I admire your fortitude. You have probably had some frustrating times, but you kept at it and got to harvest. I guarantee you (as much as some guy on the internet can) that setting up
auto watering and giving multiple feeds a day will revolutionize your growing.
The “water and wait until dry” is the method used for soil. Works great for soil. But as you know, doing that it coco will lead to salt build up. Which will cause EC spikes and pH swing in the root zone.
My White Widow plants didn’t like more than a 1.5 EC or I would get tip burn. A 1.2 EC seemed to be the sweet spot for me. I fed 3 times a day in flower to about 20% runoff. I kept the pH around 5.8 for awhile. But I kept getting leaf twisting and blotches only on one side. I raised the pH to around 6.0 and the issues improved greatly. Yes, Gnats are a problem. I use some yellow sticky traps to keep thier numbers down and I’m going to try Gnat Nix this next run.
Don’t worry about overwatering coco. Although contrary to popular belief, coco can be overwatered. You have to try really really hard at it. It has excellent drainage qualities and you shouldn’t have any overwatering issues. As for the root health? I use Bio-Cozyme in my reservoir as my enzyme product. It keeps the drippers clear and “eats” up any dead organic matter. I also give them a weekly microbe tea. I use “Recharge” super microbe pack and some added kelp, bubbled for 24 hours and then subbed in by hand for a normal watering.
Yes, feed that plant twice a day. I was feeding these clones twice a day.
Auto watering will be a game changer for you. And it’s not that expensive to put a decent system together. Good luck.