explosive growth in coco coir

[Chip.Douglas]

I'm switching to coco only instead of coco and soil.ive noticed my plants roots developed a lot better in coco and they seem a lot happier.

 

[Newber]

EC-1.0 is only 500 ppm

Ditto! I stay 500-600 ppm also, works great with the multiple waterings a day

 

[phxazcraig]

EC-1.0 is only 500 ppm

And the put

Ditto! I stay 500-600 ppm also, works great with the multiple waterings a day

I currently have an EC of 1.1 in the reservoir, 1.7 coming out in the runoff. That's down 200 points from yesterday when I had an input EC of 1350 after a bit of 'reservoir flush'.

It isn't the input I'm worried about it.

 

[Clearbluesky]

The more coco dries out the higher the EC will be from what I have seen, I feed every 8 hours so Putting in EC-1.1 run off comes out 1.5 if I could get another feeding in say every 6 hours it would lower my EC closer to what I put in, but would probably still be off a little. I think if the difference is not over 0.3 things are ok, so if you put in EC-1.1 and it comes out 1.4 things should be fine, if it's higher than need to add another feeding in there. My timer does 3 in 24 hours so I need to buy one that I can do 4 feedings a day. That's my understanding on the Coco, maybe someone else has something different.

 

[dbrzz]

I'm at 5x now, and adding a bunch more water per event didn't do much. I lack a schedule to use for 6x, though that's just a bump, not a roadblock. I'm just trying a lower EC now. A number of people have mentioned EC's down in the 1.0 (1000-1100) area, which is about where I am now.

Sure wish I could figure out how the EC is going up so much in spite of all the watering.

If I saw the slightest hint that the plants were suffering from too much or too few nutrients, I'd try something else. During the day, they get watered every 3.5 hours. Adding one more feeding wouldn't change that much. I think if I fiddle here, I'll just double to 10x daily and reduce volume accordingly. Hate to screw up this close to the finishing line, trying to push for an extra ounce of yield.

There is one variable I haven't accounted for, and that is the air flow. About the time (but not before) EC started rising I was also fighting RH issues. I added a powered duct fan and left if on 24x7. Really balloons the tent walls too. I have a meter at the base of the pots near the incoming airflow, and it shows remarkably stable conditions. 40-45% RH, 69-74F temps over past 24 hours, and that is typical. RH values peak at 53% but are now often 48-50% when the main fan runs. Temps just above canopy are 79-80F. I'm putting a lot of air through there, and I don't know how much it dries out the pots. (Not much, I still have lots of runoff.) I've thought about doing stuff like wrapping the pots loosely with tin foil to slow evaporation through all those side holes.

I have learned through research, trial and error these facts. The Limiting factors to cannabis growth.
1. Water
2. Nutrients
3.CO2
4.Light
5. Temperature/humidity
If a person is growing indoors in a tent the best bang for your buck is buying the CO2 augmentation system to your Grow Tent. If you have good powerful grow lights that are adequate for your space, you are most likely using more light photon energy than the plant can use because you have not use CO2 argumentation. The other thing is everybody has problems with excessive heat in their grow tent, however, when you use CO2 supplementation your plant needs 85° inside the tent to grow big buds and use the excess CO2. Kind of think like Jurassic World back in the day when the CO2 levels in the air were really high and all the flora in the world were gigantic ferns and trees and huge plant everything. Due to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. Buying expensive nutrients to make your buds grow big is a big waste of money. You cannot overcome the lack of CO2 by increasing in the other 4 limiting factors. Simply using blackstrap molasses( with natural calcium and magnesium and sugar to feed your soil microbes), good water, Epson salts, and Jacks nutrients Will grow excellent big tasty buds. CO2 growth rate blew my mind after only 24 hours of supplementation. It costs approx $1.15 for CO2 a day and is waay cheaper than adding nute supplements which are not magical to growth anyway but the Claims are really hard to resist.

 

[phxazcraig]

I have learned through research, trial and error these facts. The Limiting factors to cannabis growth.
1. Water
2. Nutrients
3.CO2
4.Light
5. Temperature/humidity
If a person is growing indoors in a tent the best bang for your buck is buying the CO2 augmentation system to your Grow Tent. If you have good powerful grow lights that are adequate for your space, you are most likely using more light photon energy than the plant can use because you have not use CO2 argumentation. The other thing is everybody has problems with excessive heat in their grow tent, however, when you use CO2 supplementation your plant needs 85° inside the tent to grow big buds and use the excess CO2. Kind of think like Jurassic World back in the day when the CO2 levels in the air were really high and all the flora in the world were gigantic ferns and trees and huge plant everything. Due to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. Buying expensive nutrients to make your buds grow big is a big waste of money. You cannot overcome the lack of CO2 by increasing in the other 4 limiting factors. Simply using blackstrap molasses( with natural calcium and magnesium and sugar to feed your soil microbes), good water, Epson salts, and Jacks nutrients Will grow excellent big tasty buds. CO2 growth rate blew my mind after only 24 hours of supplementation. It costs approx $1.15 for CO2 a day and is waay cheaper than adding nute supplements which are not magical to growth anyway but the Claims are really hard to resist.

I run a 4x4 tent with two 6-inch duct fans. The air volume in the tent is replaced every 60 seconds. How do I increase the concentration in the tent enough to make a difference, and do it without flooding my house with extra CO2?

 

[Clearbluesky]

I grow in a 5x5 tent with out co,2 and still produce nice bud's. 1300 watts from wall, but don't use all the power, just use it to get a even par reading from anywhere in the tent.

 

[dbrzz]

I run a 4x4 tent with two 6-inch duct fans. The air volume in the tent is replaced every 60 seconds. How do I increase the concentration in the tent enough to make a difference, and do it without flooding my house with extra CO2?

LOL that’s the same thing I thought. I run a 4 x 4 I have a 6 inch exhaust fan and I got fans running inside three of them. Believe it or not if you are using a Gorilla Grow Tent thick wall style, The CO2 maintains its self a lot better than I thought. The other thing is you’re not gonna fill your house up full of CO2 trying to increase a 4 x 4 Grow Tent to 1500 ppm. The CO2 regulator set @ .5-1.0 cf setting, is very minimal and safe. However, If you have a very large Grow Tent with CO2 supplementation In a small room,now you have a whole different problem with leaking CO2. A 4 x 4 tent has about 128 ft.² The volume in that small space would not be enough to increase your house ppm significantly. The gas that comes out of the tent into your house dissipate so quickly that your house levels are probably around 400 ppm normal atmosphere level and even with this leaking will never rise over 500.
I simply bought a tank a regulator and a monitor controller that turns it on or off automatically to preset levels and it works absolutely fantastic. I added a soaker hose attachment that I made to make a nice even diffusion into the space. So Phoenix Craig when you go and add CO2 to your system, because you are a master grower to be, you will now be in the master level Grower realm. Meaning, because you can control all the five limiting grow factors, you are in control of your garden fully now!! Now what you do with these five limiting factors will determine when you become the master grower we all strive to become!!!

 

[dbrzz]

I grow in a 5x5 tent with out co,2 and still produce nice bud's. 1300 watts from wall, but don't use all the power, just use it to get a even par reading from anywhere in the tent.

So 1300 W of energy use from the wall equates to lots of dollars. You should probably extrapolate the cost of CO2 versus the cost of your Electricity you’re using to try to overcome your “Limiting Factor” lack of CO2. If you add CO2 you definitely will be able to turn your light down and get the same results that you have now which will be cheaper than the electricity. Or you can keep your lights as they are give CO2 and your buds are going to grow a lot fatter. FYI for me growing pot is all about cutting costs to minimal and get the most excellent product at the end. It’s easy to throw a ton of money at weed and get good bud. But try growing excellent weed at the most economical cost is my challenge!!

 

[Clearbluesky]

Those lights are only running at 60% at the most for a 850 par, like I said it's just for even coverage. So don't cost alot to operate them. And I fined 850 par the plant likes better, I could hit 1500 par if I wanted to but would be a waste of power and not really give me any more. That plant gave me 28+ o/z of nice dense bud.

 

[dbrzz]

Those lights are only running at 60% at the most for a 850 par, like I said it's just for even coverage. So don't cost alot to operate them. And I fined 850 par the plant likes better, I could hit 1500 par if I wanted to but would be a waste of power and not really give me any more. That plant gave me 28+ o/z of nice dense bud.

Yeah nice looking plants. I read 750 par is adequate for proper growth and terpine production.
I am curious have you done a Electricity per day cost analysis for your grow? What do you pay Your utility company Per kilowatt for electricity?

 

[Clearbluesky]

No idea

 

[phxazcraig]

Here's an update. Plants aren't very exciting in the flowering stage as it seems little is changing day to day. The buds look good, certainly frosty. The plants have quit growing new fan leaves since about 8-10 days ago. The fan leaves there are all mature, and new growth is constrained to calyxes and fan leaves. The buds look different in the center versus the edges, and the lighting in the center is very bright indeed. My PAR reading for the center at canopy level was 1300. 500 or more at edge, 400 and less in extreme corners. Plants seem to be tolerating the brightness with no suspicious leaf conditions I've noticed.

I do have tip burn on the fan leaves and calyxes too, maybe. I've had tip burn throughout flowering, though minor. I've noticed a concurrent increase in runoff EC to high, then extremely high levels. My input EC seemed a bit low at 1350, but runoff was up to 2000. That indicates the roots were probably seeing higher than 2000. I tried flushing, I tried increasing water amounts a lot, but that didn't solve it. I'm now dropping input EC below 1000 and watering 7x daily, though the same amount overall as before, just spread over two more feedings to start.

I'm mid-way through week 6 of flowering, and buds are getting heavier, and heavier. The branches look quite strong enough to hold up, thanks to the Silica Blast and the manual breaking/healing of the stems. One of the four plants is wildly bushy because it's really hard to reach. Should be interesting to compare yields between plants. The bushy ones look better than the more-defoliated ones.

 

[Dustytrails]

Here's an update. Plants aren't very exciting in the flowering stage as it seems little is changing day to day. The buds look good, certainly frosty. The plants have quit growing new fan leaves since about 8-10 days ago. The fan leaves there are all mature, and new growth is constrained to calyxes and fan leaves. The buds look different in the center versus the edges, and the lighting in the center is very bright indeed. My PAR reading for the center at canopy level was 1300. 500 or more at edge, 400 and less in extreme corners. Plants seem to be tolerating the brightness with no suspicious leaf conditions I've noticed.

I do have tip burn on the fan leaves and calyxes too, maybe. I've had tip burn throughout flowering, though minor. I've noticed a concurrent increase in runoff EC to high, then extremely high levels. My input EC seemed a bit low at 1350, but runoff was up to 2000. That indicates the roots were probably seeing higher than 2000. I tried flushing, I tried increasing water amounts a lot, but that didn't solve it. I'm now dropping input EC below 1000 and watering 7x daily, though the same amount overall as before, just spread over two more feedings to start.

I'm mid-way through week 6 of flowering, and buds are getting heavier, and heavier. The branches look quite strong enough to hold up, thanks to the Silica Blast and the manual breaking/healing of the stems. One of the four plants is wildly bushy because it's really hard to reach. Should be interesting to compare yields between plants. The bushy ones look better than the more-defoliated ones.

Great reporting so far with this grow, excellent. Very impressed.
I've built the same kind of setup as yours, except 10 gallon air pots and bigger Halo's, but going to try organics for my upcoming nutrition and pest control requirements.

 

[phxazcraig]

Great reporting so far with this grow, excellent. Very impressed.
I've built the same kind of setup as yours, except 10 gallon air pots and bigger Halo's, but going to try organics for my upcoming nutrition and pest control requirements.

I'm curious - why such large pots? Mine are only 3.5 gallons, but wide enough that more would be an issue just to fit in the tent. And I'm thinking organic=more pest issues, in general. (I'm adding H2O2 to reservoir to control issues there, and I'm assuming I end up with a sterile system.

 

[Dustytrails]

I'm curious - why such large pots? Mine are only 3.5 gallons, but wide enough that more would be an issue just to fit in the tent. And I'm thinking organic=more pest issues, in general. (I'm adding H2O2 to reservoir to control issues there, and I'm assuming I end up with a sterile system.

I know the 10 gallon is slightly overkill, but I worked with 5 gallon airpots prior with no automatic drip installed, it was a pain keeping them wet, my bad for sure not having a drip system then. And I lost my last entire indoor crop from mites in the 8th week recently, never go on vacation and leave a dummy in charge of your watering, you may come home to webs and bugs everywhere. Major decontamination process happened 2 weeks ago.

Now the big questions are whether or not can I reduce the watering my cycles with bigger pots? Will the larger mass of Coir in the 10 gallon pot will it hold a little more of the Nutes fed?

I think bugs can happen if not vigilant no matter whether organic or synthetic, for years with my outdoor grows i used synthetic nutes and pest control, with little issues, and great yields. But for grins I decided for this indoor grow to try the BuildASoil company amendments and pest control with Coir, we'll see.

I'm still 1 1/2 - 2 weeks away from planting (my Green Crack seeds just sprouted) so not too late to switch container size back to my 5 gallon pots, if all I'm really doing is watering unnecessary soil.

 

[phxazcraig]

I'm thinking smaller pots, more watering, so if hand watering this may be a compromise that works for you.

 

[phxazcraig]

Some pics from yesterday. I'll have to work on the color temperature, or just turn down the light for pics. Anyway, these will give a good idea what's going on here now.

I've got some pics of buds in the middle and near the edges or corners.

Here is the top of the crop. The highest colas are just about 6 feet from the floor, including pot.

Near the back, this big cola popped up above the rest of the canopy, but it's just off the edge of the light. Seems to be doing ok.

The following pic shows an area right in the middle and is trying to show leaf conditions. PAR values here are about 1300.

The following cola is way over at the edge of the tent. It gets PAR values in the 400-500 range. Lots of trichomes on all these buds. Also the fan leaves.

Here is another bud at the edge of the tent, right in front of the door.

Here is another shot of the center area. The buds in the brightest area look a bit 'scorched' compared to the ones on the edges, but I'm not sure it means they are suffering all that much.

 

[Cashmeh]

Is that a 4x4 with 4 plants? Sorry if im late to catching up, just all over the place and its hard to keep up. How many watts light is that? Is it a sealed room with c02?

 

[phxazcraig]

Is that a 4x4 with 4 plants? Sorry if im late to catching up, just all over the place and its hard to keep up. How many watts light is that? Is it a sealed room with c02?

4x4 with 4 plants in 3.5 gallon airpots filled with coco coir, under a 600w HLG-600R. Midway through this grow I ran out of room and had to swap tents for a taller one. The tent is in a bedroom. There is a 6-inch input duct fan running 24x7. There is an AC-Infinity 6-inch exhaust fan blowing out at variable speeds depending on temp and humidity. There is no CO2. The plants are midway through 6th week of flower. I have a drip irrigation system doing drain to waste, currently at 7x daily.