Calling On All Coco Guys Question???

jumpincactus · Apr 23, 2017

Lookin at jumping in to coco and have a few ??? Hopefully you all can help me.

1. What is the best overall brand?
2. Do I use loose bagged stuff or bricks?
3. Can I use a mix of coco and my living soil or should I go 100% coco?

G gnome · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
Lookin at jumping in to coco and have a few ??? Hopefully you all can help me.

1. What is the best overall brand?
2. Do I use loose bagged stuff or bricks?
3. Can I use a mix of coco and my living soil or should I go 100% coco?

I like botanicare.

I prefer loose cuz its easier to work with

Yes u can mix it.

The Terps · Apr 23, 2017

All brands are a little different they source nuts from different places. Then you have a pith to coir ratio and pith holds more water coir the opposite. In my area ppl love Tupur it's a light seedmix soil with coco, high drainage. I use nutrifeild in the bag. No perlite or anything but I add 1-1/2 c gypsum per cu ft. If I were you however. I'd go to your normal store and ask to check out a few open bags of different brands and pick the one that tickles your fancy

d0rk2dafullest · Apr 23, 2017

i once used coco chunks. that shit grows plants so fast. but i prefer promix or straight coco. either one is fine. promix is cheap. its mostly peatmoss, but i like straight coco better, feels cleaner, when it dries, it feels nice, vs the peat moss. it feels soooooo..... hard? compared to coco when its dried. i would go straight coco =) bagged is easier. brick, i have no experience, but u can find bricks of coco for cheap on craigslist sometimes. CHEAP!!!

jumpincactus · Apr 23, 2017

G gnome said:
I like botanicare.

I prefer loose cuz its easier to work with

Yes u can mix it.

thanks man. Whats the cost of botainicare? and does it come pre charged with calcium. What if any issues have you had with it?

jumpincactus · Apr 23, 2017

G gnome said:
I like botanicare.

I prefer loose cuz its easier to work with

Yes u can mix it.

yea I was thinking loose as well.

G gnome · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
yea I was thinking loose as well.

Thats what she sed

william76 · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
yea I was thinking loose as well.

Yea,i get it with hydroton thru it,works great for me,shops own mix.think @G gnome does something similar with growstones.76

G gnome · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
thanks man. Whats the cost of botainicare? and does it come pre charged with calcium. What if any issues have you had with it?

Idk about calcium.
Probably cheaper by u seeing as how botanicare hq in AZ.
No issues.

justiceman · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
Lookin at jumping in to coco and have a few ??? Hopefully you all can help me.

1. What is the best overall brand?
2. Do I use loose bagged stuff or bricks?
3. Can I use a mix of coco and my living soil or should I go 100% coco?

Most of the brands out there are pretty good. A brand I would not recommend is Roots Organics Coco Palms. It fried my seedlings a while back and I wondered why. Did a slurry test and it's salt content was above 2.0EC!

1.My hydro store changes juggles a few different brands so I never have the same one but generally use one of these 3:

Canna

Atamai

Botanicare

I prefer 100% coco with no perlite or any other additives at all. If i had to buy a mix because I absolutely could not get 100% coco then I would settle for nothing less than a coco/perlite blend. Any other amendments are unnecessary IMO but perlite is about the only thing I'd still feel okay with in the mix if I really really had to.

If you find a different brand or really want to be sure the coco is good a slurry test(just a small glass 1:1 ratio of distilled water and coco) with an EC meter isn't a bad idea. Also when the coco is saturated I squeeze it in my hand and it should want to bounce back kind of like a sponge. That's a good sign it's not too broken down and still holds a lot of air within.

2. Loose is much easier to handle but it costs a lot more and is typically already buffered with cal and mag. I've hydrated botanicare bricks in the past and that's probably one of my favorite bricks. It's nice and spongy. I heard canna started or has been doing bricks. I'd imagine those are of excellent quality. Bricks work just fine and definitely save money if you are willing to do a bit of extra work hydrating them.

3. You can use a mix of coco in soil, but that will change your whole nutrient approach. It will be more of a medium amendment for texture and consistency like peat moss and you won't get the full benefits it has to offer since you will be trading some of it for soil. An example would be a loss of the ability to:

Water daily therefore introducing oxygen to the roots more often

Accurately Judge and change how much nutrition the plant is getting

Accurately monitor pH

It's not a bad thing at all to add coco to soil grows in place of peat moss but if you want to utilize coco coir to it's full potential then I'd recommend using a quality hydroponic nutrient and coco just by itself.

jumpincactus · Apr 23, 2017

justiceman said:
Most of the brands out there are pretty good. A brand I would not recommend is Roots Organics Coco Palms. It fried my seedlings a while back and I wondered why. Did a slurry test and it's salt content was above 2.0EC!

1.My hydro store changes juggles a few different brands so I never have the same one but generally use one of these 3:

Canna

Atamai

Botanicare

I prefer 100% coco with no perlite or any other additives at all. If i had to buy a mix because I absolutely could not get 100% coco then I would settle for nothing less than a coco/perlite blend. Any other amendments are unnecessary IMO but perlite is about the only thing I'd still feel okay with in the mix if I really really had to.

If you find a different brand or really want to be sure the coco is good a slurry test(just a small glass 1:1 ratio of distilled water and coco) with an EC meter isn't a bad idea. Also when the coco is saturated I squeeze it in my hand and it should want to bounce back kind of like a sponge. That's a good sign it's not too broken down and still holds a lot of air within.

2. Loose is much easier to handle but it costs a lot more and is typically already buffered with cal and mag. I've hydrated botanicare bricks in the past and that's probably one of my favorite bricks. It's nice and spongy. I heard canna started or has been doing bricks. I'd imagine those are of excellent quality. Bricks work just fine and definitely save money if you are willing to do a bit of extra work hydrating them.

3. You can use a mix of coco in soil, but that will change your whole nutrient approach. It will be more of a medium amendment for texture and consistency like peat moss and you won't get the full benefits it has to offer since you will be trading some of it for soil. An example would be a loss of the ability to:

Water daily therefore introducing oxygen to the roots more often

Accurately Judge and change how much nutrition the plant is getting

Accurately monitor pH

It's not a bad thing at all to add coco to soil grows in place of peat moss but if you want to utilize coco coir to it's full potential then I'd recommend using a quality hydroponic nutrient and coco just by itself.

Damn, very nice input. TY for taking the time man.

justiceman · Apr 23, 2017

jumpincactus said:
Damn, very nice input. TY for taking the time man.

No prob! :smoking:

jumpincactus · Apr 23, 2017

So rather than make any of you regurgitate easily findable materials, what is a good link to learn the does and dont's of coco as a media. I do realize that letting it completely dry out is a no no unlike soil. And also am aware that it is feed, feed, feed with coco with every watering. Anything I am missing or any good links where I can do my own homework??

Isnt coco a hybrid form of hydro? I am a old ebb n flo guy from way back. So I'm hip to Ph appropriate levels.

Burned Haze · Apr 23, 2017

I bought tons of brands over the years and I really like royal gold. Very nice quality and if you buy a square from a shop it's much cheaper ( when I bought mine it reduced the bags by 30% than anywhere I Could find per bag )

LeeMcGee · Apr 23, 2017

Things to consider. What is available to you in your local shops and what's the humidity. I've noticed some differences in how fast some dry or drain out. Black Gold IME was great and tendedication to stay on the wet side longer. Sunshine advanced #4 was more on the dry side. Canna is nice because it is buffered already (so they claim) and is a great choice since it's readily available, years of happy customers, and decent price. Back gold is usually a better price. The BCuzz coco was really nice quality but higher price and was on the wetter side if u remember correctly. It's nice if you can find open bags so you can feel how loose or coarse or wet/dry it feels. I've mixed different brands trying to create a mix of faster drying and to vary the coarseness. I have also added perlite, worm casts, kelp, guano, etc. Play around with what works best in your conditions. Make sure you test the run off regularly to see what ph aND ec it might be holding. I've been shocked to find 4000ppm when I'm feeding 900. I always did a nute,nute ,flush but everyone now says feed em everytime. I always liked the loose stuff but I was aways low scale. More affordable to buy bricks but work to break it up so depends on your size/cost needs.

hiboy · Apr 23, 2017

There is a brand that comes with the perlite already in it
it's a simple thing to do
I think canna is the cheapest at $15 a bag
The great thing about Coco is you can reuse it for years just clean out your root ball
Hb

whitepistols · Apr 23, 2017

You can take your coir fill a old ice chest half full. Have a turkey fryer? Boil water toss it on that coco until the cooler is half full of hot water. Let it sit 24 hours can wrap it with a blanket if want to be sure or old sleeping bag.

You just pasturized the coir. In english gnats, and any other bug larve you can think of plus alot of uglies just got nuked.Now you know what is growing in it is what is local from you bringing it in.
If you can start out having pasturized your coir your going to save alot of time dealing with bug issues later if everything is clean from the get go.Yes if you do it you will need to put a microbe population back into the coir. Mushroomers have alot of pasturizing coir information.

Yeah you can just open the bag rinse it off and soak it with 1/4strength cal/mag, nutes, ect right before use then plug a hungry clone in it.

justiceman · Apr 24, 2017

jumpincactus said:
So rather than make any of you regurgitate easily findable materials, what is a good link to learn the does and dont's of coco as a media. I do realize that letting it completely dry out is a no no unlike soil. And also am aware that it is feed, feed, feed with coco with every watering. Anything I am missing or any good links where I can do my own homework??

Isnt coco a hybrid form of hydro? I am a old ebb n flo guy from way back. So I'm hip to Ph appropriate levels.

I don't have any links aside from my Coco Root Health Tutorial I wrote up, but you seem to already have a good idea of how it works so I'm not sure if it will be useful since you already know one of the most important things. Not to let it dry out haha. Tons of issues can be avoided with that alone. Yup pure coco is certainly hydroponics. Ph 5.8-6.0 tends to be the sweet spot.

brimck325 · Apr 24, 2017

do as u wish, but adding soil to coco defeats the purpose imo. use straight coco and see the results before adding anything would be my advice. i use bricks for a few reasons……cheaper, easier to get into my house without neighbors seeing it and i know exactly whats in it cause i put it there. always use hot/boiling water to soak bricks as mentioned, it will save u a lot of headaches.

Evil Monkey · Apr 24, 2017

@justiceman can you drop a link to the tutorial you mentioned. Lots of get info on this thread. I'm in perlite with hydroton mix.

Calling On All Coco Guys Question???

Calling On All Coco Guys Question???

jumpincactus

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The Terps

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Calling On All Coco Guys Question???

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