Optimal PH in Coco?

[Okiegrows]

For the win!!!!

6.0 maybe if I’m being lazy 6.1 -6.2 but most always 6.0 this is last run . Coco peat perlite mix . New millennium nutes and some mammoth and couple others . Cheers

 

[JahSun]

I always run coco @ 5.7 to 5.8 and never have an issue. Feeds never go over 5.9. Getting the watering dialed keeps you from swinging the PH of the medium from drying and will have way more of an impact then .1 to .2 on the PH scale of your feed. As it dries PH goes up (as with most mediums). Coco also has the CEC with K and micros so letting it get too dry can cause even more issues. Let it dry too much/watering too much between feeds and it will get out of the sweet spot. If you ever unsure about this and don't want to keep guessing you can always spring for a meter and plot a chart of waterings vs PH of the medium and see how much of an impact that has vs the difference between feeding @ 6.0 vs 5.8. If you want to save money and time - very little vs the effect that the feed times/amount have. Granted this is always going to be different from a 1-2 gal pot vs a 10 gal pot but the same holds true most of the time. Kind of a jack of all trades medium.

Best advice if you want to use a soil-less medium geared for hydroponic style growing treat it as such unless you are amending it and treating it like soil in big pots.

Cemchris, thanks for the next level explanation and breakdown. I'm using 1 gal coco pots(bags) and on day 25 I'm at 3 times a day at 40 seconds. But from what I've read elsewhere, it's more about how wet the soil is on the top, and how much they are allowed in between to dry a bit. When I was there tonight, I did notice they were still super heavy for the most part and dark/damp on the top. I like the idea of tracking the pH and waterings, How would that work, I measure pH before and after the watering, once the feed has subsided in the medium? Thanks again, I'm clearly in the student stage of this, but love what I'm learning.

 

[cemchris]

Cemchris, thanks for the next level explanation and breakdown. I'm using 1 gal coco pots(bags) and on day 25 I'm at 3 times a day at 40 seconds. But from what I've read elsewhere, it's more about how wet the soil is on the top, and how much they are allowed in between to dry a bit. When I was there tonight, I did notice they were still super heavy for the most part and dark/damp on the top. I like the idea of tracking the pH and waterings, How would that work, I measure pH before and after the watering, once the feed has subsided in the medium? Thanks again, I'm clearly in the student stage of this, but love what I'm learning.

To really get an accurate reading you need a probe to measure the PH of the medium. There is a couple out there. A good example is the Grodan rockwool Grow sense stuff. They make the same type of probes for other mediums from other companies. They usually tie into grow controllers that measure/control fans, dehuys, lights, watering ect. There is some handheld units.

You don't have to go this route and it's a little overkill for the price unless you are talking a large number of plants in a commercial settings. Just some people like hard data and taking the guess work out of it, which it turn can lower the learning curve if you want. Plenty of people will just use weight of the pot (specially in smaller pots). If you want to get tech and data without the use of probes ect you can always weigh a dry pot and then a fully saturated pot to get your 0% and 100% and go from there. Again I'm not saying you need to do this just some people like this approach with hard numbers vs going by look and experience. Just understand as the pot size goes down, like 1 gals with big plants and multi waterings a day, waterings have more of an impact to keep them in the sweet spot and not get to extreme on either end of the spectrum vs bigger pots where you are watering once every couple of days. I have messed with some of the probes and its cool to see the impact of waterings and really didn't understand it fully until that. Helped me a lot with dialing in feed times on multi watering setups in coco and rockwool with small mediums and big plants.

If you look at some of the grow sense charts for feeds and rockwool coco pretty much acts the same with waterings. Just when coco starts to get to the 20% or less of saturation on the medium you are dealing with a medium that isnt completely inert and does some things with different macros and micros which can cause problems with the PH spike and PPM buildup in the medium when they get too dry. Specially in smaller pots when the root ball pretty much occupies 80-100% of the medium.

Here is some mad MS Paint skillz to kind of give you a visual

 

[JahSun]

To really get an accurate reading you need a probe to measure the PH of the medium. There is a couple out there. A good example is the Grodan rockwool Grow sense stuff. They make the same type of probes for other mediums from other companies. They usually tie into grow controllers that measure/control fans, dehuys, lights, watering ect. There is some handheld units.

You don't have to go this route and it's a little overkill for the price unless you are talking a large number of plants in a commercial settings. Just some people like hard data and taking the guess work out of it, which it turn can lower the learning curve if you want. Plenty of people will just use weight of the pot (specially in smaller pots). If you want to get tech and data without the use of probes ect you can always weigh a dry pot and then a fully saturated pot to get your 0% and 100% and go from there. Again I'm not saying you need to do this just some people like this approach with hard numbers vs going by look and experience. Just understand as the pot size goes down, like 1 gals with big plants and multi waterings a day, waterings have more of an impact to keep them in the sweet spot and not get to extreme on either end of the spectrum vs bigger pots where you are watering once every couple of days. I have messed with some of the probes and its cool to see the impact of waterings and really didn't understand it fully until that. Helped me a lot with dialing in feed times on multi watering setups in coco and rockwool with small mediums and big plants.

If you look at some of the grow sense charts for feeds and rockwool coco pretty much acts the same with waterings. Just when coco starts to get to the 20% or less of saturation on the medium you are dealing with a medium that isnt completely inert and does some things with different macros and micros which can cause problems with the PH spike and PPM buildup in the medium when they get too dry. Specially in smaller pots when the root ball pretty much occupies 80-100% of the medium.

Here is some mad MS Paint skillz to kind of give you a visual

View attachment 886148

got it, thank you so much for the time and energy in explaining that. clear now and I will get a meter for the medium. Really appreciated, excellent help!

 

[cemchris]

got it, thank you so much for the time and energy in explaining that. clear now and I will get a meter for the medium. Really appreciated, excellent help!

The hardest thing to tune is to make sure they don't dry out too much when the lights are off when they get late into flower. With bigger plants I sometimes have to hit them up to an hr after the lights are off so they stay saturated enough till the next watering when the lights are on. This also comes down to being more religious with clones and veg time /topping that way you are always throwing about the same size of plants into flower. That way once you have it dialed you don't have to deviate from the schedule you tune. Notes on notes is my best suggestion. A good example I can give you is my Polecat & East Coast runs I can drop my 3rd feed if they are the normal size since those are more sensitive on the waterings then my other stuff.

 

[JahSun]

The hardest thing to tune is to make sure they don't dry out too much when the lights are off when they get late into flower. With bigger plants I sometimes have to hit them up to an hr after the lights are off so they stay saturated enough till the next watering when the lights are on. This also comes down to being more religious with clones and veg time /topping that way you are always throwing about the same size of plants into flower. That way once you have it dialed you don't have to deviate from the schedule you tune. Notes on notes is my best suggestion. A good example I can give you is my Polecat & East Coast runs I can drop my 3rd feed if they are the normal size since those are more sensitive on the waterings then my other stuff.

Makes so much sense, in fact I just reduced two of my three waterings, since in the heat of the day they will dry faster, and I noticed the feed times and lengths I had set them to, was too much, sopping wet even after lights off on top. my next round will be tricky since I have various breeds and using some older teens in the flip. once again, amazing info and help it's very much appreciated my friend.

 

[evlme2]

6.0 is what most Coco manufacturers recommend as being optimal...

 

[Enforcer]

I run 6 to 6.3 in coco perlite mix I found 5.5 to 5.8 to low . Happy with the result and keeping it that way .

Same here.

 

[xPeacePipex]

6.0-6.5 Veg/Transition
5.5-6.0 Flowering stage
6.0-6.5 Last weeks

And I do swing the pH in all stages regularly as it is what works best for me running many different types in one room.

 

[Perpetual Garage]

Ok I've been running coco for 3 years now with multiple brands of nutrients including Canna, Advanced, and MB Nutes. Today when I was watching Urban Grower there was 3 videos on refurbishing coco and Remo talked about the optimal ph for coco being more around 6.0 to 6.5PH. He said the plants stayed greener and healthier. I have always ran 5.5 to 5.9 maybe touching 6 or 6.1 occasionally. What is everyone else running there ph at in coco and why? Most people run 5.8 I thought and don't get me wrong the end product is amazing but my girls need to look better on their journey to eternal dankness. I get great yields but know if my plants stayed healthier it would be that much better?

I run 5.6 to 5.9 generally. Sometimes I'll let it drift to 6.2 as that is when calcium is taken up. Can someone verify this practice?

 

[MidwestToker]

I run 5.6 to 5.9 generally. Sometimes I'll let it drift to 6.2 as that is when calcium is taken up. Can someone verify this practice?

To tell you the truth, I rarely check my pH anymore. Running RO and my nutrients my pH was always spot on 6 pH.

 

[Samsem]

Hello I am new to this all thing. Is okey to feed the plant only from run-off ? I am growning in coco .

 

[Enforcer]

Hello I am new to this all thing. Is okey to feed the plant only from run-off ? I am growning in coco .

House plants yes, cannabis plants no. You can use the runoff from you cannabis plants to feed house plants. But you don’t want to re-feed the coco runoff to you cannabis plants again. That will quickly results in an over feeding situation due to built up salts in the coco. In a purely sterile hydro setup like DWC you can recirculate nutrients.

 

[Mad.Scientist]

In My last grow i had 2 plants. I started with having the PH at 5.5-5.9. until my run-off plant on one plants showed a PH at 5.3 and the other one at a normal 5.8. So i started to rise the ph on the first plant to a run-off to a 5.9. But the funny thing is that, the first plants seemed to look healthier than the other plant with a normal 5.8.

When the grow was in middle of bloom. My second plant was looking horrible. And the only thing that helped was rising the ph to a whooping 6.6 on the second plant. And the first plant i gave 6.2-6.4. And after that they started to look healthy. So in my opinion it depends on the plant and you should rise the ph during the grow. I think it's also good to rinse the coco now and then so your run-off ph dont drop. If your run-off ph drop alot from your normal ph, you got to much salts in the coco, and need to rinse the coco from nutrients. I also checked the EC on the normal and run-off water. If the EC drops on the run-off water give them more nuts, Just to be sure that they get enough nutrients.

 

[JSH1973]

5.8-6.1 ist what I've been sticking with

 

[Pippins]

I had major PH issues at first due to the alkalinity of my tap water-and there is no way I'm going the RO route. I'd rather fit my growing method to my water source than the other way around, so I was about to switch over to organic soil growing when I got some help here. Even when I would PH my coco nutes to 5.8 or 6.0 or whatever, the runoff would always end up over 7.0, the highest was 7.5-which is what my water starts out as. So I lowered my nutrient PH to 5.5 and began watering to a lot of runoff twice per day-my plants improved within a few days and now they look fantastic-the runoff now is still high-6.9-but now they are in a great PH range for absorbing nutrients. Don't worry too much about the PH as long as it's between 5.8 and 7, I think it's optimal to have some drift within that range. It really depends on the type of water you're using-RO will stay much more stable than tap water that is loaded with bicarbonates, but probably there is a perfect mix of RO and tap that stays the most stable-I'm just saying, stability is overrated in coco when you can keep the drift within range.

 

[Mad.Scientist]

In My last grow i had 2 plants. I started with having the PH at 5.5-5.9. until my run-off plant on one plants showed a PH at 5.3 and the other one at a normal 5.8. So i started to rise the ph on the first plant to a run-off to a 5.9. But the funny thing is that, the first plants seemed to look healthier than the other plant with a normal 5.8.

When the grow was in middle of bloom. My second plant was looking horrible. And the only thing that helped was rising the ph to a whooping 6.6 on the second plant. And the first plant i gave 6.2-6.4. And after that they started to look healthy. So in my opinion it depends on the plant and you should rise the ph during the grow. I think it's also good to rinse the coco now and then so your run-off ph dont drop. If your run-off ph drop alot from your normal ph, you got to much salts in the coco, and need to rinse the coco from nutrients. I also checked the EC on the normal and run-off water. If the EC drops on the run-off water give them more nuts, Just to be sure that they get enough nutrients.

Edit: I forgot one thing. If you get PH fluctuations in your coco it can also be because you don't give them enough water. You cant over water coco. If i dries up some where in the coco, you get PH fluctuations in those areas.

 

[Madmax]

5.9s working well for me right now..hasnt missed a beat

 

[plumsmooth]

I run 6 to 6.3 in coco perlite mix I found 5.5 to 5.8 to low . Happy with the result and keeping it that way .

I am seeing some red stem with the PH around 5.5 5.6 5.7 I feel like it might be Phosphorus or Potassium meaning PH too low. I am using an experimental 50/50 Coco Perlite mix....

 

[plumsmooth]

Isn't it odd, how all the info on the inter-webs doesn't always line up with reality? Yes, the net will tell you treat coco just like hydro. Experience will then teach you to treat it like something between hydro and dirt.

For me, 6.0 to 6.4 is the ticket. I always target 6.0 in veg, and in flower I shoot for a little higher like 6.2 - 6.3. For the most part only correct for extremes. Less than 6 is no good, and more than 6.5 is no good. Anywhere in between just let it ride.

Do you still feel that way about Coco? I am using Advanced Nutrients Coco and feel like the 5.7-5.8 it is coming in at may be too low. At first I was thinking what ever adjustment they make to the Nutrient line for Coco may not be ideal? It is supposed to be PH perfect blah blah absorbable in a wide range. i also think the cooler nights with my window open here in Vermont and some air conditioning I i ran during the day for a couple of days may have created the Red Stem (non genetic)... Thanks for your time...