oh i'm sure its both, but mostly the ph. 8.5 ph will fuck a plant up man. if it had a chance of living, it would probably be male because of the shock.
coco's easy because it's naturally ph balanced between 5.5 and 6.5. but since the plant prefers 5.8, you'll still want to ph to about 5.6 when you water it. then test the runoff from the watering to make sure.
remember coco's hard to overwater, so water it until you see some runoff under the bucket. if you happen to run across any limestone pellets, grab some, it stabilizes ph, but you dont need it, just helps