Canna Coco Coir Grow

[Fjorn]

Hello everyone!My friend is pretty new at this, and this the first grow he is doing, but he is not sure about several of the things that are going on with his young plants. The grow setup is like this:

Grow tent 4x4x6.5
600W MH Lamp for Veg, and 600W HPS for flowering
Air cooled hood reflector with glass - 150mm
Exhaust Fan - 150mm High Quality Pro In-Line Metal Extractor Fan 120w Motor (550m3/h)
Carbon Filter - 150mm CKV-4 activated virgin carbon (480m3/h)
2 osculating fans - 15w and the bottom and at the top

The tent has very good passive intake and temps even at the hottest time of the day never rise more than 25C even with the lights on. He is keeping all the fans constantly working to create a quality airflow in the room and the RH humidity is always between 50-53% , temperatures never go bellow 23.5C and never above 25.4C and being monitored all the time by the sensor around the plants. The light distance between the seedlings and the lights is 24 inches, just to be safe, and the seedlings seem to like it that way, they are on 600w from day 1, on 18/6 light schedule.

He planted 5 seeds at 22/08 in Canna Coco Coir Professional Plus and he had started them directly in Coco with solo cups. In 3 days they all have germinated and seedlings appeared on the 4th day, with the 5th seedling appearing only at 7th day,but it still hasn't broke the seed husk though, def a slow grower but that's probably because he had to adjust him earlier, since the root started to grow in the wrong way, and this is the cause of it's slow grow.

After roots appearing at the bottom of the solo cups he transplanted 3 of them into 1 gallon smart pots with the same Coco in it, it was around the 7th day from the start, 3 of them were transplanted, but the 4th plant was transplanted 2 days later as it was growing slower too for some reason, plus it could not open up properly. He had to remove very carefully the a thin film of leftover from the seed husk for her to fully open it's cotyledons but the plant has not grew true leaves in 2 days after that.

From the start he s been watering them with tap water, which is actually pretty good and pure in our municipality having 7.2PH and 0.1 EC. He adjusted the PH to 5.9 and has watered the plants from day 1 to day 7 with water and no nutes, since the plants have enough food to last them 1-2 weeks, but since coco is a medium with no nutes in it, he prepared a really weak nute mix to start them off a bit after 7 days.

For feeding he is using Canna Nutes : Canna Coco A&B, Canna Rhizotonic, Canna Cannazym, and Advanced Nutrients Sensi Cal Mag Extra, since there are no other available Calmag solutions here. He has Canna Bloom too, but it is for Flowering stages.

The weak mix consisted of 1.6 gallons of water (6l) , 6ml of Canna Coco A&B, 6ml of CalMagExtra, 10ml of Rhizotonic, 8ml of Cannazym and then he PH-ed the water to 5.9.

He watered the plants with no run-off, weight in the pots when they were pre watered with the nutrient mix before transplanting the plants into the smart pots, so when they become lighter about 300-400g he waters them with 20% water of the whole volume of the pots to not over water them but still keep enough moist in the soil for feeding. Should he water them normally with 20% water runoff or should he keep watering them like that?

Is the nutrient mix light enough for 1-1,5 week seedling or is it too strong and when can he bump up the nutes?

Besides that, he is a bit worried about couple of his plants, I'll upload photos of them. They all have been watered equally with the same nutrient mix, except the seedling that had not emerged yet from the seed husk and the seedling that has only cotyledons and no true leaves yet, they have been watered with regular water 5.9PH and just once with a weak mix of Rhizotonic and water to boost their root growth a bit, which actually helped.

2 of the plants seem fine, though the second one had an accident during her transplantation and had a part of her root ripped, but since then it bounced back nicely, with the help of Rhizo, though it definitely slowed down it's progress. He is most worried for the 3rd of the plant which started curling up and seem a bit yellowish compared to others, which is strange since it has the same amounts of nutes, water and light, and the other 2 are doing fine. And the 4th plant is already at 10th day after being planted, still has only cotyledons and no true leaves formed yet. Any advice how to help out the slow growers and keep the others happy?

Sorry for the long post, wanted to give as much information about the grow, so there would be less questions about it. Uploading the pics bellow. The first seems to be the strongest on, the second on is the plant with the damaged root, third one is the one he is worried about yellowing and the other ones are the slow growers.

Thanks to anyone who answers in this thread!

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

Those plants are too small to be fertilizing that much, at most they should be getting a very light feeding of some root booster, calmag, and very light veg nutes.

The first two leaves are called cotyledons, they store the fertilizer needed for the plants first few weeks of life. I would flush them with very lightly fertilized water with heavy runoff and then up the nutes as the plant recovered.

 

[tinderthumbs]

trying to get a jump start on them for sure lol

 

[Fjorn]

Those plants are too small to be fertilizing that much, at most they should be getting a very light feeding of some root booster, calmag, and very light veg nutes.

The first two leaves are called cotyledons, they store the fertilizer needed for the plants first few weeks of life. I would flush them with very lightly fertilized water with heavy runoff and then up the nutes as the plant recovered.

Ok, he followed your advice, made a mix of Canna Coco A+B 2ml, 5 ml of calmag, 5 ml of root booster Rhizotonic for 1,5 gallon (6 litres) of water and watered them till 30% percent runoff. Should he continue watering the plant with the weak mixture of nutes or just plain PH-ed water would be sufficient by now? Thank you very much for the reply, I'll keep updates on the plants well being.

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

Never water coco with just water, always use lightly fertilized water unless the plants are liking it, then gradually increase nutrients each watering until you reach your max ppm of 1200 for veg. Here is an in depth example of how you can water coco, thanks to snow crash from icmag

I speak in uS/cm. It is a more accurate representation of EC, and if you cut the value in half that would be the Hanna ppm measurement. Also, for beginners in coco, I think that the Botanicare CNS 17 coco/soil system of Grow/Bloom/Ripe is damn near perfect. It's about $10 a quart, $25 a gallon, it has everything you'll need, and it works. Their instructions are a little high ml/gallon wise, but you can always cut them back to about 75% suggested strength and go from there. IMO, there is not an easier and less expensive complete system than CNS 17 Coco/Soil. The addition of a Potassium Silicate (like Pro-Tekt) can be useful as a pH up for this usually acidic system, rather than using GH Potassium Bicarbonate pH+.

For the record, my tap water comes in around 100uS/cm (about 50ppm) so it is pretty clean to begin with. For most growers, if you do not have access to clean water (like if you live in a major metropolitan area with water treatment) then I recommend running Reverse Osmosis filtered water to ensure contaminants (like sodium) are not unbalancing your system.

These nutrient levels are what I consider to be average ballpark. Every strain, and phenotype, is going to have its own "perfect level." These suggestions should be fine for most strains, but you might be able to push more nutrients during weeks 3 and 4 of veg and 4 and 5 of flowering than I suggest. You'll have to determine that as a gardener when you can see what the plants will actually require.

Seedling Stage:
400 to 500 uS/cm
Focus on Cal-Mag, and run a balanced system. You don't want to push just Nitrogen, Phosphorus will help with root development and potassium will balance out the cation exchange. Aim for a 1-1-1 kind of system, the most prevalent element in use at this time should be Calcium

Vegetative Stage:
Week 1: 600uS/cm Maintain the balanced ratio 1-1-1
Week 2: 800uS/cm Increase Nitrogen levels. 2-1-1
Week 3: 1000uS/cm Increase Nitrogen levels, watch for Magnesium shortages. 3-1-1
Week 4: 1200uS/cm Increase Potassium levels 3-1-2

Transition to flowering:
For 2 waterings you'll want to use a more balanced nutrient system and to decrease your Calcium supplementation considerably. If you were using something like GH Micro, or Botanicare Cal-Mag plus at 5ml in veg, this would be the time to cut it back to more like 2ml. Often, after 3-4 weeks in the media the coco achieves the element buffer (or bank) and pushing the continuously high levels of calcium will interrupt the exchange of Magnesium and Potassium during early flowering.

Flowering Stage:
Stretch wk1: 1200uS/cm Maintain vegetative NPK, decreasing Ca, increasing Su+Mag
Stretch wk2: 1200uS/cm Decrease N, increase PK slightly, close to a 3-2-3.
Flower wk3: 1350uS/cm Decrease N more, closer to 2-2-3
Flower wk4: 1450uS/cm Increase Mag and potassium.
Flower wk5: 1600uS/cm Begin PK boosting. 1-2-3
Swell wk6: 1800uS/cm Phosphorus push 1-5-4
Swell wk7: 1600uS/cm cont'd phosphorus push 1-6-4
Ripen wk8: 1400uS/cm very low nitrogen and calcium. 100us/CM extra Epsom Salt and increased K. 1-2-3 again.
Ripen wk9: <500uS/cm flushing. I like to use Fulvic acid for a few days.

Some other things that might help out. I don't like to grow in large containers of coco, I just think it is unnecessary. 8L of coco is plenty. Also, I prefer to amend my coco with aeration material like perlite and GrowStones. I think Roots Organics Coco mix is a fantastic media that you can use much less nutrients on (until the 4th week in the media) and I like to mix a little Botanicare CocoGro in with their mixture because it is a little heavy in perlite when unamended.

When daily waterings start (usually in the 3rd week of flowering for me, but it will vary given planter size and transplant date, etc) I begin to offset my feedings with 1/2 strength waterings. Every other, or sometimes every 2 full strength feedings I follow up with a lower strength watering at a balanced ratio. This will keep buildup a non-issue.

Also, when feeding at higher strength, and especially around the transition phase to flowering, I find that it is VERY important that I maintain at the minimum 33% run off (3L in, 1L out). Measure your runoff EC to determine if you are washing out a lot of buildup. If I use a 1000uS/cm solution and if I get anything more than 1300uS/cm in the runoff then I know that the media is a little over-saturated and this is washing out. In this case I simply continue to rinse the media with the 1000uS/cm solution until the runoff measures within the range I am looking for. Usually, a 1:1 runoff ratio (4L in, 2L out) is all it takes to keep any buildup completely out of the equation.

Here's a nutrient calculator I have put together using a spreadsheet (I made it in openoffice and converted to .xls)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EGSYJSW8

Just enter the required information and you are on your way. You will want to measure your ppm levels compared to the predictions and compensate for deviances. Liquid Karma tests about 9x higher than predicted, while Hydroplex tests about 90% of predicted. This calculator requires personalization, but it is setup to predict up to 10 nutrients at a time in a solution. I have mine dialed perfectly when running:
Canna Coco A
Canna Coco B
Cal-Mag Plus
Liquid Karma
Pro-Tekt
CNS 17 Ripe
Hydroplex
Big Bud
Nirvana
Snow Storm Ultra
Bud Candy

This is where these levels, my 2 years of experience, and this calculator have taken me (40 days from 12/12, sorry about the white balance, not burned just glare)

 

[mulehunter]

I always start my seedlings in solo cups with fox farm ocean forest until they get root bound then transplant them into coco coir .

 

[Fjorn]

Never water coco with just water, always use lightly fertilized water unless the plants are liking it, then gradually increase nutrients each watering until you reach your max ppm of 1200 for veg. Here is an in depth example of how you can water coco, thanks to snow crash from icmag

I speak in uS/cm. It is a more accurate representation of EC, and if you cut the value in half that would be the Hanna ppm measurement. Also, for beginners in coco, I think that the Botanicare CNS 17 coco/soil system of Grow/Bloom/Ripe is damn near perfect. It's about $10 a quart, $25 a gallon, it has everything you'll need, and it works. Their instructions are a little high ml/gallon wise, but you can always cut them back to about 75% suggested strength and go from there. IMO, there is not an easier and less expensive complete system than CNS 17 Coco/Soil. The addition of a Potassium Silicate (like Pro-Tekt) can be useful as a pH up for this usually acidic system, rather than using GH Potassium Bicarbonate pH+.

For the record, my tap water comes in around 100uS/cm (about 50ppm) so it is pretty clean to begin with. For most growers, if you do not have access to clean water (like if you live in a major metropolitan area with water treatment) then I recommend running Reverse Osmosis filtered water to ensure contaminants (like sodium) are not unbalancing your system.

These nutrient levels are what I consider to be average ballpark. Every strain, and phenotype, is going to have its own "perfect level." These suggestions should be fine for most strains, but you might be able to push more nutrients during weeks 3 and 4 of veg and 4 and 5 of flowering than I suggest. You'll have to determine that as a gardener when you can see what the plants will actually require.

Seedling Stage:
400 to 500 uS/cm
Focus on Cal-Mag, and run a balanced system. You don't want to push just Nitrogen, Phosphorus will help with root development and potassium will balance out the cation exchange. Aim for a 1-1-1 kind of system, the most prevalent element in use at this time should be Calcium

Vegetative Stage:
Week 1: 600uS/cm Maintain the balanced ratio 1-1-1
Week 2: 800uS/cm Increase Nitrogen levels. 2-1-1
Week 3: 1000uS/cm Increase Nitrogen levels, watch for Magnesium shortages. 3-1-1
Week 4: 1200uS/cm Increase Potassium levels 3-1-2

Transition to flowering:
For 2 waterings you'll want to use a more balanced nutrient system and to decrease your Calcium supplementation considerably. If you were using something like GH Micro, or Botanicare Cal-Mag plus at 5ml in veg, this would be the time to cut it back to more like 2ml. Often, after 3-4 weeks in the media the coco achieves the element buffer (or bank) and pushing the continuously high levels of calcium will interrupt the exchange of Magnesium and Potassium during early flowering.

Flowering Stage:
Stretch wk1: 1200uS/cm Maintain vegetative NPK, decreasing Ca, increasing Su+Mag
Stretch wk2: 1200uS/cm Decrease N, increase PK slightly, close to a 3-2-3.
Flower wk3: 1350uS/cm Decrease N more, closer to 2-2-3
Flower wk4: 1450uS/cm Increase Mag and potassium.
Flower wk5: 1600uS/cm Begin PK boosting. 1-2-3
Swell wk6: 1800uS/cm Phosphorus push 1-5-4
Swell wk7: 1600uS/cm cont'd phosphorus push 1-6-4
Ripen wk8: 1400uS/cm very low nitrogen and calcium. 100us/CM extra Epsom Salt and increased K. 1-2-3 again.
Ripen wk9: <500uS/cm flushing. I like to use Fulvic acid for a few days.

Some other things that might help out. I don't like to grow in large containers of coco, I just think it is unnecessary. 8L of coco is plenty. Also, I prefer to amend my coco with aeration material like perlite and GrowStones. I think Roots Organics Coco mix is a fantastic media that you can use much less nutrients on (until the 4th week in the media) and I like to mix a little Botanicare CocoGro in with their mixture because it is a little heavy in perlite when unamended.

When daily waterings start (usually in the 3rd week of flowering for me, but it will vary given planter size and transplant date, etc) I begin to offset my feedings with 1/2 strength waterings. Every other, or sometimes every 2 full strength feedings I follow up with a lower strength watering at a balanced ratio. This will keep buildup a non-issue.

Also, when feeding at higher strength, and especially around the transition phase to flowering, I find that it is VERY important that I maintain at the minimum 33% run off (3L in, 1L out). Measure your runoff EC to determine if you are washing out a lot of buildup. If I use a 1000uS/cm solution and if I get anything more than 1300uS/cm in the runoff then I know that the media is a little over-saturated and this is washing out. In this case I simply continue to rinse the media with the 1000uS/cm solution until the runoff measures within the range I am looking for. Usually, a 1:1 runoff ratio (4L in, 2L out) is all it takes to keep any buildup completely out of the equation.

Here's a nutrient calculator I have put together using a spreadsheet (I made it in openoffice and converted to .xls)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EGSYJSW8

Just enter the required information and you are on your way. You will want to measure your ppm levels compared to the predictions and compensate for deviances. Liquid Karma tests about 9x higher than predicted, while Hydroplex tests about 90% of predicted. This calculator requires personalization, but it is setup to predict up to 10 nutrients at a time in a solution. I have mine dialed perfectly when running:
Canna Coco A
Canna Coco B
Cal-Mag Plus
Liquid Karma
Pro-Tekt
CNS 17 Ripe
Hydroplex
Big Bud
Nirvana
Snow Storm Ultra
Bud Candy

This is where these levels, my 2 years of experience, and this calculator have taken me (40 days from 12/12, sorry about the white balance, not burned just glare)

Thank you very much for this information!!! He will be buying a TDS meter so he can measure PPM. Sadly we don't have access to Botanicare CNS17 or any of the Botanicare nutrients, only to Advanced Nutrients and Canna Nutrients, so we are kinda forced to continue with that.
The Sensi Cal-Mag Extra has a ratio of 4% total nitrogen, 3,2% Calcuim, 1,1% Magnesium, 0,9% Iron and 0,5% Zinc and Manganese.

Sadly the calculator link is not working =/

Btw about the seedling with no true leaves yet, but only cotyledons, should he keep the same regime as the others, with really weak fertilized water or? It has been 7 days from sprouting and no sign of true leaves. And should he toss the seedling that has not popped the seed husk yet, since she is the slowest one from them all?

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

Lots of people toss slow pokes but I keep them all, sometimes you can find a real gem in a slower bloomer. If they are regular non fem seeds sometimes the fast ones are males.
When I water seedlings in coco I use about 5 or 6 ml of calmag and a few ml of base veg nutes and that's all unless I have to use pest control.
I also do like @mulehunter and plant my seedlings in organic soil with worm castings and other things already there so that I don't have to fertilize them until I transplant.

 

[Fjorn]

Thank you so much for the sound advice, we are hoping to prevent a nute burn on the plants.

Making an update for the grow, 2 days have passed since plants latest feed in which he flushed the medium with a weak nutrient mix, 30% run off, and the coco is still moist.

The first two plants are developing nicely, though it seems that they start to curl a bit, the third plant have been growing at a much slower rate (still growing though) and yesterday after the dark cycle her leaves curled upwards and started sweating around the edges.
No idea why this happened, the temperature is not high enough for it to have a heat stress, the room temps have not gone above 24.5C. Backed off the light a bit, will see if that helps, leaves are not yellowing - a bit lime green but that's it. The other two are without changes , the seedling with cotyledons still has not developed anything, same for the fifth one. PPM meter arriving monday, so planning to make even more weaker nutrient mix, esp for the third plant and maybe flush it again?

Photos below:

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

Thank you so much for the sound advice, we are hoping to prevent a nute burn on the plants.

Making an update for the grow, 2 days have passed since plants latest feed in which he flushed the medium with a weak nutrient mix, 30% run off, and the coco is still moist.

The first two plants are developing nicely, though it seems that they start to curl a bit, the third plant have been growing at a much slower rate (still growing though) and yesterday after the dark cycle her leaves curled upwards and started sweating around the edges.
No idea why this happened, the temperature is not high enough for it to have a heat stress, the room temps have not gone above 24.5C. Backed off the light a bit, will see if that helps, leaves are not yellowing - a bit lime green but that's it. The other two are without changes , the seedling with cotyledons still has not developed anything, same for the fifth one. PPM meter arriving monday, so planning to make even more weaker nutrient mix, esp for the third plant and maybe flush it again?

Photos below:

They look happier already.

 

[Fjorn]

They look happier already.

There is an improvement indeed, still we are a bit worried about the plant with curled up leaves, is this a nutrient burn?

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

There is an improvement indeed, still we are a bit worried about the plant with curled up leaves, is this a nutrient burn?

Looks more like heat stress, either from the light shining on a wet plant or being too close. Just a guess

 

[Coco nut]

Blow some air at um to help with the curling...

 

[Fjorn]

Looks more like heat stress, either from the light shining on a wet plant or being too close. Just a guess

Think so too, since the other plants showed absolute 0 signs of nute burn, though they haven't shown signs of heat stress too, he had reduced the distance between the plant and the light with 10 cm distance, and left the bottom fan blowing directly to the plants.
Btw the fourth seedling started showing signs of grow, a little tiny hint of true leaves started to appear between the cotyledons ^^

And btw thank you so much for the informative and fast responses, u are the best! =)

 

[Fjorn]

Making an update on the grow.
Posting photos. As you can see the tacoing of one of the plants continue, with the edges curling up and then looking dead and dry. No idea what causes that and no idea how to fix it. A fan in constantly blowing on the plants and the temps were even 23.3-23.5 at some point, but it did not improve the plants condition. Watering at 5.9-6.0 PH, have flushed it, reduced the distance between the light and the plant to 3,7ft ( Had to change to HPS dual specter since my MH died...-_-) and i use a 155PPM nutrient solution for it.

Doing the same thing with the second plant on the pictures, but it looks that it has limp leaves and one of them have a dried tip. Wondering if he should cut those leaves since the others seem to be fine or just leave it right like that? Watering this one with 225PPM nutrient solution.

It seems only the 3rd plant on the pictures is quite happy, though today my freind noticed some yellow tips on the leaves so he will increase calcium a bit. She has no problem with temps, nutrients, grows perfectly, while the other 2 are a bit tricky. Btw when is the right time to start training this plant?

The fourth plant finally sprouted some leaves, hoping it will be healthy and will catch up to her sister.

He planted 6 more seeds, since it seems only 2 are growing well for now.

Really would appreciate any advice for helping the damaged plants and returning them to a healthy grow.

 

[tinderthumbs]

kind looks like u been over watering or watering to often maybe

 

[Fjorn]

kind looks like u been over watering or watering to often maybe

He waters the plants once in 2-3 days, checking if the top layer is dry and the pot is light. Maybe over watered the second one, will try to water with less water. What about the taco-ing plant with dried leaves tips? ;( ;( ;(

 

[tinderthumbs]

taco leafs most likely heat

 

[DrMcSkunkins]

You said fan " blowing on them" if it blows directly on them it can wind burn them. Having it blow over top of them or just in their general direction just enough to gently shake them is best at that size.
If the fan is far away disregard that

 

[Nybadboy]

Omg I'm having some major issues with my plants turning lime green I will post dime pics in a few and this site looks way more helpful and people seem way more friendly then the last one I was on ,ok be back with pics