Frustrated by watering and run off

lockedshed · Apr 6, 2026

Hi, im on my first grow and its getting so annoying trying to work out feeding.
I'm in week 5/6.
I'm told/read that i should keep coco mostly saturated at all times, and in a 5 gallon fabric pot, 70/30 coco perlite, and feed twice daily.
5% off the pot size is recommended for nutrients, which is 1 litre.
If I feed 1 litre, I get 800ml runoff off.
So ive tried 500ml but still get 300-400ml run off.
When I feed 500ml, it seems such a small amount to give them, and its hard to cover all of the top of the coco.
I find it hard to believe that I need to water even less, although my run off is large.
One plant is out performing the others, and is ready for flipping soon but with the others behind, im not sure what to do.

Ive also been feeding them 1ml/litre of calmag and 2ml/litre canna A + B (ph 5.9, ec 1.7)
I believe i had nitrogen toxicity with clawing leaves so I have fed 0.5ml/litre cal mag and went down to 1.5ml/litre canna A + B (ph 5.9, ec 1.4). I lowered cal mag as its has 2.6% nitrogen, and I believe the canna has 4 nitrogen.

my run off ec has been 0.2 - 0.5 under on some plants consistently, but when I feed more and/or higher strength, I see issues with nitrogen toxicity, leathery leaves, a bit crisp with serrated edges, the odd yellow spot (not many), leaves curling/tacoing and a bit droopy.

All fed 600ml twice daily, 500 - 700ml run off after both watering combined.
Green crack - healthiest:
In: ph 5.9, ec 1.4
Out: ph 6.4, ec 1.2

Purple punch:
In: ph 5.9, ec 1.4
Out: ph 6.18, ec 1.6

Purple punch 2.0 - least healthy
In: ph 5.9, ec 1.4
Out: ph 6.5, ec 1.6

Blueberry headband:
In: ph 5.9, ec 1.4
Out: ph 6.4, ec 1.3

What should I do about the amount of nutrients I use when the plants are hungry, but are showing the above signs and did not respond to 2/2.5ml/litre.

Also, the amount of water and frequency.
Nobody seems to use so little as 500ml per watering that I can find, and I still have lots of run off.

I'll add that i was running my light at 370ppfd but lowered it due to signs of tacoing to 320ppfd, but read that this is quite low at this stage

Images are from a few days ago.
Lights out atm.
Lights on temp: 23-25
Lights out temp: 21 - 23
Rh 65%ish
Vpd: 0.8 - 1.0

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

That is not nitrogen toxicity clawing. It's a slightly low turgor pressure. None of your leaves are fluttering in any breeze. Move that top fan down and get some more air moving in your canopy and maybe bump the temp a few degrees.

Your plants look good. The difference in size is just genetic. Your watering and feeding is good. With coco the pot is saturated so it takes very little to get runoff until the plants get bigger and start making flowers then your water use will go way up.

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

Lower your sensors to plant level or lower. I think you've got a low vpd microclimate down there in your canopy. I think just really get some more air moving and you're good.

lockedshed · Apr 6, 2026

Grownsince95 said:
That is not nitrogen toxicity clawing. It's a slightly low turgor pressure. None of your leaves are fluttering in any breeze. Move that top fan down and get some more air moving in your canopy and maybe bump the temp a few degrees.

Your plants look good. The difference in size is just genetic. Your watering and feeding is good. With coco the pot is saturated so it takes very little to get runoff until the plants get bigger and start making flowers then your water use will go way up.

Thanks, I did have the lower oscillating fan blowing on them but I was advised that the holes in my leaves and the twisting was due to the fan.
Its only on setting 2 but the leaves do sway around a bit, maybe the video doesn't show it or my body was in the breeze.
I put the smallest plant infront of the fan so it blows just above it and then it can hit the bigger plants side on.
I'll look at lowering it a bit more thanks.
What do you think about the run off ec numbers and the green crack is nearly half my tent size so I wanted to flip.

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

If you lower one fan and point it at the other, it should make enough turbulence to get the flutter you need. My circulation fan is too big for my tent so I point it at the wall a little. I also have an intake fan blowing fresh air from the bottom.

Your browser is not able to display this video.

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

lockedshed said:
Thanks, I did have the lower oscillating fan blowing on them but I was advised that the holes in my leaves and the twisting was due to the fan.
Its only on setting 2 but the leaves do sway around a bit, maybe the video doesn't show it or my body was in the breeze.
I put the smallest plant infront of the fan so it blows just above it and then it can hit the bigger plants side on.
I'll look at lowering it a bit more thanks.
What do you think about the run off ec numbers and the green crack is nearly half my tent size so I wanted to flip.

If you're talking about the twisted leaves where I circled, that's a Ca issue caused by low vpd. You will also find that on small, young fan leaves trapped in the canopy later in flower.

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

Start monitoring and controlling the environment at the level where your plants are and increase the light to 450+

Don't be afraid to taco a few leaves in the beginning, you need more than mother/ maintenance levels of light. You won't be showing off your perfect fan leaves in 3 months.

Your environment is what moves your water and nutrients through the plant. The plant is just a straw with a valve on both ends.

Light, air and salty water. You've got a great grasp on the water. Light is an easy fix. Now go in and work out that air part so you can flip those bitches!

lockedshed · Apr 6, 2026

Grownsince95 said:
Start monitoring and controlling the environment at the level where your plants are and increase the light to 450+

Don't be afraid to taco a few leaves in the beginning, you need more than mother/ maintenance levels of light. You won't be showing off your perfect fan leaves in 3 months.

Your environment is what moves your water and nutrients through the plant. The plant is just a straw with a valve on both ends.

Light, air and salty water. You've got a great grasp on the water. Light is an easy fix. Now go in and work out that air part so you can flip those bitches!

You've been very helpful. Thanks man.
I cant increase my temps but they are slowly getting warmer as we head towards summer.

I am still confused by the amount of nutes I should be feeding, the amount of water I put in and the high run off and ec readings.
Was dropping cal mag to 0.5/litre worth doing or should I up it.
I use 0.1 ec tap water and apparently canna A + b has a little cal mag in it.

How many ML would you typically water each day/frequency and with how much run off at week 6 in 5 gallon coco+perlite?

Grownsince95 · Apr 6, 2026

lockedshed said:
You've been very helpful. Thanks man.
I cant increase my temps but they are slowly getting warmer as we head towards summer.

I am still confused by the amount of nutes I should be feeding, the amount of water I put in and the high run off and ec readings.
Was dropping cal mag to 0.5/litre worth doing or should I up it.
I use 0.1 ec tap water and apparently canna A + b has a little cal mag in it.

How many ML would you typically water each day/frequency and with how much run off at week 6 in 5 gallon coco+perlite?

Add your calmag to the source water first until it's between .2 - .3 EC.

Then add your a & b to hit the EC target you had before.

Watering advice in ml/gallon is tricky because even in the same system, low or high vpd will increase/decrease usage, amount of foliage etc. and giving you my numbers will create a false comparison.

Don't worry about volume. Work on technique and trust the system, water slowly, coco is like a sponge. If you dump it in, the majority will come out the bottom and leave salty pockets.

lockedshed · Apr 7, 2026

Grownsince95 said:
Add your calmag to the source water first until it's between .2 - .3 EC.

Then add your a & b to hit the EC target you had before.

Watering advice in ml/gallon is tricky because even in the same system, low or high vpd will increase/decrease usage, amount of foliage etc. and giving you my numbers will create a false comparison.

Don't worry about volume. Work on technique and trust the system, water slowly, coco is like a sponge. If you dump it in, the majority will come out the bottom and leave salty pockets.

Lights are turned up so the tallest, green crack 2.0 is at 450ppfd.

Oscillating fans are on setting 3 and are now pointed at the plants with the leaves fluttering.

I put 0.5ml/litre cal mag which comes to 0.3 ec including 0.1 fir tap water.
Food is upped from 1.5ml/litre to 2ml/litre.
Fed 500ml, twice daily.

Here are updated videos and pictures.
Could you let me know what you think about the changes and when you think they are ready to flip to flower - im worried green crack is half the height of the tent already and what it will do when flipped compared to the others (stretch).

lockedshed · Apr 7, 2026

Grownsince95 said:
Add your calmag to the source water first until it's between .2 - .3 EC.

Then add your a & b to hit the EC target you had before.

Watering advice in ml/gallon is tricky because even in the same system, low or high vpd will increase/decrease usage, amount of foliage etc. and giving you my numbers will create a false comparison.

Don't worry about volume. Work on technique and trust the system, water slowly, coco is like a sponge. If you dump it in, the majority will come out the bottom and leave salty pockets.

lockedshed · Apr 7, 2026

Jaden said:
You are growing unstable polyhybrids with considerable amount of variation between them. Thats to be expected. If you wanted uniformity you would need higher quality genetics like an IBL. Your amalgamation genetics are going to grow differently from each other and have different needs. You have to look at the plants as they are, diffetent individuals and treat them accordingly. There is no one-way-fits all in that scenario.

Your frustration is understandable. But the situation was locked in on your choice of seeds, the foundation of your mixed grow. I wish you better luck next time. Maybe you can dispose of the runts and concentrate on your best example there, just for simplicity and to cut down the overwhelming workload. Lesson learned. You'll be wiser after this. Learning can be rough when starting out the way you did. Starting with something predictable and uniform, you could have learned easier by understanding what you are looking at, but it is what it is. You'll be fine. Don't give up.

I had not idea about ibl, but I'll be looking into it, thanks.
The seeds i have are feminized photoperiods from attitude seeds bank.

Sweet seeds purple punch OG x 2
Humbolt blueberry headband x 1
Humbolt green crack 2.0

I do want to try and keep them all, even if I do not get much from them as its all learning for the next run, but if experienced people think it is too much for me, im open to the idea of getting rid of one or two..

I was only going to grow two plants, but the two purple punch had a bad start with over watering as seedlings, so I planted the green crack and blueberry headband 1 week later.
They started to get better after that so I kept them but as you said, they seem to be runts.

Grownsince95 · Apr 7, 2026

Jaden said:
You can power through and keep them all, but if its causing you considerable stress, maybe its worth considering simplifying the grow to fewer plants. Perhaps 2 bigger plants instead of 4 medium plants. You can turn it into a more relaxed, easier grow or perhaps let go of some of that frustration in some way by saying to yourself:

I'll do what I can. It may not be perfect, but I'm not in a competition. No matter what happens I will learn from this and be better prepared if I want to grow some plants next time.

I would also like you to consider growing in an organic living soil next time, which can be much simpler when starting out. Something to think about.

But yeah, growing the genetics that are stable and recognizable will help you learn as well. You can understand what you are looking at, and when you try something out, or experiment you have a stable base to use as a comparison model. Then you can know, this worked well or this didn't work. You can also know what works and repeat that next time with confidence. Looking at the random chaos of polyhybrids isn't going to give you anything like that. With the variation in polyhybrid grows each time is hit or miss style, no predictability, and extra work.

The gardening should be an enjoyable hobby, not just another stress. We have enough stress thrown at us.

Any recommendations on those IBLs? What seed company do you promote?

Grownsince95 · Apr 7, 2026

Oh wait, let me guess...you recommend Pure Heritage?? You talk shit about corporate shills and sheep...fuck off.

GNick55 · Apr 8, 2026

Jaden said:
Im not promoting anything shill, i made a recommendation for better genetics based on my experience. Get a life instead of acting like corporate cannabis police-man wannabe.

your about to get banned and all your non sense post are going to be removed

phxazcraig · Apr 10, 2026

My 2 cents. Your plants look pretty healthy, though I can't tell how old they are. Which means I can't tell how fast/slow they are growing, but they look slow to me. I'll just talk about what I'm doing so you have another perspective on watering frequency and runoff. By the way, my first coco grow was quite educations, and I made a good thread on it here called 'Explosive Growth in Coco Coir'. Lots of pics and info there.

Now, three crops into coco, I do this:
1. Feed every 2 hours. I use a drain-to-waste system, and my goal is about of bucket of runoff every day, from four plants. At night I still feed, but for less than 1/2 the usual time. During the lighting hours, I'm sending 10 seconds of feed into each put via 6-inch hydro halo sprinklers. I get some runoff each time, and I try to adjust water flow to each pot (flow valve to each pot) such that each pot starts draining about the same time.

With coco I don't worry about watering too much as you almost can't overwater since it drains so well. Thus I feed early and ofter, and at lower concentrations. (Always fresh nutes, so don't need to be strong to last hours and hours until next feeding.)

2. Runoff - I went crazy the first time trying to perfect this. First, I had a huge issue to deal with here, and that was inconsistency in my watering flow rate. I used a tall-ish 30 gallon reservoir with a pump at the bottom. The water level drops 3 feet from full to near empty. That just made my pump flow completely crazy, probably going 3x as much water when the reservoir was full versus empty. Adjust flow rate when reservoir full, and your plants dry out when reservoir gets low. Or the opposite - have enough water for low reservoir, and you get 3x too much water when full.

I engineered my way around this, and I think this technique as merit. I set up a 5-gallon bucket above and to the side of my reservoir. I put some drain holes a few inches down from the top and installed grommets. I pushed some hoses through the grommets and dropped the ends into the reservoir. I moved the feed pump (runs every 2 hours) inside this bucket. I added a second pump inside the reservoir and put a hose from it into the top of the bucket. This second pump runs continuously pumping water up into the bucket. The bucket fills to the level of those holes and then runs back into the reservoir via the drain hoses. This means that the feed pump *always sees the same water level* when it runs, regardless of how much water is in the reservoir. Now I can dial in the exact amount of feed I want, every single time. Without this, there is no consistency.

3. Originally I tried the 20% runoff thing, but I never really knew how much I was putting in, so measure what came out didn't do me much good. Later I tried to engineer my way out by reading the EC levels of input and output. I discovered something interesting there, but I'm not sure the info has done me much good except think maybe this runoff things is a lot of hype and not much substance.

The EC readings fell into two categories: Before and after flowering. My goal here was to make sure I had enough runoff to drain salt build up from the roots. Before flowering, I would see something like EC in: 500, EC out: 400. Or EC in 800 and EC out 700. Basically EC dropped a bit as it went through the plants. If it dropped more than 100ppm, I decided that was too much runoff and turned back the watering.

But once the plants started flowering, EC runoff increased a lot! EC 800 in, and maybe EC 1200 out! Over three crops I've seen this consistent rise in runoff EC during flowering. I have no explanation why. But I tried to water my way through this, to the point I would have 80% runoff (estimated), and 15 gallons of runoff per day. (4 plants in coco coir). EC still went up, but the flowers seemed fine. I do think it's worth measuring your EC runoff, and if it is way higher (amount ?), then perhaps do a quick 1-time flush with RO water or one major extra-long watering until EC gets back to whatever you feel is a comfortable level.

Myself, I've just decided that a bucket of runoff a day is good. Maybe that's a bit much, maybe not. I have plenty of uses for the runoff to feed my plants and trees around the house. And my plants have been extremely healthy through flowering, so it's working for me.

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