Coco-Nuts - Post your Coco grows, setups, tips, etc..in here

TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Had a few drinks this evening and remembered this obvious yet oh so brilliant name for folks growing in coco that @curious2garden came up with today. Feel free to post up your setup, pics, tips, tricks, or just discuss all things coco.

I got the rest of my stuff in to finish my blumat setup today. I set up a larger reservoir (about 14 gallons) I am currently waiting to see if the solution pH will stay stable and then I'll get the blumats dialed in. I picked up some cheap coco bricks from Amazon I think. First time using bricks and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about them. I did find that soaking them for a while in straight ro water before rinsing them with a calmag/pH'd solution cut down tremendously on the amount of feed required to get it down to where I wanted it. Anywho, here's the new setup. 4 HSC Blueberry Cupcake from clone and 2 Brothers Grimm Cinderella Purple from seed.

I did decide to go without any perlite and just go straight coco. I read that perlite can cause issues with the blumats, plus, when I top water, it just floats and ends up passing me off.

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TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Question for those running reservoirs. I am running ArmorSi, CalMag, and MaxiGrow and/or MaxiBloom. How much pH drift is acceptable? If it creeps up, would it be smarter to set it in the beginning at the very low end of the scale, like at 5.5 and then let it creep up to 6.5 before adjusting it? Ideally, I'd get the system set up and dialed in to use the solution before the pH is out of range. I'm hoping with the new, larger, darker reservoir, there will be less issues with funk or drift. I'm just trying to head things off before they become an issue.
 
sandman83

sandman83

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
Question for those running reservoirs. I am running ArmorSi, CalMag, and MaxiGrow and/or MaxiBloom. How much pH drift is acceptable? If it creeps up, would it be smarter to set it in the beginning at the very low end of the scale, like at 5.5 and then let it creep up to 6.5 before adjusting it? Ideally, I'd get the system set up and dialed in to use the solution before the pH is out of range. I'm hoping with the new, larger, darker reservoir, there will be less issues with funk or drift. I'm just trying to head things off before they become an issue.
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not coco coir but ebb/flow, I set my initial PH for large reservoir to 5.6-5.7, and adjust if it drifts up past 6.0; I believe coco has a different acceptable PH range though.

I seem to get a bit of initial drift the first day or so from the airstones bubbling the water etc. Once adjusted the 2nd time it is pretty steady. I have more issues at the low 200-300 ppm range than once its up to full strength. I use RO water. Either 30 or 40 gallons depending on which tank I'm swapping.
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
sandman83 said:
not coco coir but ebb/flow, I set my initial PH for large reservoir to 5.6-5.7, and adjust if it drifts up past 6.0; I believe coco has a different acceptable PH range though.

I seem to get a bit of initial drift the first day or so from the airstones bubbling the water etc. Once adjusted the 2nd time it is pretty steady. I have more issues at the low 200-300 ppm range than once its up to full strength. I use RO water. Either 30 or 40 gallons depending on which tank I'm swapping.
Click to expand...
I'm not running any air stones because I'm running blumats and I think the bubbles can cause issues with the emitters. Coco is the same as hydro as far as I know. 5.5-6.5pH range. My reservoir is only 14 gallons, but im going to shoot for running 10 gallons at a time once the plants start actually drinking a bit more. I currently just have it filled with 5 gallons to dial in the blumats. So, in order to adjust for drift, is it acceptable to just add some pH down straight to the reservoir or do you mix up another gallon of feed to mix in?
 
sandman83

sandman83

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
I'm not running any air stones because I'm running blumats and I think the bubbles can cause issues with the emitters. Coco is the same as hydro as far as I know. 5.5-6.5pH range. My reservoir is only 14 gallons, but im going to shoot for running 10 gallons at a time once the plants start actually drinking a bit more. I currently just have it filled with 5 gallons to dial in the blumats. So, in order to adjust for drift, is it acceptable to just add some pH down straight to the reservoir or do you mix up another gallon of feed to mix in?
Click to expand...
I dilute the PH down/up in a bit of RO water, add to the tank, and mix it in with my paint stir attachment. I'd personally rather adjust it a few ml at a time to get in range vs adding too much like I've done in the past. I try to stick to the 5.8-6.1 range or so and probably replace the tanks more often than necessary.
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

Well-Known Mod
Staff member
TCH said:
Question for those running reservoirs. I am running ArmorSi, CalMag, and MaxiGrow and/or MaxiBloom. How much pH drift is acceptable? If it creeps up, would it be smarter to set it in the beginning at the very low end of the scale, like at 5.5 and then let it creep up to 6.5 before adjusting it? Ideally, I'd get the system set up and dialed in to use the solution before the pH is out of range. I'm hoping with the new, larger, darker reservoir, there will be less issues with funk or drift. I'm just trying to head things off before they become an issue.
Click to expand...
You expect your pH to rise sharply depending on the dissolved solids in its first 24 hours. I usually go from 5.5 to 5.8. Then over the life of my res (about 1 week) I'll see another .3 rise. I measure and adjust the pH again after the first 24 hours and if I'm curious I'll take the pH when it's almost empty to check
 
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TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
curious2garden said:
You expect your pH to rise sharply depending on the dissolved solids in its first 24 hours. I usually go from 5.5 to 5.8. Then over the life of my res (about 1 week) I'll see another .3 rise. I measure and adjust the pH again after the first 24 hours and if I'm curious I'll take the pH when it's almost empty to check
Click to expand...
Good good. I'm leaving for 5 days in a couple weeks and really want to have this all dialed in so my son can just peak in and make sure nothing is going crazy. I'm so excited about everything about this run. Bigger res, growing from clones, keeping the grow under control, full blumat setup, etc...
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Fellow Coco-Nuts. Anybody topfeed soluble kelp at all while using maxi-bloom? I got a sample pouch of it with the MegaCrop and just listened to a couple podcasts talking about Potassium and soluble kelp and wondered if 1. I would gain anything if top fed some in or 2. If it would hurt anything. The plant in question is about 6 weeks into the 12/12 flip.

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TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
I have a tub of BMC Microbe lift on the way for a fungus gnats problem. I understand to add 2-3 drops per gallon and top feed it to kill the larva. The question is, can I mix up a gallon of feed and then add the 2-3 drops to that? Or does it need to be by itself in the water? I'm also still wondering about top feeding some of the soluble kelp I mentioned a couple posts back.
 
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