COCO Problems!!!!!

ReCway · Oct 11, 2011

Of farm. So i have been a soil grower for 7 plus years. And after experimenting with coco and seeing the explosive growth I had to switch. So now I have 19 plants in 20 gal of coco perlite mix. The plants are trees now. freakin huge. I have exp some salt buildup when they where in 3 gal smart pots but it was easily fixed. Now I am exp severe leaf curl upwards since the have been transplanted. The coco I bought was leached and charged and was pre rinsed i was told but when I test the run off of the Coco straight out of bag it was 250ppm... We flushed it leached it and charged it.. . now I am getting a run off of 870ppm and 6.7 ph. I am using GH line and 70% strength. Last feeding was at 1200PPM. it seems the plants under the 1000s are worse. I think its salt buildup again but how the hell do I flush 19 20 gal smart pots?

What you guys think i should do?

kushsmoker30 · Oct 11, 2011

i've not grow in coco yet but from reading ur post and other post, i'd say u main problem is ur PH i believe 6.7 run off is bad in coco. did u mix perlite in ur pots? u need to get the PH down closer to 5.8

Bud Spleefman · Oct 11, 2011

POst some pics and we can give you a better answer, but just from what nyou've typed:
250 ppm is nothing, that is pretty clean out of the bag...
1000 is about what I feed on a 4 times a day basis
1200 isn't too high, either, I've had crappy coco rinse at over 2000 (my meter caps at 2000)

20 gallons is a TON of coco.... I mean, a fucking ton. I have a vert room that runs in 5 gallon buckets, and when I first transplant into those pots it'a a week or ten days before the need to be watered again, then it's like 7 days, then like 5, and so on... it takes a long time for a root mass to fill a pot that big. I am getting some plants over a pound in those 5 gal buckets. What yield are you expecting out of a 20??????

How is your humidity? What are the outside temps like where you are?? Any recent changes? Did you spray for bugs in there?

My ph fluctuates between 5.5 and 6.5, I try for 6.0, but unless it gets way out of range, I don't mess with it....

Are you using Cal Mag?

Give us some more answers, and some pics.....

Darth Fader · Oct 11, 2011

Concur w/ comments above. Runoff ppm not nearly high enough to indicate a salt buildup problem. It's something else. That many gal of coco could easily be waterlogged.

ReCway · Oct 11, 2011

my temps are about 72 and my humidity was 72 but now down to 54. No bug spray no recent changes. Mixture is 25% big chunky perlite and rest fine coco. Pics are on their way. Im trying to hit 2lb plants with OG kush in a vert set up with co2 and 8k watts. not sure the exact cut. Im using cal mag at the advanced dosage. I know 20 gallons is a shit ton of coco but im goin off of jalisco kid and some other guys bucket grows. After flushing two plants with like 80 gallons the Ph is still 6.5 and ppm are now 350 which is what the ro water was at after adding cal mag..

Maybe its just MG def? the two that are flushed are now at 350ppm and the rest are at 870 or so.

ReCway · Oct 11, 2011

Bud Spleefman · Oct 11, 2011

You might be over-reacting, those don't look too sick, if at all..... I'd wait and see, it's def not panic time..... I see a lot of GREEN! :hi

ReCway · Oct 11, 2011

@ bud thanks dude. I think you might b right. since coco is new and im used to super healthy plants in soil I might be overreacting.. ill let you know how they do

Ever after · Oct 11, 2011

that's a nutrient overdose. that is not waterlogged. waterlogging coco is almost impossible . you seem to be doing everything correctly they do look great but too dark. back off the nitrogen.... some plants don't need much nitrogen and theres most likely nitrogen fixing happening if the plants are old enough.
proud of you thats pretty cool 20 gallon pots... try to flush once every 12 days

can you put 30-40 gallons of water through each pot? ahahhaa gotta love it :D enjoy that farmer enjoy it

the run off you are getting might be toned down by all the coco your using.. as it has to pass through all of that coco ...LOL.. please take this in to account.

I didn't see using 20 gallon coco pots as an option, but an option in soil....I discovered that 5 gallon and 7 gallon root pots to be the ceiling max size to work once any bigger was a hassle to work with. ..as the best trait of coco is you can water the hell out of it free of lockout :icon_animal26: I would never use coco again if this was not an option

Love

freegrow · Oct 11, 2011

be carefull with that cal/mag and GH micro the micro has alot of cal. in it can cause a lockout but they dont look too bad

Darth Fader · Oct 11, 2011

ReCway, what pH are you feeding at? 5.5-6.0 is the recommended range w/ most shooting for 5.8. Seeing as your pH is high, you might want to feed in the lower half of that range, 5.5 to 5.8.

Ever after said:
that's a nutrient overdose. that is not waterlogged. waterlogging coco is almost impossible . you seem to be doing everything correctly they do look great but too dark. back off the nitrogen.... some plants don't need much nitrogen and theres most likely nitrogen fixing happening if the plants are old enough.
Love

What's nitrogen fixing? Really interested if you wouldn't mind explaining.

Coco can hold a lot of water while still maintaining high porosity. One way to think about it (credit to H3ad here) is that there is no such thing as over-watering, only under-oxygenating. Think about it. If this were not true, DWC wouldn't work. So if you had small pots, say 2-gal smartpots, and a developed root system, it really would be almost impossible to overwater. But if you had large pots and an undeveloped root system (day just after a transplant into 20 gal pots), you could definitely find yourself in an "under-oxygenated" situation. And that is really what I meant when I suggested waterlogged as a possibility.

DrCALIGREENTHUM · Oct 12, 2011

ReCway said:
The coco I bought was leached and charged and was pre rinsed

Can someone school me on the process of this?

kushsmoker30 · Oct 12, 2011

Darth Fader said:
ReCway, what pH are you feeding at? 5.5-6.0 is the recommended range w/ most shooting for 5.8. Seeing as your pH is high, you might want to feed in the lower half of that range, 5.5 to 5.8.

What's nitrogen fixing? Really interested if you wouldn't mind explaining.

Coco can hold a lot of water while still maintaining high porosity. One way to think about it (credit to H3ad here) is that there is no such thing as over-watering, only under-oxygenating. Think about it. If this were not true, DWC wouldn't work. So if you had small pots, say 2-gal smartpots, and a developed root system, it really would be almost impossible to overwater. But if you had large pots and an undeveloped root system (day just after a transplant into 20 gal pots), you could definitely find yourself in an "under-oxygenated" situation. And that is really what I meant when I suggested waterlogged as a possibility.

Talked to my buddy n he basically said the same thing, said if in veg and u let ur plants rest (lights out 4-6 hours a day) u can foliar feed them with rizotonic right be 4 or right after u turn lights out. that'll make the roots explode, causing them to eat more n ur prob will go away faster. he swears by it.

mango420 · Oct 12, 2011

I can almost gaurantee you have too much calcium or mag in your coco. And this leads to lockout of other nutrients. Your ppm, if on the 500 scale, are not high at all, if anything they should be higher but stop adding calmag, 3part already has enough in it. My last grow in 27 gal tubs of coco I was giving them 1500ppm after about week 2 and they were the healthiest plants ever. Trees can handle a very high ppm. I would suggest using Drip Clean by h&g also to aviod any buildup in the future. Also you may have soaked the medium too much after transplant. How much did you give them when you tpd? When I tpd from 5gals to 27 gals i gave them maybe a gallon at the most and they were dry and growing like crazy the next day. I know when you soak your medium after tp they take alot longer to bounce back and start growing again. You want your medium to be fairly dry about 2 days after transplanting so that the roots grab the coco, if its too wet they dont search for water and thus your plant wont grow. You want your coco damp/moist but not wet especially after transplant. I would wait till the top layer of coco is dry before feeding again.

ReCway · Oct 12, 2011

@ Darth

Im feeding with 5.4 ph . Im using gh additives but Hydropnix grow X two part as my base. I think they might be locking out mg due to too much cal. Well see how they do. I think they coco is over watered for the small root size.

Bud Spleefman · Oct 12, 2011

=ReCway I think they coco is over watered for the small root size.

That is most certainly your problem. I am using 6 Micro, 9 Bloom, 5 Cal Mag and the only problems I ever have are the plants looking a little waterlogged at the beginning. I know of some growers who are pre-charging their coco with 15 ml Cal Mag before the first use, and also, no problems. With the low ppms you are using it would be hard to be over feeding.

johnursery · Oct 12, 2011

yep probably to much cal-mag at least that was my experience when i had several runs with coco before it was all the rage that went great then i tried loading my coco with cal-mag and boom thats when i ran into problems, not saying its not a good idea but i will be very frugal when adding cal-mag to my coco from now on, i think the standards people are using is high, or im getting enough cal-mag from other sources i dont need the standard pre-load dose

Jalisco Kid · Oct 14, 2011

ReCway said:
my temps are about 72 and my humidity was 72 but now down to 54. No bug spray no recent changes. Mixture is 25% big chunky perlite and rest fine coco. Pics are on their way. Im trying to hit 2lb plants with OG kush in a vert set up with co2 and 8k watts. not sure the exact cut. Im using cal mag at the advanced dosage. I know 20 gallons is a shit ton of coco but im goin off of jalisco kid and some other guys bucket grows. After flushing two plants with like 80 gallons the Ph is still 6.5 and ppm are now 350 which is what the ro water was at after adding cal mag..

Maybe its just MG def? the two that are flushed are now at 350ppm and the rest are at 870 or so.

I normally run chow mix which is really different then a heavy coir run. I am now experiencing yellowing of some plants that look like a mag def or worse yet root aphids. It is from my coir being over fed. I was watering every day for a week and then it started. I kept one container in the room with no plant in it so I could play with it. I dug into the 20 gal brute and the last 8" were soaked, not that I think my roots are that deep yet. Hooking up the air lines to my pre-plumbed containers. I have 5" of self cleaning airline in each container(well 60% will be hooked up so I can see if it makes any difference in growth)
But do not follow my grow because I made these for my apprentice, I am a aero rcdwc kinda grower. Though I run coir containers outside in the summer.I wish you well with your grow. JK

ReCway · Oct 19, 2011

hi everyone thanks for chiming in.

well I am having severe mag def. I think that the coco i bought was crap and now it is leaching all the mag out of my feedings. i have been foliar spraying with epsom salt water but its just fixes it temporarily. should i feed epsom salt into the res as well? not sure if with the advanced dosage of cal mag I give i should also add epsom salt..I have read that coco leaches the shit out of mag so should I double the mag?
also my pots are still wet so Im not sure if I should let them dry out more or just feed?

ReCway · Oct 19, 2011

last feeding was at 1000 ppm. plants look hungry

COCO Problems!!!!!

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