When buffing coco, are you supposed to flush the ppms out before you use the coco?

[Yagirlsheugly]

So I started my first coco grow and everything is doing fairly well ... I bought botanicare coco grow pre washed and buffed ... but I rinsed and buff anyway... now after I soaked the coco in cal/mag solution overnight I then rinse the coco back to my tap water ppm which is 66. Was I not supposed to flush after the buff? I’m dealing with some intervenial chlorosis looks like cal/mag issue or iron in my opinion... so I was wondering if I shouldn’t have flushed after I buffed the coco

 

[JohnDee]

You should have just used the coco from the bag. But re-doing the rinse and buffering is not a problem. But no...don't undo your work by rinsing again.
JD

 

[Yagirlsheugly]

You should have just used the coco from the bag. But re-doing the rinse and buffering is not a problem. But no...don't undo your work by rinsing again.
JD

Gotcha I appreciate the response dealing with cal/mag issues now was trying to figure what I did wrong so I don’t make the same mistake

 

[TintEastwood]

So I started my first coco grow and everything is doing fairly well ... I bought botanicare coco grow pre washed and buffed ... but I rinsed and buff anyway... now after I soaked the coco in cal/mag solution overnight I then rinse the coco back to my tap water ppm which is 66. Was I not supposed to flush after the buff? I’m dealing with some intervenial chlorosis looks like cal/mag issue or iron in my opinion... so I was wondering if I shouldn’t have flushed after I buffed the coco

What @JohnDee said. That's good coco and could have been used out of the bag, along with making sure it's getting enough cal and mag in it's diet for coco.

You cannot rinse away buffering.

You can rinse away nutrient salts.

To me, the worse thing you did was not setting the PH of your rinse tap water to 5.8-ish.
Also, the buffering solution should be PH'd. (I buffer with 800ppm of CaliMagic in bucket of tap water for at least 8 hours)


https://growguru.co.za/blogs/hydroponic/buffering-coco-coir

Here's the meat of it.

...."Washing the Coco Coir will allow the water soluble elements to be removed but buffering will remove elements that are naturally bonded to the cation exchange complex of Coco.

The goal is to lower the amount of CEC sites that have Potassium and Magnesium attached. Potassium can be attached to up to 40% of the sites and Sodium can be attached by up to 15% of the sites. This is very important because if 40% of the exchange is holding Potassium that means that there is 40meq/100g of media of Potassium which is a single-charge molecule. Hydrated Coco Coir should make 12-15L of medium per 1kg of dry, compressed Coco Coir. It may not sound like a lot but it would mean that there is as much as 1.56g of Potassium per 100g of media. If you compare this 1.56g to 0.22g (220ppm) of Potassium that you would normally be using in a well balanced nutrient feed, you can see where this would be a problem.

Buffering
Buffering is especially important for growers who have a recirculating system as it gives them more control over how much Calcium your plants are getting and prevents a build up of salts.

When buffering your Coco Coir you are exposing the cation exchange to a solution that contains high concentration levels of the cations we do want on the sites, being Calcium and Magnesium. Cations that are already bonded to sites are quite difficult to remove and therefore a simple washing of your Coco Coir won’t do much to change the makeup of the undesired cations. Washing will only change the E.C but not the CEC of the Coco....."

******
Hope that's of some help.

Never plain water....
https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/watering_coco/

 

[TintEastwood]

What nutrients are you using? To confirm you are getting enuff cal and mag., etc..

 

[Yagirlsheugly]

What @JohnDee said. That's good coco and could have been used out of the bag, along with making sure it's getting enough cal and mag in it's diet for coco.

You cannot rinse away buffering.

You can rinse away nutrient salts.

To me, the worse thing you did was not setting the PH of your rinse tap water to 5.8-ish.
Also, the buffering solution should be PH'd. (I buffer with 800ppm of CaliMagic in bucket of tap water for at least 8 hours)

https://growguru.co.za/blogs/hydroponic/buffering-coco-coir

Here's the meat of it.

...."Washing the Coco Coir will allow the water soluble elements to be removed but buffering will remove elements that are naturally bonded to the cation exchange complex of Coco.

The goal is to lower the amount of CEC sites that have Potassium and Magnesium attached. Potassium can be attached to up to 40% of the sites and Sodium can be attached by up to 15% of the sites. This is very important because if 40% of the exchange is holding Potassium that means that there is 40meq/100g of media of Potassium which is a single-charge molecule. Hydrated Coco Coir should make 12-15L of medium per 1kg of dry, compressed Coco Coir. It may not sound like a lot but it would mean that there is as much as 1.56g of Potassium per 100g of media. If you compare this 1.56g to 0.22g (220ppm) of Potassium that you would normally be using in a well balanced nutrient feed, you can see where this would be a problem.

Buffering
Buffering is especially important for growers who have a recirculating system as it gives them more control over how much Calcium your plants are getting and prevents a build up of salts.

When buffering your Coco Coir you are exposing the cation exchange to a solution that contains high concentration levels of the cations we do want on the sites, being Calcium and Magnesium. Cations that are already bonded to sites are quite difficult to remove and therefore a simple washing of your Coco Coir won’t do much to change the makeup of the undesired cations. Washing will only change the E.C but not the CEC of the Coco....."

******
Hope that's of some help.

This was super helpful... what I did was rinse the ec to my tap water without ph’ing but then made a cal/mag solution at double the application rate and I ph’d to 6.0 and soaked it over night I then rinsed after the soaking with tap water but no ph but dropped the ppms back down to 66 which is my what my tap is.. my tap ph is 9.0 .... my run off is 6.0 as that is what I feed in my solution

 

[Yagirlsheugly]

What nutrients are you using? To confirm you are getting enuff cal and mag., etc..

I’m running advanced nutrients sensi coco I’m feeding 500 ppm right now at 6.0ph also used the b-52 by advanced and I’m running botanicare silica as well I am going to add advanced nutrients cal/mag to the solution tomorrow as well

 

[Yagirlsheugly]

Here’s a pic of one

 

[TintEastwood]

This was super helpful... what I did was rinse the ec to my tap water without ph’ing but then made a cal/mag solution at double the application rate and I ph’d to 6.0 and soaked it over night I then rinsed after the soaking with tap water but no ph but dropped the ppms back down to 66 which is my what my tap is.. my tap ph is 9.0 .... my run off is 6.0 as that is what I feed in my solution

After you have a chance to read those sites, you should be on your way to success.

I'm using Jacks nutrients....

 

[TintEastwood]

I’m running advanced nutrients sensi coco I’m feeding 500 ppm right now at 6.0ph also used the b-52 by advanced and I’m running botanicare silica as well I am going to add advanced nutrients cal/mag to the solution tomorrow as well

Good stuff.

I've made many a mistake in coco. Cal/Mag defs, K tox. From back before I knew to buffer and how to feed.

 

[Yagirlsheugly]

Good stuff.

I've made many a mistake in coco. Cal/Mag defs, K tox. From back before I knew to buffer and how to feed.

Yea I think my overall issue was i was underfeeding and overwatering since bumping the ppm up plants have really responded doing an epsoms salt foliar spray tonight so hopefully that gets some of the leaves looking better .. but yea im trying to get the feeding down