Life long grower - new to Coco

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SecretGardener

SecretGardener

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Hello from NorCal

I started growing as a West Virginia Gorilla farmer in 1974. We used to bushwhack into overgrown areas along creeks, clear a small patch and throw down some seeds. Great memories. My first real indoor grow was in Grass Valley CA, in 1986, with seeds bought from Super Sativa Seed Club. I breed from that one seed purchase till legalization.

With this flu lockdown I have had lots of time at home and decide to up my indoor growing game. Got new lights, EC meters, PH test kit, soft pots, computer controlled temperature and humidity, and switched to Coco Coir.

Now I have some of the poorest looking sickly plants I have ever grown. 😢

I joined to discuss my issues. Thanks for all the great info on the forums.
 
JSH1973

JSH1973

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Forget what you know about growing in soil, daily watering and correct PH going in is crucial to plants thriving in Coco, obviously nutrients as well with every watering and be just a little carefull with to high EC
What brand Coco did you get and was it in bags or bricks?
 
Toxciteemo

Toxciteemo

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Funny u ask made a post first time about coco everyone has told me last few days there’s not much info on coco pretty interesting if u ask me
 
Heynow

Heynow

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There are entire threads on coco. Lol.

Rinse with ph balanced water. Feed coco every time you water, run your ph at 5.8 to 6.2.

Coco has a learning curve, but those 2 things listed above are the basis
Funny u ask made a post first time about coco everyone has told me last few days there’s not much info on coco pretty interesting if u ask me
 
Heynow

Heynow

103
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Forget what you know about growing in soil, daily watering and correct PH going in is crucial to plants thriving in Coco, obviously nutrients as well with every watering and be just a little carefull with to high EC
What brand Coco did you get and was it in bags or bricks?
^^^^ this exactly 💯%
 
Toxciteemo

Toxciteemo

41
8
There are entire threads on coco. Lol.

Rinse with ph balanced water. Feed coco every time you water, run your ph at 5.8 to 6.2.

Coco has a learning curve, but those 2 things listed above are the basis
Well every post I see is more questions than answer i saw one and it was dead ass one after another one day yes one say no back and forth I been keeping my ph at 6.5 at 75degresss water and 3 drops of nutrients every 2 days with water my plants are still smaller and growing but I found out so far doing this haven’t had a issue anymore it’s definitely a learning curve but for people like u and ur comments I appreciate it a lot thank you
 
coherent

coherent

146
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I also changed from soil to coco. Unlike you I had no issues and found it much easier than soil. That's likely because I never had perfection with soil and seemed to always have some little issue with one thing or another. I found coco/perlite much more forgiving with watering and it gave me the ability to alter nutrients and almost instantly balance any needs or deficiencies as the plants "told" you what their needs were. Coco definitely requires you monitor the pants more closely and is more work on a daily basis but I think once you get the basics down you'll find it has advantages. A big factor for those just starting is using quality pre-buffered and pre-rinsed bag coco. Using poorly prepared unbuffered coco will cause tons of issues and make it really hard to regulate cal-mag and nutrients from the beginning.
 
Pippins

Pippins

74
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I started as a soil grower, grew indoors with a medical card in CA from 05-2010 in super soil, and am currently in the middle of my first coco grow. I have a thread in the coco section where I got some good help from Aqua Man that straightened out my grow. My plants were looking pretty sad and puny at one point, but here are how they look as of this morning:
IMG 20210218 054501816 HDR


They were switched to 12/12 a week ago. Now that their roots are filled out, I could feed more times per day than I do-but since I keep my light on at night, I'm only feeding twice per day-lots of runoff. These are being fed at 550 ppm and 5.8 ph. Coco started out very tricky for me as a soil grower-you really need to forget that soil mindset and read as much as possible about growing in coco. This is a good thread to start: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=307683 and Aqua Man's thread about watering in Coco here is good for more specifics. Let us know what your specific issues are and maybe we could help troubleshoot them with you.
 
SecretGardener

SecretGardener

47
18
Thanks for the replies. I'm using coco from bricks that I buffer twice in CalMag with a pretty high perlite content. First batch I did not buffer a second time and had serious magnesium deficiency. That's all resolved. I think my big sin was transplanting from 1 gal to 3 gal pots then watering to saturation. Seams I completely killed the roots. I repotted with a 50% perlite ratio, then repotted again to soft pots. Got some recovery but even the best plants have constantly droopy and small top leaves. The healthiest plants seam to have great roots if you poke into the grow mix. Still they always look over watered even waiting to water on day 3. Have been bouncing between watering ever 2 or 3 days. Watering with EC 1 to 1.1 and PH 6 to 6.5. Runoff EC and PH are never extreme.

I also started using White Shark and other changes. Thought I had light burn from new LEDs. Bought a LUX meter and turned down the power on the lights. Now I think the light burn was due to unhealth plants from over watering. Classic, too many changes at one time. Would have never been so stupid if I was growing professionally and relied on it for income. No big deal, as I have a stash from past grows. Leaning curve for sure.

At this point I just want to get the sickest plant healthy enough to take cuttings so I don't loose the strain then start over. I could post pictures but feel these plants will never recover to great health and may not be worth the electricity to run thru flower stage.
 

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