Types Of Coco and Your Experience

[cemchris]

Well there is a lot of brands and types of Coir out there. Figured I would start this thread to share experiences good or bad with particular brands or types of coir. Let the info and experiences flow.

One thing I have seen on most brands of ground coir is the claim to be "prewashed" or "preflushed". BULLSHIT. This bit of humor for me was first discovered when I started using the loose bags of Botanicare vs the compressed bricks being that it was 10 bucks more for a bag and I got half of the cocoand why you ask? First because I'm lazy. Second because having to flush the 1700ppm+ of salt out of the compressed brick gets a little old. Well funny thing is the loose bag was throwing out above 1800ppm. How far above? I don't know. My truncheon at the time wouldn't read above 1800ppm. Big Ole Waste Of Money.

CANNA COCO COIR:

Bout $26 a Bag for me Locally

This wins the cake for me. All good stuff. Actually is Flushed like they claim! My RO comes out about 7ppm. This throws out 150 ppm of salt out of the bag.

Bcuzz Coco Coir:

Bout $35 a Bag Locally

CRAP! Not only is this stuff stupid expensive. It throws out some crazy salt. 1440ppm out of the bag. Second flush (64 oz of RO water into 6 in pot) knocked it down to around 1020ppm. For the money and time all I can say it has a pretty purple bag and THATS IT!

As for the others I will test as time goes on. Throw some pics and such up.

 

[Venom818]

I like canna coco the only stuff i use.

 

[HowardHunt]

Awesome thread! subscribed for sure!

I'd love to see you give a test with the Royal Gold Basement Mix.

I'm convinced the stuff is evil at this point!

 

[Shady]

Ahhh shit. I just bought a bag of the B'cuzz... :giggle Because that's all they had at my hydro shop. I'm gonna try my hand at coco cut with 30-40% chunky perlite, on my ebb 'n flow with Smart Pots... :cool Any suggestions on the flush process? Could I use FloraKleen to help loosen and covalent bonds with the salts?

 

[cemchris]

Naw just plain ole water. A lot of people use Cal/mg and other products to flush your coco but you are trying to get out as much buildup as you can. I'm sure it would work but would cost you a lot more money for something that is very cheap.

I use anything from a 6" pot up to a homer bucket with holes drilled into the bottom. Rule of thumb use 3 times the amount of water as medium. Just flush and check and reflush as needed.

The Bcuzz dropped about 400 ppm between flushing. In theory In my 6" pot I would have to put at a whole gallon or more through it to get it down to an acceptable level. Thats a gallon and a half per 6" pot. 20 or more pots per table and you get the picture of the amount of work ahead of you. I use about 3-5 bags at a time so less flushing is a blessing in disguise.

HH - Me too. I don't have a shop that sells it locally so I need someone else to Chime in on that.

 

[Shady]

Thx for the response cemchris! I'll flush with R/O and check my initial runoff's pH and go from there. :cool

 

[haole]

Interesting..... I've used both canna and b'cuzz in the past few months. I will stick to canna cause it is cheaper and I trust it more, however I did not see any problems with the bcuzz. I put freshly rooted clones from an ezcloner in there and they loved it!

 

[HowardHunt]

I have an extra bag of the basement mix. just need to swap out my combo pen on monday and I will see what is really going on in this stuff and post it up for sure.

 

[cemchris]

I have an extra bag of the basement mix. just need to swap out my combo pen on monday and I will see what is really going on in this stuff and post it up for sure.

Bring it on!

 

[Dulce]

Great Thread Cemchris! I am very interested in learning how the Farmers here use Canna Coco, as I will be switching to this very soon.

Venom818- do you run it straight or with something like croutons in it?

~D~

 

[dirtman63]

Great thead!Do you plan on testing the bricks also?Again thanks for posting.

 

[cemchris]

Yea As soon as I'm out of all my Canna I'll try some different things.

 

[Darth Fader]

I hope you try the Roots Organics. I know they add a lot of different amendments though. Do these other brands do that as well? If so, I'm sure they are adding to the ppms.

 

[InvisibleM]

I've been looking for a medium without any ferts for a long time. So I may try Coco soon if I can get it at the same price as soil but it looks like it may cost a lot more. Black Gold Organic is about $6.50 a cu/ft.

Great info here.

 

[cemchris]

I hope you try the Roots Organics. I know they add a lot of different amendments though. Do these other brands do that as well? If so, I'm sure they are adding to the ppms.

I'm just going for strait Coir. Really not diving into mixes IE Roots Organic. Just looking to see how rinsed the "rinsed" coco really is.

Others I can think of:
Botanicare Brick and Loose
Empire Organics Croutons
Coco-Dan (grodan) Croutons
Sunleaves Bales
Cocotek Bricks
Profit Discs or Crop Circles
Sunshine Just Coir

Any others just let me know or test them and throw it up.

 

[Socachi]

How often does Canna Coco have to be watered?

 

[Venom818]

Great Thread Cemchris! I am very interested in learning how the Farmers here use Canna Coco, as I will be switching to this very soon.

Venom818- do you run it straight or with something like croutons in it?

~D~

50/50 coco/perilite in hempy buckets
i have never washed my canna coco but i will check the ppm and the ph next time just to see whats up i never have problems.:flower

 

[Raiderfan420]

chris, I hear you on the salts in some low priced coco, however I use the B'Cuzz and have never had an issue. I put fresh clones in the coco without flush and they thrive. B'cuzz is steam flushed and then re-fertilized which my have a lot to do with you ppm readings although that does seem high.
I have to be honest I haven't used canna because it isn't sold by me. I pay 23 bucks a bag for b'cuzz coir. Anyway, I do recommend anyone using any type of recirculation hydro system to flush just to get the loose debri and setiment out, but again when hand watering I have never had an issue with putting fresh clones in and every time I transplant without flushing. Just my 2 cents

 

[cemchris]

chris, I hear you on the salts in some low priced coco, however I use the B'Cuzz and have never had an issue. I put fresh clones in the coco without flush and they thrive. B'cuzz is steam flushed and then re-fertilized which my have a lot to do with you ppm readings although that does seem high.
I have to be honest I haven't used canna because it isn't sold by me. I pay 23 bucks a bag for b'cuzz coir. Anyway, I do recommend anyone using any type of recirculation hydro system to flush just to get the loose debri and setiment out, but again when hand watering I have never had an issue with putting fresh clones in and every time I transplant without flushing. Just my 2 cents

I hear ya on that Raider. The only thing they said they added was myco. Even if that was the case the initial flush shouldn't be anywhere near that kind of reading.

I will say this using my same feeding schedule I did get a little def when using the bcuzz vs the canna. Nothing to major and after the first week they are grooving. Weather it be beacuse I mix it with soil and the Canna Does better with that who knows. Sorry but I'm still sold on Canna.

As far as PH Goes:

Base RO PH

Bcuzz Runoff PH

Canna PH Runoff

 

[tricky]

canna is the best been using it for yrs ,when i did try the bricks found bits of plastic and all kinds of shit in it