Advice needed - Bought Coco Loco- Whaaa!

[DomoArigato]

Hi all,

So near first time poster here, but in a bit of a jam that I was wondering if one of you big brains can help me out of..

So I have familiarized myself with high frequency fertigation into a 70/30 Coco/Perlite mix and typically just buy a bag of Mother Earth 70/30, and have had more than phenominal success in doing this, I LOVE it tbh..

Weeeeell, here I am with a new grow fired up, germinated seeds just went into the pots on Sunday. In my haste, I was otw home from work one day and decided to stop by the hardware store to pick up some jiffy's to germ in, and while I was at said hardware store, I grabbed a bag of Bush Doctors Coco Loco "thinking" that it was a 70/30 mix... UUUGH!

Fast forward to last night when I noticed that the Coco Loco held moisture longer than I am used to, and had the eurika that this is a coco "potting mix" vs straight coco/perlite.. UUGH!

Ok, so I know it not a completely dire situation. I thoughtabout abandoning the grow and starting over, but my little seedlings are so stronk, I cannot abandon them. Plus, it's a strain the I have been anticipating growing since I bought my variety cache, so I am moving forward. My biggest concern is if it will hurt my yields, but I guessworth a go to seewhat happens.

Here's my dillema.. I am currently tooled and in the mindset of automatic feedings, 4x per light cycle, half strength Technaflora nutes ~ full line, drain to waste, automatic waste evac.. These feedings will obviously need to be reduced from 4x per light cycke to 1x per 2-3 days, but a bit overwhelmed with how to approach this. I would still like to continue the autonomous nature of my grow op, but adjust it to Coco Loco for just this one grow since I am already engaged..

The seedings have only developed their first sets od serrated's, so caught my folly early enough. I am hoping that I will still have success in treating this like a drain to waste grow, just less frequent feedings. The Coco Loco comes with some stuff already ammended into it, so going to go in light on the nutes when I get to that point. But once I work my way up to my typical 50% strength formula, I feel like my feedings (despite few and far between) should still be at 10/20% run-off to reset the suspended nutes and keep salts to a minimum. "I usually do a big run-off when I am in coco for this reason and to not have to worry about checking run-off PH because every feeding is also essentially a flush as well".

So this is my "current" game plan after less than 24hrs after having my "realization".. I don't post much on forums, but came here due to the Coco grow knowledge that I have gotten while reading threads here. If any of you have made it to the bottom of this "wall of words" and wish to offer suggestions of change or confirmations that I am on the right track with this grow, it would be greatly appreciated! AquaMan, I know that your out there.. Most of what I have learned about high-freq DTW coco has eithed been from your writings or CocoForCannabis, feel free to chime in if you have a take on it! Anybody else who might have a suggestion for that matter as well. This will probably be aone time "oops" grow using this mix, but would like to make the best of it if possible..

-Domo

 

[DomoArigato]

Sorry about all of the fat-finger gramaticals there.. damn tablet..

 

[DomoArigato]

And just so you know that I'm not just blowing smoke, one of my recent high-freq-fert DTW grows..

 

[Kraken.headz]

I ran the Coco Loco for awhile and really liked it. You could consider downsizing your pots if you're worried about it holding on to water for too long, but I never found that to be an issue. I watered once a day in 5 gallon Smart Pots.

 

[DomoArigato]

Hi Kraken, thanks for the response!

I have read that some people swear by coco loco as a happy medium between soil and coco, so thats "kinda" a positive to me; but I don't hold high hopes that I'll be able to grow monsters (sad face). Maybe I'll be a convert though, because I certainly stand to save $$ on bottled water and nutes with this medium/method.

So once a day you watered. I like that better than once every 2-3 tbh because it allows me to reset daily. Did you water to run-off when you watered? Also, I run a nute reservoir and would like to do autofeedings so that I can get on with my life.. Did you feed for each watering event or did you do some combination of water, water, feed, ect.. ?

 

[Kraken.headz]

I was in 5 gallon Smart Pots, feed-feed-rinse. I was at the time using a pump/wand set up and always watering to run off. It's not an especially heavy mix, and in my opinion offers a lot that straight coco or a coco/perlite mix doesn't. Are those 5 or 7 gallon containers in that picture? Plants that size in a 3 gallon Smart Pot would need at least one watering a day.

Those plants look awesome, and I don't fault you for not wanting to change things up. I've been pretty committed to amended coco mixes for about 5 years now, I think you'll dig it once you get it dialed.

 

[DomoArigato]

Those are 3-gal smart pots in the photo and thats what I am currently running with this grow. It did seem to go to run-off decently when I was prepping the mixture for my seedlings to go in, but seems like the dry-backs take a bit longer maybe due to the peat.

Due to potential spontaneous weekend trips here and there, I would REALLY like to run an automatic fertigation schedule doing straight feedings with no water/rinse cycles in between. That said, my wants may not coinside with whats possible, so scrambling to figure out how I will work it. I will be using significantly less water going this route, so I wonder if I went a smidge lighter on the nutes and a smidge heavier on the run-off, could this be achievable? Otherwise, I may have to press the reset button on the whole grow. Not a dire situation cause I have plenty of captains cut reserve to hold me over lol, but would be cool just to run this for fun assuming that I can automate it a bit.

Admittedly, the entiretly of my grow knowledge revolves around high-freq fert DTW non-ammended coco grows because thats what I initially learned, so I could be getting worked up over a problem with and easy solution due to ignorance. Hopefully I'll be able to address and move forward with the grow..

 

[BigPoppa325]

DomoArigato, would love to hear what you did with this grow. I am in the same boat and trying to decide how frequently to fertigate in this Coco Loco. The Fox Farms site says watering can go between 2 and 3 days, but their nutrient line says to feed 2x per week. The big question is do I lower in-feed EC to 50% the recommended feeding EC, and fertigate every 2 days (this is what I decided to do) or alternate fertigation and a pH'd watering. I too want to setup an automated fertigation schedule, as I've grown tired of the manual hand watering.

Did you like the results from this grow? Did you come up with feeding schedule you liked? EC in-feed, target runoff EC? Did you have any issues with high EC runoff due to soil vs Coco/Perlite.