buying small to medium amounts of coco coir...

714steadyeddie said:

Haha that's funny I've been using Maxibloom, I've gotten by just by using bloom thought out the whole grow. I wanted to try house and garden.

But I'm starting to see nutes don't make or break your bud. It's everything else in between that makes top shelf.

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Yes i do the same. I used to use like 5 different products before i realized they are all just a waste of money. I use GH maxi bloom from start to finish and have never had an issue. The N content is probably a little bit low for Veg but who gives a shit its just veg, the plants grow great. If you are vegging for an extended period (over 8 weeks) then you may need to use something with a little more N. I veg for 8-10 weeks and my plants are green and healthy when they go into flower even though they may have been given too much PK and not enough N.

purplehays1 said:

Yes i do the same. I used to use like 5 different products before i realized they are all just a waste of money. I use GH maxi bloom from start to finish and have never had an issue. The N content is probably a little bit low for Veg but who gives a shit its just veg, the plants grow great. If you are vegging for an extended period (over 8 weeks) then you may need to use something with a little more N. I veg for 8-10 weeks and my plants are green and healthy when they go into flower even though they may have been given too much PK and not enough N.

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That's spot on man! I've realized that too, as long as bloom is good MB is great for keeping it simple and still grow dank.

I tried a couple pallets of the royal gold Coco this year.... unsure at the moment but it almost seems to be grinded up to much seems like after a few months it compacts a bit.... currently running the gh 3 part with Cal mag, flora plus, liquid cool bloom, and at the end I'll use powder cool bloom and carboload from AN. Have you noticed the quality and yields staying close just using maxi bloom or simpler nutrient line ups... ?

Lara vanhousen said:

Have you noticed the quality and yields staying close just using maxi bloom or simpler nutrient line ups... ?

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I started with the floraseries more than 20yrs ago. I've also tried many many other base nutes that have come out since. I use the Maxi because it's cheaper than most and works just as good as most
Just a couple pointers on the nute soup you brew:
If using the floraseries and you need more Ca bump up the micro. Being that you're in pure coco and rocking the 3part, I like heads(h3ad)modified lucas formula best. 6/9, micro/bloom and a little epsom salt. No need to buy calmag

Floralicious plus sounds like it would be hella beneficial, but I have not come to the conclusion that it is. And I've experimented with it allot.

Liquid koolbloom is a joke, along with AN's big bud.

Powder koolbloom can do things like make buds harder, but I find it to fuck with my yields. I don't use it anylonger and i feel good about it.

Carboload is totally unnecessary

Aeroknow said:

I started with the floraseries more than 20yrs ago. I've also tried many many other base nutes that have come out since. I use the Maxi because it's cheaper than most and works just as good as most
Just a couple pointers on the nute soup you brew:
If using the floraseries and you need more Ca bump up the micro. Being that you're in pure coco and rocking the 3part, I like heads(h3ad)modified lucas formula best. 6/9, micro/bloom and a little epsom salt. No need to buy calmag

Floralicious plus sounds like it would be hella beneficial, but I have not come to the conclusion that it is. And I've experimented with it allot.

Liquid koolbloom is a joke, along with AN's big bud.

Powder koolbloom can do things like make buds harder, but I find it to fuck with my yields. I don't use it anylonger and i feel good about it.

Carboload is totally unnecessary

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Im in straight coco too, last run all i used was Maxibloom. But at the end my plants were dark green as you mentioned in the other post.

My question is if in using just Maxibloom from veg to harvest how do I make sure I don't give too much N during flower ?

Aeroknow said:

I started with the floraseries more than 20yrs ago. I've also tried many many other base nutes that have come out since. I use the Maxi because it's cheaper than most and works just as good as most
Just a couple pointers on the nute soup you brew:
If using the floraseries and you need more Ca bump up the micro. Being that you're in pure coco and rocking the 3part, I like heads(h3ad)modified lucas formula best. 6/9, micro/bloom and a little epsom salt. No need to buy calmag

Floralicious plus sounds like it would be hella beneficial, but I have not come to the conclusion that it is. And I've experimented with it allot.

Liquid koolbloom is a joke, along with AN's big bud.

Powder koolbloom can do things like make buds harder, but I find it to fuck with my yields. I don't use it anylonger and i feel good about it.

Carboload is totally unnecessary

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Do you use molasses or anything?

714steadyeddie said:

Im in straight coco too, last run all i used was Maxibloom. But at the end my plants were dark green as you mentioned in the other post.

My question is if in using just Maxibloom from veg to harvest how do I make sure I don't give too much N during flower ?

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You would think that if you rocked the bloom from clone through flower, they would fade in in the end, not end up with dark green leaves, what a trip. Thats what I would figure.
I've always used the grow for veg and also the first 2 weeks of flower or 50/50 with the bloom for the first 2 weeks of flower. And than switch to bloom for the rest of flower.
Maybe lower the bloom and add powder koolbloom for the last couple/few weeks? That will help them fade

Lara vanhousen said:

Do you use molasses or anything?

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I used to on our organic outdoor.

Aeroknow said:

I started with the floraseries more than 20yrs ago. I've also tried many many other base nutes that have come out since. I use the Maxi because it's cheaper than most and works just as good as most
Just a couple pointers on the nute soup you brew:
If using the floraseries and you need more Ca bump up the micro. Being that you're in pure coco and rocking the 3part, I like heads(h3ad)modified lucas formula best. 6/9, micro/bloom and a little epsom salt. No need to buy calmag

Floralicious plus sounds like it would be hella beneficial, but I have not come to the conclusion that it is. And I've experimented with it allot.

Liquid koolbloom is a joke, along with AN's big bud.

Powder koolbloom can do things like make buds harder, but I find it to fuck with my yields. I don't use it anylonger and i feel good about it.

Carboload is totally unnecessary

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And how unless do you think liquid cool bloom is... seems like if yields even went up an ounce per gallon of that stuff it would be worth it financially

Aeroknow said:

I used to on our organic outdoor.

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Molasses blows carboload out of the water being usefull or cost effective?

Lara vanhousen said:

And how unless do you think liquid cool bloom is... seems like if yields even went up an ounce per gallon of that stuff it would be worth it financially

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I've just never experienced a yield increase using liquid koolbloom or bigbud. I tried, but it never happened. I've experimented and used those bloom boosters many times.

Lara vanhousen said:

Molasses blows carboload out of the water being usefull or cost effective?

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IMO the only use for sugars is to feed microbes(organic). Carboload is watered down sugars

Aeroknow said:

I've just never experienced a yield increase using liquid koolbloom or bigbud. I tried, but it never happened. I've experimented and used those bloom boosters many times.

IMO the only use for sugars is to feed microbes(organic). Carboload is watered down sugars

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In your opinion what's the best way to run coco to get Top shelf results? I have 3 HSO blue dream next round I want to get dialed in, in coco. In just hand watering right now, I feed once when the lights turn on and once an hour before lights cut off.


I used my weakest area is the dry and cure

714steadyeddie said:

In your opinion what's the best way to run coco to get Top shelf results? I have 3 HSO blue dream next round I want to get dialed in, in coco. In just hand watering right now, I feed once when the lights turn on and once an hour before lights cut off.


I used my weakest area is the dry and cure

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I kill it with big plants in a coco blend, and also with smaller plants in 1 gallon mesh bottom pots.
My favorite way, which is too many plants for the setups I have nowadays, is 16 - 1gal mesh bottom pots/plants per 4x4 tray. 1 basket drip stake per plant, fed 3x's per light cycle once they really get going.

My goto setup is 10- 7gal smartpots per 4x8 tray. They end up needing watered/fed every third day. Sometimes every other day.

IMO, nothing wrong with 9- 5gal pots per 4x4 either.

Aeroknow said:

I kill it with big plants in a coco blend, and also with smaller plants in 1 gallon mesh bottom pots.
My favorite way, which is too many plants for the setups I have nowadays, is 16 - 1gal mesh bottom pots/plants per 4x4 tray. 1 basket drip stake per plant, fed 3x's per light cycle once they really get going.

My goto setup is 10- 7gal smartpots per 4x8 tray. They end up needing watered/fed every third day. Sometimes every other day.

IMO, nothing wrong with 9- 5gal pots per 4x4 either.

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That's awesome man! I wish I could have that much space! Thanks for the sound advise

purplehays1 said:

You can use organic and chemical nutes together. But if you are using chemicals might as well just use only them, the organics probably arent gunna add much to the equation. You can grow perfect herb with just coco and a good full nutrient system like GH flora or maxi series. Or you can go with pure organics and get nice beneficial bacteria/microorganism growth going and get good results, but the chemicals generally will devastate your living organisms.

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Not to argue, but I run bennies with my coco and use chemical nutes with no apparent problems. I think the fact that I usually run low concentration of nutrients helps, though.

714steadyeddie said:

In your opinion what's the best way to run coco to get Top shelf results? I have 3 HSO blue dream next round I want to get dialed in, in coco. In just hand watering right now, I feed once when the lights turn on and once an hour before lights cut off.


I used my weakest area is the dry and cure

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I'm on my 4th run with coco, and think I've finally found the ideal blend. I mix about 65% coco pieces and 35% coco coir, pot them in 8-inch square pots, and hand water twice a day in a SOG. I've also had excellent success with ebb and flow, though - my first coco run (using straight coco coir), I pulled over 2.5 pounds using ebb and flow. I may go back to that system again someday, but I switched to hand watering because even though I pulled a great yield with the ebb and flow, I had chronic problems with salt buildup. It was manageable, but took more work and more time than I wanted to spend. I don't have that problem with hand watering, and it's quicker, too.

I like the 65/35% blend of pieces and coir because it seems to give me the perfect balance between good drainage/aeration and good water retention. I can run it more as a hydroponic grow than a soil grow, watering it more frequently with lower nut concentrations. With straight coir or heavier concentrations of coir, it stayed soggy for days at a time, and it really wound up being just a soil grow using coco instead of dirt. Still got good results, but I never felt as though i was getting the best that coco had to offer.

Lara vanhousen said:

I tried a couple pallets of the royal gold Coco this year.... unsure at the moment but it almost seems to be grinded up to much seems like after a few months it compacts a bit.... currently running the gh 3 part with Cal mag, flora plus, liquid cool bloom, and at the end I'll use powder cool bloom and carboload from AN. Have you noticed the quality and yields staying close just using maxi bloom or simpler nutrient line ups... ?

Click to expand...

I have found that all plants need (in a good soiless medium) are NPK and micros, and they need them in the right ratio and at the right strength. Thus a product like maxi-bloom that is a balanced all around nutrient when fed at proper PPM works as well as any other mixture (for flower). Cal-Mg is necessary in coco because coco leaches micros. Most of the products i used to use were just a different proportion of NPK or some snake oil that i had no idea what it had inside it or what it did. These products all either do nothing or are just NPK in different ratios to make feeding complex and confusing (trying to figure out the best ratio, when most quality bloom nutrients are already close to the right ratio. If you take a look at AN or Canna or any of the other nutrient lines that have like 10 bottles and do the math, (merge all the fractions to figure out the actual NPK proportion) you will find that they feed at nearly exactly a 1-3-3 ratio for the bulk of flower, they just do it by combining 10 products instead of 1 product having the same as all 10 (harder to charge up the ass for one product).

I have found it easier to judge what ratio of NPK i am giving (since it is always 5-15-14) and can concentrate on feeding the proper strength. Rather than trying to mix 5 products and having no idea what the exact proponent i was giving was. For certain strains i still have to feed some additional N at the begining of flower but besides that and cal/mg its almost always jut maxi-bloom.

Skunk Baxter said:

Not to argue, but I run bennies with my coco and use chemical nutes with no apparent problems. I think the fact that I usually run low concentration of nutrients helps, though.

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Unless you can see microorganisms it wouldn't be apparent...and lowering the feed so that your plants can uptake more of the nutrients you feed seems counter intuitive. Either buy organic nutes and feed them at full strength or buy chemical nutes and run that at full strewth, but why use chemical nutes and then only feed at half strength to protect the bene's that are only their to help the plant uptake nutrients that it would have gotten if u had fed it properly.. Seems totally ass backwards.

the benefit of organics is you get a product free of chemicals, the beneficials are just essential for getting a plant enough nutrients in a organic system. There are still beneficials in a chemical system, but they r much less important because u are forcefeeding the nutrients the plant needs and generally can get plenty to where they need them.

purplehays1 said:

Unless you can see microorganisms it wouldn't be apparent...and lowering the feed so that your plants can uptake more of the nutrients you feed seems counter intuitive. Either buy organic nutes and feed them at full strength or buy chemical nutes and run that at full strewth, but why use chemical nutes and then only feed at half strength to protect the bene's that are only their to help the plant uptake nutrients that it would have gotten if u had fed it properly.. Seems totally ass backwards.

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The point is, the plants appear to need lower levels of nutrients when I'm using beneficials. I'm not saying I'm starving my plants, or that the reason I use beneficials is to reduce my nutrient use - I'd have to be an idiot. What I'm saying is that when I establish a healthy micro herd in my medium, I find that I get the same (or even better) results with lighter feedings than when i run a sterile grow. And the reason I use beneficials is because a healthy micro herd promotes a healthy, vibrant plant, and most importantly a robust root system.

The belief that synthetic nutrients kill off all the beneficial microorganisms is a myth, unless someone is overfertilizing. It's true that relying solely on synthetics creates an environment that is not as favorable for beneficials, but that's not the same as "devastating" them. If you use your nutrients in moderation (especially phosphorous), you can have a very healthy, robust micro herd in your medium throughout your entire grow. It's true that all other things being equal, it usually won't be as healthy as if it were in an organic medium, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept when growing hydro. I just brew various teas on a regular basis, and make sure I'm always replenishing my colony.

And no, I don't agree that you need a microscope in order for your beneficials to be apparent. I've done side by sides with clones, with some growing in sterilized coco and the others growing in coco that has been treated with compost teas and mychorrizae, and the difference between the root systems is astounding. I suspect that's a big part of the reason I need lower nutrient levels when I'm running beneficials - a good, strong root system is probably better able to draw nutrients from a given amount of solution.