HOW TO WATER COCO FOR BEST RESULTS.

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Mr.GreenthumbOG

Mr.GreenthumbOG

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I’m running recycled coco for this run. Potted up into 7-10gal containers. 2” of hydroton on the bottom 2” on the top. Roots grow to the top of the coco that way.
watering/feeding once per day.
Love that coco.🔥

Mr.G
 
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Pondracer

Pondracer

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StealthLED said:
I used let my run off drain to a tray if it was a small amount I'd use a cap from a air fresher or hairspray cap to check ec/ph.

This is my watering schedule for 1 gal fabrics in flower... (in veg I started at once every other day after a few days went to every day after a week or so twice a day and worked my way up like that)

6pm lights on
7pm 610ml. little run off on some plants
8pm 225ml. Nearly all 50ml run off
9pm 225ml. All with run off
10pm 225ml. All with run off
11pm 225ml.
12am 225ml
1am 225ml
2am 225ml
3am 225ml
4:30am 600ml
6am lights off
12pm 225ml. To keep coco moist when lights off

On next run I will be having lights on in the day time to track all run offs better, I've always had lights on in the night to keep room temps down because I've only been using a AC for past 12 months.
Click to expand...

How do you get a timer to give you a precise quantity? I have to run mine based off minutes and its a total SWAG for me. EDIT: I just read your other post. So I have a Nearpow timer sitting in front of me and I can't figure out how to get it to give me 75 second events 3 times per day at specific times.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Aqua Man said:
Always water for your own specific grow... needs will absolutely be different.
Click to expand...
Pondracer said:
How do you get a timer to give you a precise quantity? I have to run mine based off minutes and its a total SWAG for me. EDIT: I just read your other post. So I have a Nearpow timer sitting in front of me and I can't figure out how to get it to give me 75 second events 3 times per day at specific times.
Click to expand...
Instruction on YouTube... if ya figure it out before just post... if not ill go through it in about an hr with ya.
 
ezenzyme

ezenzyme

625
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Killing it Aqua, this is a kick ass write up!!! There have been so many posts where folks just want to be spoon fed information without actually studying it; theres been more than one thread that died after someone breaks down all the variables and things to consider and plan around. Or the other folks that started down a path with a system they dont fully understand. I will be copy paste the link to this thread many a time, instead of typin it out, make these kiddos read up!!!
 
mdma21

mdma21

17
13
So ill just write my own personal experience so far with coco. Im running coco / perlite, in 3 Gallon, feeding general hydroponics (Flora serie) + calmag.

1st grow, and i read almost everywhere: dont let coco run dry, needs to be water often to avoid build up etc.
So i did.
After maybe the first week, i water with nutes every morning. Of course, everything i did i prob did wrong, trying to modify a parameter here and there, and i wished i would have planned for better stability but its a learning thing, i take notes, i keep a journal of everything i did in order to monitor parameters and identify what helped, and what did not.

Following the gh Flora feeding chart + calmag, pHd at 5.8, my ppm was at 1200. So i watered with 1200 ppm in, every day, no matter what, with at least 30 % run-offs, often more. What hapened is that my run offs monitoring were increasing, to eventually 1500 ppm going out. For some reasons, more were coming out than going in. I tried to correct this by flushing 3 times until run offs were around 200.

I then decided i would feed twice a day with half the nutes, so the same amount of nutes but divided into two watering instead of one. By then the color was a dark green and leaves were droopy, not standing up. Something wasnt right and the plants also tell me that : every single leaves, old, new, small or large were starting to curl under at the tip (clawing). Every stage of growth was affected, so it wasnt the light, and with my temp at 23-24 and rh at 65-70 i was right on the optimal vpd chart.

I also noticed i had small white things everywhere on the outside of my fabric pots, i realised after a while that i had roots coming out of the pots from all around. Its not something i see often and when i ask around on a forum it seems to be unusual. I was doing something different that allowed my roots to reach out and poke out of the fabric pot. What i was doing different is watered like crazy so the fabric never had a chance to dry a little, allowing the roots to just sit there and keep on functioning, not being air pruned.

Ive decided to skip a watering day completely and did not attend my plants at all until the next day. Doing that allowed the coco to get a lot lighter when lifting the pot, and the color of the top layer indicates that it wasnt wet anymore. Thats when i noticed that new growth everywhere, top, middle or bottom was normal again, no curling, fist time i saw normal leaves since 3 weeks.

What i think is important is that every coco brand or perlite brand is different, 40 % perlite in coco is gonna be different if youre in torontob or in LA, you get two different rand, two different results, that holds water differently and hold nutrients different. In my case, the coco brick i had and the perlite i had gave me a medium that holds water quite longer than what seems usual.

I believe (maybe im wrong, but so far that what the change in my parameters are telling me) that coco CAN BE OVERWATERED in a way thats its more like a lack of oxygen, a lack of air exchange rather than a simple too much water thing. I believe its gotta to breathe a certain way in order to do its job correctly. To each their own, but thats what im noticing, the difference between wet and moist can be thin.

Finally heres a list of every thing i did wrong so far after 4 weeks with 3 plants:

- Not enough stability! Changing parameters every day in order to identify a cause is prob stressing the plants a lot, giving me these weirds results.
- Cheap light in the beggining, that was change later on, prob messed up the first growth stage of my plants.
- Way too much nutes, whats on the bottle is insane. I try to aim for 600 ppm now, instead of 1200 like the feedchart suggested.
- Too much water, too often, lead to overdamping and leaves curling bad (whats curled is curled for life, not coming back, its not pretty)
- When run offs were too high, i flushed, i should have recharge again with corrected amount of nutes instead of 0 nutes. Went from overfeeding to underfeeding in like 5 min. Makes no sense to flush everything and not replaced by fresh, corrected ppm AFTER flushing.
- I dont have a ppfd meter, i so wish i did, id love to know exactly how much light theyre getting, but ppfd meter are $$$. One day ill get one, its so important.
- Less clearly is more, meaning its easier to spot a deficiency than an excess, can always add more, cant take back nutes, when its done its done, damage are done. I wish i had dealt with a deficiency rather than a excess, thats what ill aim for next time : to be on the edge of underfeeding, but just above that limit.
 
Pippins

Pippins

74
33
mdma21 said:
So ill just write my own personal experience so far with coco. Im running coco / perlite, in 3 Gallon, feeding general hydroponics (Flora serie) + calmag.

1st grow, and i read almost everywhere: dont let coco run dry, needs to be water often to avoid build up etc.
So i did.
After maybe the first week, i water with nutes every morning. Of course, everything i did i prob did wrong, trying to modify a parameter here and there, and i wished i would have planned for better stability but its a learning thing, i take notes, i keep a journal of everything i did in order to monitor parameters and identify what helped, and what did not.

Following the gh Flora feeding chart + calmag, pHd at 5.8, my ppm was at 1200. So i watered with 1200 ppm in, every day, no matter what, with at least 30 % run-offs, often more. What hapened is that my run offs monitoring were increasing, to eventually 1500 ppm going out. For some reasons, more were coming out than going in. I tried to correct this by flushing 3 times until run offs were around 200.

I then decided i would feed twice a day with half the nutes, so the same amount of nutes but divided into two watering instead of one. By then the color was a dark green and leaves were droopy, not standing up. Something wasnt right and the plants also tell me that : every single leaves, old, new, small or large were starting to curl under at the tip (clawing). Every stage of growth was affected, so it wasnt the light, and with my temp at 23-24 and rh at 65-70 i was right on the optimal vpd chart.

I also noticed i had small white things everywhere on the outside of my fabric pots, i realised after a while that i had roots coming out of the pots from all around. Its not something i see often and when i ask around on a forum it seems to be unusual. I was doing something different that allowed my roots to reach out and poke out of the fabric pot. What i was doing different is watered like crazy so the fabric never had a chance to dry a little, allowing the roots to just sit there and keep on functioning, not being air pruned.

Ive decided to skip a watering day completely and did not attend my plants at all until the next day. Doing that allowed the coco to get a lot lighter when lifting the pot, and the color of the top layer indicates that it wasnt wet anymore. Thats when i noticed that new growth everywhere, top, middle or bottom was normal again, no curling, fist time i saw normal leaves since 3 weeks.

What i think is important is that every coco brand or perlite brand is different, 40 % perlite in coco is gonna be different if youre in torontob or in LA, you get two different rand, two different results, that holds water differently and hold nutrients different. In my case, the coco brick i had and the perlite i had gave me a medium that holds water quite longer than what seems usual.

I believe (maybe im wrong, but so far that what the change in my parameters are telling me) that coco CAN BE OVERWATERED in a way thats its more like a lack of oxygen, a lack of air exchange rather than a simple too much water thing. I believe its gotta to breathe a certain way in order to do its job correctly. To each their own, but thats what im noticing, the difference between wet and moist can be thin.

Finally heres a list of every thing i did wrong so far after 4 weeks with 3 plants:

- Not enough stability! Changing parameters every day in order to identify a cause is prob stressing the plants a lot, giving me these weirds results.
- Cheap light in the beggining, that was change later on, prob messed up the first growth stage of my plants.
- Way too much nutes, whats on the bottle is insane. I try to aim for 600 ppm now, instead of 1200 like the feedchart suggested.
- Too much water, too often, lead to overdamping and leaves curling bad (whats curled is curled for life, not coming back, its not pretty)
- When run offs were too high, i flushed, i should have recharge again with corrected amount of nutes instead of 0 nutes. Went from overfeeding to underfeeding in like 5 min. Makes no sense to flush everything and not replaced by fresh, corrected ppm AFTER flushing.
- I dont have a ppfd meter, i so wish i did, id love to know exactly how much light theyre getting, but ppfd meter are $$$. One day ill get one, its so important.
- Less clearly is more, meaning its easier to spot a deficiency than an excess, can always add more, cant take back nutes, when its done its done, damage are done. I wish i had dealt with a deficiency rather than a excess, thats what ill aim for next time : to be on the edge of underfeeding, but just above that limit.
Click to expand...
I always get roots poking out of fabric pots, is this not normal? I thought it was good?
 
Pondracer

Pondracer

388
93
Aqua Man said:
Instruction on YouTube... if ya figure it out before just post... if not ill go through it in about an hr with ya.
Click to expand...

I had a different Nearpow so I ordered the one you showed above. Once I get it I don't think it will be a problem to figure out. Thanks for the help!
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

26,480
638
Roots coming through is not an issue.

mdma21 said:
So ill just write my own personal experience so far with coco. Im running coco / perlite, in 3 Gallon, feeding general hydroponics (Flora serie) + calmag.

1st grow, and i read almost everywhere: dont let coco run dry, needs to be water often to avoid build up etc.
So i did.
After maybe the first week, i water with nutes every morning. Of course, everything i did i prob did wrong, trying to modify a parameter here and there, and i wished i would have planned for better stability but its a learning thing, i take notes, i keep a journal of everything i did in order to monitor parameters and identify what helped, and what did not.

Following the gh Flora feeding chart + calmag, pHd at 5.8, my ppm was at 1200. So i watered with 1200 ppm in, every day, no matter what, with at least 30 % run-offs, often more. What hapened is that my run offs monitoring were increasing, to eventually 1500 ppm going out. For some reasons, more were coming out than going in. I tried to correct this by flushing 3 times until run offs were around 200.

I then decided i would feed twice a day with half the nutes, so the same amount of nutes but divided into two watering instead of one. By then the color was a dark green and leaves were droopy, not standing up. Something wasnt right and the plants also tell me that : every single leaves, old, new, small or large were starting to curl under at the tip (clawing). Every stage of growth was affected, so it wasnt the light, and with my temp at 23-24 and rh at 65-70 i was right on the optimal vpd chart.

I also noticed i had small white things everywhere on the outside of my fabric pots, i realised after a while that i had roots coming out of the pots from all around. Its not something i see often and when i ask around on a forum it seems to be unusual. I was doing something different that allowed my roots to reach out and poke out of the fabric pot. What i was doing different is watered like crazy so the fabric never had a chance to dry a little, allowing the roots to just sit there and keep on functioning, not being air pruned.

Ive decided to skip a watering day completely and did not attend my plants at all until the next day. Doing that allowed the coco to get a lot lighter when lifting the pot, and the color of the top layer indicates that it wasnt wet anymore. Thats when i noticed that new growth everywhere, top, middle or bottom was normal again, no curling, fist time i saw normal leaves since 3 weeks.

What i think is important is that every coco brand or perlite brand is different, 40 % perlite in coco is gonna be different if youre in torontob or in LA, you get two different rand, two different results, that holds water differently and hold nutrients different. In my case, the coco brick i had and the perlite i had gave me a medium that holds water quite longer than what seems usual.

I believe (maybe im wrong, but so far that what the change in my parameters are telling me) that coco CAN BE OVERWATERED in a way thats its more like a lack of oxygen, a lack of air exchange rather than a simple too much water thing. I believe its gotta to breathe a certain way in order to do its job correctly. To each their own, but thats what im noticing, the difference between wet and moist can be thin.

Finally heres a list of every thing i did wrong so far after 4 weeks with 3 plants:

- Not enough stability! Changing parameters every day in order to identify a cause is prob stressing the plants a lot, giving me these weirds results.
- Cheap light in the beggining, that was change later on, prob messed up the first growth stage of my plants.
- Way too much nutes, whats on the bottle is insane. I try to aim for 600 ppm now, instead of 1200 like the feedchart suggested.
- Too much water, too often, lead to overdamping and leaves curling bad (whats curled is curled for life, not coming back, its not pretty)
- When run offs were too high, i flushed, i should have recharge again with corrected amount of nutes instead of 0 nutes. Went from overfeeding to underfeeding in like 5 min. Makes no sense to flush everything and not replaced by fresh, corrected ppm AFTER flushing.
- I dont have a ppfd meter, i so wish i did, id love to know exactly how much light theyre getting, but ppfd meter are $$$. One day ill get one, its so important.
- Less clearly is more, meaning its easier to spot a deficiency than an excess, can always add more, cant take back nutes, when its done its done, damage are done. I wish i had dealt with a deficiency rather than a excess, thats what ill aim for next time : to be on the edge of underfeeding, but just above that limit.
Click to expand...
So your vpd was absolutely wrong and following a chart is not a good option. Your kpa was like 0.5 to 0.7 and thats good for seedlings and maybe early veg.

This affects the plants ability to uptake water and nutrients.

Your temperature was to low and should be around 25-29c

This will also greatly affect the ability to uptake water and nutrients.

You ppm as you said was way to high.

Salinity can also affect the plants ability to uptake water and nutrients.

So imo this was not the watering practices but more than a few environment issues added up.

Free vpd calculator here.

play.google.com

VPD Calculator - Vapor Pressur - Apps on Google Play

Simple calculator to generate VPD based on Air/Surface Temps and Humidity.
play.google.com play.google.com

How to properly use VPD here. DO NOT EVEN BOTHER WITH VPD IF YOU CANNOT TEST THE LEAF TEMPS. Ppl using these online charts always end up running way to high humidity... especially when using LED.

www.thcfarmer.com

VPD (vapor pressure deficit)

Ok i was gonna sit down and write out a whole article but i have been lazy so instead instead I'm going to copy paste because im lazy. This is not my work so let start. You may find this very long but its worth the read. Some may want to skip ahead. I have added here and there to what i feel is...
www.thcfarmer.com www.thcfarmer.com

I also can stress enough that low temps just is not going to cut it in high fertigation coco.

Free lux meter here.

play.google.com

Lux Meter (Light Meter) - Apps on Google Play

Professional light intensity (lux) meter for your android device.
play.google.com play.google.com
 
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