HOW TO WATER COCO FOR BEST RESULTS.

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Grownsince95

Grownsince95

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So it an aeroponic NFT combination? If so thats a different case than just aeroponics 4 times a day which i have never ever heard of nor think would be doable on its own without NFT

There are alot more factors i think you may have missed. Its combination of HOW much and HOW often... not simply 10x a day. In my hydro my plants would be drinking over a gal a day each. In this coco they are drinking 250ml x 10 which is 2.5 litres. Environment, especially temps, transpiration rates and growth affect uptake. Im not sure why that seems like to much? I would say its quite normal for a plant to drink that much wouldn't you?

If i fed these gals 4 times a day they would be bone dry and I would have a much less stable rootzone. Nutrients don't concentrate in air but they sure do in coco if not rinsed through to an extent.
I went from just 2 to 4 events in a day and saw a huge improvement already. I still need to work out the details to increase those numbers and deal with runoff etc and fine tune everything but its obvious already the more frequent and steady the better. 👍
 
Aqua Man

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@MidwestToker makes a good point though. I did a piss poor job of explaining that. I will edit the post when I get home to better explain it and why the bigger the pot size the more you water with per event and the less frequent you need to water as the pot size increases there is more overall water in the media so the % of saturation of the coco declines at a much slower rate... meaning less frequent watering are needed to keep it at the % we want. In my 1 gal pots its needs to be extremely frequent but the volume is much lower to keep it 90%+
 
Enforcer

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What we are trying to achieve is called cyclical watering. The plant will become accustomed to the frequent fertigation events and increase growth exponentially. But please keep in mind frequently watering is not the only concern. Temp, humidity, light intensity, air flow, pot size, amount of drainage, and nutrient strength all play a role. If a few of these are out of parameters, it will result in a less than optimal outcome. But the most important thing to remember is this style of growing IS NOT SOIL. You can add dry amendments to your coco and then it would be comparable to a soil grow, and I would agree with some dry time. But with multiple fertigations in plain coco, the only time the plant has access to nutrients is in the water. So if you’re not watering, they’re not eating and you will have issues. This style is not for everyone. IMO, auto watering from a reservoir is a must have. Once you get everything dialed in, it’s almost set and forget.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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What we are trying to achieve is called cyclical watering. The plant will become accustomed to the frequent fertigation events and increase growth exponentially. But please keep in mind frequently watering is not the only concern. Temp, humidity, light intensity, air flow, pot size, amount of drainage, and nutrient strength all play a role. If a few of these are out of parameters, it will result in a less than optimal outcome. But the most important thing to remember is this style of growing IS NOT SOIL. You can add dry amendments to your coco and then it would be comparable to a soil grow, and I would agree with some dry time. But with multiple fertigations in plain coco, the only time the plant has access to nutrients is in the water. So if you’re not watering, they’re not eating and you will have issues. This style is not for everyone. IMO, auto watering from a reservoir is a must have. Once you get everything dialed in, it’s almost set and forget.
Could not have said it better.
 
Grownsince95

Grownsince95

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What we are trying to achieve is called cyclical watering. The plant will become accustomed to the frequent fertigation events and increase growth exponentially. But please keep in mind frequently watering is not the only concern. Temp, humidity, light intensity, air flow, pot size, amount of drainage, and nutrient strength all play a role. If a few of these are out of parameters, it will result in a less than optimal outcome. But the most important thing to remember is this style of growing IS NOT SOIL. You can add dry amendments to your coco and then it would be comparable to a soil grow, and I would agree with some dry time. But with multiple fertigations in plain coco, the only time the plant has access to nutrients is in the water. So if you’re not watering, they’re not eating and you will have issues. This style is not for everyone. IMO, auto watering from a reservoir is a must have. Once you get everything dialed in, it’s almost set and forget.
Set and forget! Exactly. I'm forced to be away from my grow for a week at a time so I had no choice but to set up this way and I love it. 👍

I think of it like a swing set. I feel like the plants daily cycle is like a pendulum, and everyone knows when you're on a swing set if you pump your feet at the right time you keep that pendulum swinging but if you do it at random times the momentum stops. The water/feed is like the foot pumping that keeps the plant going consistently.
 
Enforcer

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Set and forget! Exactly. I'm forced to be away from my grow for a week at a time so I had no choice but to set up this way and I love it. 👍

I think of it like a swing set. I feel like the plants daily cycle is like a pendulum, and everyone knows when you're on a swing set if you pump your feet at the right time you keep that pendulum swinging but if you do it at random times the momentum stops. The water/feed is like the foot pumping that keeps the plant going consistently.

An excellent analogy👍 Find the sweet spot and keep it there.
 
MidwestToker

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So it an aeroponic NFT combination? If so thats a different case than just aeroponics 4 times a day which i have never ever heard of nor think would be doable on its own without NFT

There are alot more factors i think you may have missed. Its combination of HOW much and HOW often... not simply 10x a day. In my hydro my plants would be drinking over a gal a day each. In this coco they are drinking 250ml x 10 which is 2.5 litres. Environment, especially temps, transpiration rates and growth affect uptake. Im not sure why that seems like to much? I would say its quite normal for a plant to drink that much wouldn't you?

If i fed these gals 4 times a day they would be bone dry and I would have a much less stable rootzone. Nutrients don't concentrate in air but they sure do in coco if not rinsed through to an extent.
[/QUOTE
@MidwestToker makes a good point though. I did a piss poor job of explaining that. I will edit the post when I get home to better explain it and why the bigger the pot size the more you water with per event and the less frequent you need to water as the pot size increases there is more overall water in the media so the % of saturation of the coco declines at a much slower rate... meaning less frequent watering are needed to keep it at the % we want. In my 1 gal pots its needs to be extremely frequent but the volume is much lower to keep it 90%+

That's what I was trying to reiterate, if you understand where the use of coco started from it was small pots feed multiple time a day from the tomato growers, it's all a balance with the inputs that the plants receive . That's why what works in some gardens cause a fail in someone else grow. Then we get into the exact content of the coir itself, chunks fibers, or pith.
 
Grownsince95

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I bet with a good small sump pump on the floor of the tent that gets down to a low level like 1/8 inch you could push enough runoff to pump it back into the rez and basically run a recirculating system with very little fluctuations in ppm. Like what if you could do 100% runoff every time 10 times a day?
 
Aqua Man

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Hey @Aqua Man in coco is their still an advantage to starting in smaller containers and transplanting, or is that more of a soil thing?
Depends how big your going. One benefit to coco is you can use small pots compared to soil. Like my 1 gals. I just start them in there. Personally the only reason to do big pots would be reduced watering frequency or growing trees. I think its kinda situation specific. If going like 5 gal I would think a bit more benefit to up potting but something like a 3 gal... I would probably just start in it. No real right answer to this IMO.
 
Fudge

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Hey @Aqua Man in coco is their still an advantage to starting in smaller containers and transplanting, or is that more of a soil thing?
I've done both ways and not really much difference tbh if you transplant at the right time they don't skip a beat.
You've just got to be careful of suffocating the roots early on with saturating a big pot with a small plant in, again though enough perlite would in theory, combat that, I've also been looking at these air domes for the hempipots I think they're called on your side of the pond aQuavalve over here or autopot. I think because of the increased airflow through the coco you could use almost like a hydro medium and defo use a recirculating system.


Hmmm giving myself ideas now 😂, feck,, cue a new thing to suck the time out of my life, why did I ever start this rabbit hole of a hobby.......


Oh yeah I remember 😊😊😍😍🤣
 
unnerstall

unnerstall

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So right now I have two types of coco. Roots soiless that is mixed with perlite, but the coco is much finer and Roots compressed coco. It's more of a bark/chunks. Which is better?
 
Aqua Man

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So right now I have two types of coco. Roots soiless that is mixed with perlite, but the coco is much finer and Roots compressed coco. It's more of a bark/chunks. Which is better?
Happy medium but compact i would say is less desirable.

I use canna coco. Prewashed and buffered certified pest free. The bags of it already expanded many use right out of the bag no rinse or anything with great results.

The brick version I rinsed. There was not a lot of dust but I kinda feel like the compression breaks some of the fibers so rinsing is not a bad idea. The dust or very fine particles can result in a more compact or less aerated product so i rinsed mine but have heard its not been an issue for others.

Basically the more aerated which will have the least sediment/dust the better.
 
Tesla666

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@MidwestToker makes a good point though. I did a piss poor job of explaining that. I will edit the post when I get home to better explain it and why the bigger the pot size the more you water with per event and the less frequent you need to water as the pot size increases there is more overall water in the media so the % of saturation of the coco declines at a much slower rate... meaning less frequent watering are needed to keep it at the % we want. In my 1 gal pots its needs to be extremely frequent but the volume is much lower to keep it 90%+
Aqua i'm trying your teqnique with Slabs just one question. Do u get un off in every watering? 10 times a day?
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Aqua i'm trying your teqnique with Slabs just one question. Do u get un off in every watering? 10 times a day?
I do but its absolutely minimal like 25-50ml. If you keep a tight eye on the runoff you can further tweak and reduce runoff as these are guidelines and lots of variables can affect it so this is a safe bet for pretty much any grow but no doubt you can get away with less if you want to take the time to tune it right in.

Remember my specific info is fair sized plants in 1 gal pots so specific to my grow
 
QuindariousGooch

QuindariousGooch

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Ive been feeding one at 650 and still get runoff over 1000 after 4 days.and have had to keep flushing it.the other plant id get to 6-7 days..its got me beat ..i kept thinking the 4 holes and root mass the salts are battling to get out...simply put these 2 plants must b light feeders.
if your ppms increase between waterings The simple solution is to keep the input ppms the same but increase the frequency of the watering until it comes out closer to what you're putting in. Ppms will increase as the pot dries regardless of what the plant uses. The plant will take up approximately 10 parts water for one part nutrient. This results in a concentration of the nutrients. Hope that makes sense.
 
LuckyLuck

LuckyLuck

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I have situation in 3gal pots coco perlite mix. Feeding 2 times 1200ml getting 10% runoff. Input EC 800 output came out yesterday at 350. Poured 4 l of 800ec solution through each pot EC output at about 500-550. Do I need to up to 3-4 times a day? I need to put them in flower ASAP so I want to tune in EC. Im waiting to final part for automation to come so now im hand watering.
 
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