If you’re going to be unpleasant, at least be accurate
I guess this is a matter of opinion, but I and many consider coco to be real easy for beginners. It has several benefits and a couple of caveats, like any grow medium, but coco drain to waste is super easy to master. You just make sure what is going in is correct. And since you can’t truly over water coco coir, if you fuck up, you just reset the medium.
It has most of the ease and familiarity of soil, but with no variables like soil buffers and overwatering and nutrient depletion.
It has most of the productivity of hydro, but without the pumps for oxygenation and circulation. There’s no expensive tables, trays, or plumbing like flood and drain or NFT.
It’s only difficult to master if you don’t pay attention to inflow pH and EC. Speaking of which...
Eh. I and many others have used the “Lucas formula” with MaxiBloom, FN Bloom, or FloraBloom + Micro mixed to varying EC throughout the whole last life cycle. It’s a common beginner formula, because you just mix to different strengths.
I don’t necessarily agree with or recommend it, but I mention it to point out that EC matters more than the picture on the bottle — you can feed seedlings with bloom fert, but you need to make sure it’s at an appropriate EC for seedlings. I am feeding clones with MaxiBloom @0.4 EC and it works great.
Yeah, agreed. I’ll address it - OP, fucking up PH and EC is one of the the worst things you can do regardless of what grow medium, seed stock, light ounce, temp, fan, tent, or good vibes you supply. It’s something people don’t pay enough attention to.
If you mess up the PH on a tank, do not just feed it through, ever. Soil or hydro. If you don’t fuck up the grow medium, you don’t have to reset it.