100% perlite grow questions

[iscrog4food]

Hello farmers,
I am currently growing in a 50/50 coco perlite mix and I am considering switching over to straight perlite or a 80/20 perlite to coco mix. my questions are:

1) If I use House and garden nutes should I be using Aqua flakes instead of coco nutes it I am gonna go straight perlite? What about 80/20

2) What ph should I shoot for in straight perlite? I am assuming if I am 80/20 I would still use 5.8-6.0?

3) How often should I water straight perlite?

Thanks for the help guys

 

[Seamaiden]

Hello farmers,
I am currently growing in a 50/50 coco perlite mix and I am considering switching over to straight perlite or a 80/20 perlite to coco mix. my questions are:

1) If I use House and garden nutes should I be using Aqua flakes instead of coco nutes it I am gonna go straight perlite? What about 80/20

2) What ph should I shoot for in straight perlite? I am assuming if I am 80/20 I would still use 5.8-6.0?

3) How often should I water straight perlite?

Thanks for the help guys

Last year I did a pure perlite hempy tub grow, and if it weren't for those accursed root aphids I would have pulled around 12lbs EASY (I used fucking 30gal tubs, they're still up there because I can't move them).

I used a combination of Floranova Bloom and Fox Farms Big Bud, along with the bloom boosters of choice when the time came.

The main things to remember (and you've got the pertinent questions so you're already thinking about it) are that they don't need calcium and magnesium to anywhere nearly the same degree as coco-grown girls do, though they do need SOME because perlite will provide nothing.

The pH I kept in a lower range, 5.0-5.5, sometimes letting it drift a little higher but rarely letting it drift lower.

I can't tell you how often to water because I don't know how big the containers you're going to use would be, and I only did the hempy tub which, obviously, means we had a nice reservoir at the bottom. But! Remembering that these were outdoors (i.e. no temperature controls) at the beginning of the season they got fed every three days. By the time we were well into summer they were needing food or water every day. I gauged by how long it took to get run-off coming out of the holes.

 

[smokestack23]

Can't really answer your Qs because I don't have much coco experience but I have used 100% pearlite with great results. One of my best was using wicks. I put one 3gal square pail full of pearlite into/onto an identical bucket which acted as a res. This was about 20 years ago...before I knew about rot, pythium. algae, aeration-sort of, light entering the res...
Used like 1"dia cotton rope as the wicks.
Those plants were AWESOME. We also had an 8 pod lava rock drip system going and my cheap homemade wick buckets blew the DOORS off the drip system. The top pails had HUGE masses of white roots exploding out the wick hole and hanging in the bottom buckets. I think that I would usually top water them and fill the reses that way rather than just lifting the top pail and adding nutes to the bottom pails (reses). IIRC
I used only base nutes. The pails were white and not lightproofed. I had no aeration happening. I must have gotten extremely lucky.

The moral is...100% pearlite works great even without any supplements (or did with the strain I was growing). If it has a drawback it might be it's light weight. I suppose that if you had a big plant in a pail of pearlite and the medium got dry, the plant could/would fall over.
I don't know if it outperforms a mix with some coco ...or hydroton, rockwool, peat... I don't think the pH fluctuates much so it might just boil down to cost and or logistics?

GOOD stuff though.

 

[iscrog4food]

Seamaiden: I am thinking of using the 30 gallon tough box in a vert setup. I noticed Janus uses pressure compensating drippers and runs the pump 24/7 but he also has a chiller. I really dont have the space for a chiller or the electricity for that matter so I was thinking of making drip rings and running 1 minute every 10 or 15 minutes so the res doesn't get really hot and require a chiller.

Smokestack: Its not always about you! haha

 

[smokestack23]

I know that question wasnt directed at me..but...if it were me..what I would do is...KIDDING!! lol

Good luck.

 

[Seamaiden]

Seamaiden: I am thinking of using the 30 gallon tough box in a vert setup. I noticed Janus uses pressure compensating drippers and runs the pump 24/7 but he also has a chiller. I really dont have the space for a chiller or the electricity for that matter so I was thinking of making drip rings and running 1 minute every 10 or 15 minutes so the res doesn't get really hot and require a chiller.

Smokestack: Its not always about you! haha

You could run for several minutes without heating things up I would think, then let it go for 30. This is how I use my Aerocloner, 15:on/30:off.

I prefer pretty much any solution that means saving power. :)

You know those girls are gonna become monsters in 30gals, right?
OH! There he goes... :harvest:

 

[iscrog4food]

Thanks guys for the replies and Yeah I am hoping for some monsters!:rollj::harvest::confused0054::bongsmi: