Expand/rise Coco Brick With Tap?

[Saint Skinny]

Hey all,
I've been doing some playing around with coco lately, and since I've just been expanding and rinsing small amounts, I'd use RO water. Now that I'm using more coco, and expanding/rinsing more at one time, It made me wonder why not just use tap water to rinse?

So I thought I'd see if anyone here uses chlorinated tap water to pre-rinse their coco? I'm using the Roots Organic coco...I live in the city, I took a look at the water report and saw chlorine but no chloramine. Also no other red flags I could see. Since I haven't inoculated or anything at that point, there's not even any micro-life to be effected (so to speak) by the chlorine, so it seemed like it could be done.

What do you guys think? Tap or RO when it comes to rinsing and expanding coco?

 

[brimck325]

i use hot tap to expand it, kill any gnats i guess. then i charge n flush when i need it.

 

[Enforcer]

Tap water has an unknown amount of minerals. Even with the water report, unless the sample was pulled from the house tap, that may not be what you're really getting. Personally I like to know what's in my water. I fill up a bucket with RO water, add 200ppm of calmag and ph to 5.7, toss the brick in and let it expand overnight. Then drain the liquid away, wash the coco a few times with same (fresh) solution until ppm is around 200 and use. It usually takes about 3 washes to get there.

If using hot water to kill any eggs that may be there, I recommend against using hot tap water. That water comes from the water heater tank and has a lot of minerals due to the constant heating and cooling the tank goes through. Cold tap water boiled on the stove would be a better choice IMHO.

 

[brimck325]

enforcer does make a good point. the magnesium element should be of no worries, although some older ones i think have aluminum in em too. pvc will leach bad shit. copper is fine as long as you don't have lead soldering. most hot water coming directly from tank will hold less minerals, it falls out as water gets hot.

 

[gwheels]

Our tap water here fluctuates from 300ppm to a whopping 650ppm to start No rhyme or reason to the fluctuation. I had to get an RO machine but I never thought about soaking the coco in ro water. I will do that this next round ;)

 

[Saint Skinny]

My taps only at about 60 ppm

 

[stemznseedz]

I always used tap when I use to expand bricks. I actually took a 55 gal with lid and cut a hole just big enough for a water hose then cut another hole with a hole saw like 2" and taped an old prefilter to it. I would throw 3 bricks in at a time and just set the barrel near a floor drain and let it just run until everything was expanded and the ec coming out was that of my tap (200ish).

at potting, they get ro water and everything would be fine. anything from the tap will get flushed out within a few waterings anyways.

now I do 6 small 2 gal pots per 1k instead of 5 gal pots and my yields are as good or better and I use WAY less medium so I just buy the 'good stuff' that's loose and prewashed.

 

[gwheels]

For the amount I use I think i will just grab a bag or 2 of the fancy already awesome coco. PH buffered and such. Although my last giant brick would fill my pots 2 times. It was pretty good but pour and water is so nice. Lazy with 4 plants i am.

 

[Evr1sFavKush]

Not a fan. So cal tap for example is 0.8ec. 55-60ppm cal and 20-24ppm mag. Rest is 300+ppm or sodium, chlorine, fluoride and crap.

Use canna coco bricks. They are pre buffered. Expand with normal nutrient solution with extra cal mag, transplant, then water it through again and let them blow up.

 

[Saint Skinny]

So I was talking to a neighbor the other day and the rumor is that we actually have a well in the park instead of running off the cities water.