Always use nutes or calmag in it.

I tried coco E&F about a decade ago. It worked but had to use a pump filter bag to keep coco fragments from the pump.

I now use top watering. Runoff is important and constructing a good drain system will make your life easier. I use shallow washing machine trays with drain fittings.
JD
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
JohnDee said:
When you said water...you meant fertigate? Pure RO water on coco will wash out the calmag buffer. Always use nutes or calmag in it.

I tried coco E&F about a decade ago. It worked but had to use a pump filter bag to keep coco fragments from the pump.

I now use top watering. Runoff is important and constructing a good drain system will make your life easier. I use shallow washing machine trays with drain fittings.
JD
Click to expand...
Yeah that’s why i wanna run them in smart pots so nothin can get out. I’m rethinking ebb and flow tho as the consensus is top feed is king. I guess I’ll have to build a solid pvc manifold this time instead of zip tying vinyl tube on both sides with zip ties and poking holes lol. Anyone got a good tutorial for irrigation specifically sog for 4x4 tables? I was worried that some of the feed lines would fail but if I can build it solid I’ll go with that
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Hank Mardukas said:
You wanna use calmag every watering when using ro. When feeding/watering my plants I'll use 3ml per gallon (I use botanicare) when they're babies and gradually increase as they get bigger. When I run just plain ro water I still add that 3ml per gallon cuz it's ro water and something needs to be added back imo. Even if you need to do a flush for whatever reason. Ro is impossible to adjust the pH as there is almost nothing in it. Even 1 ml per gallon is better than nothing.
If I were to do an ebb and flow setup with Coco I'd top off my Rez half way through the week and I'd just top feed it with pH'd water with a lower dose of calmag (probably 2ml per gallon) and let it go into the reservoir but that's me. You'd also need to pH the reservoir after doing this.
As for buffering your bricks, 5ml botanicare calmag per gallon and pH the water (that I'm using to expand the bale) is what I usually do. I don't rinse my coco either and apparently that's supposed to be a big no-no. But whatever. Shit works for me and my plants don't seem to mind.
Click to expand...
Right on got it thank you!
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Coco is less prone to over watering due to the air spaces in the fibers. When the roots have packed the pot tightly then you don't have those air spaces anymore and the roots become easier to drown. Therefore you have to treat it a little more like soil if they pack the pots tight as they run the last 20 days or so. Also thats when plants are slowing down on the drink so it compounds the issue. Longer intervals between watering during the last three weeks or so will solve that issue.
 
Hank Mardukas

Hank Mardukas

Well-Known Member
TintEastwood said:
On the irrigation. First time using these floraflex caps and clips. So far they are great. Keeps the coco in place.
Clipless in pic. Still handwatering at this point in the grow. Will dual feed each. Nothing to clog.

View attachment 4387267 View attachment 4387269
Click to expand...
Does it hook up to a pump? I might need to look into this for my next run. I'm assuming I just need clips, caps and the water line and something to connect to the pump? I'm gonna be using smart pots.
 
TintEastwood

TintEastwood

Well-Known Member
Just need a bucket/resevoir.
Pump
Manifold
Tubing
Caps
Clips


This manifold works for me. Individually adjustable.
https://www.amazon.com/Pawfly-Aquarium-Chromium-Distributor-Accessories/dp/B073CTVJGJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=aquarium+manifold&qid=1567178185&s=gateway&sr=8-7

A submersible pump sized for your project.
https://www.amazon.com/KEDSUM-Submersible-Fountain-Aquarium-Hydroponics/dp/B01CGAD986/ref=pd_aw_sbs_86_of_9?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01CGAD986&pd_rd_r=988550b0-24b3-4578-be4a-f8ec1d107846&pd_rd_w=bVnYm&pd_rd_wg=saAe0&pf_rd_p=3861f3e6-3054-41ac-9570-6a1994716f7e&pf_rd_r=NKYA7NMQM9QRMZQ8WHSF&psc=1&refRID=H3XFRN7YQJTYEFJTJ9A6
 
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