AskEd's New Grow - 3rd Gen Coconut Groove

Howdy folks! I have been growing with coco for about 12 years now, I used to be very active on GC many moons ago in a section I called the Coconut Groove, but life got busy and I have not been here but I sure miss this place and sharing my grow so thought I’d post some current pics.

About 6 years ago we moved to a new place and I had the opportunity to create a grow from scratch. This is the third grow space my wife (MrsEd) and I have created and we tried our best to get it right. Before we moved in, we had a couple of walls built in to create a 3’ x 9’ “closet” that would serve as the new grow space with two plugs - each with a dedicated 20A breaker, so we are set!



Long story short, this setup has been fantastic. I can close the door and not open it again for up to 3 weeks and this thing will take care of itself (veg and flower), and usually produces 1 pound of bud every 4 months on the money. I planted this round on 1/15/2021 and should be harvesting 5/15/2021.

The Grow Space
With a good size bedroom, the corner was transformed into a space with a couple of walls and a door, about 3 feet x 9 feet. We had not moved in yet so I was able to get a contractor to build this in under the guise of it being a closet.


Just over half of the closet is dedicated to the flower space, which is two 2’x2’ trays fed 4x daily by a 35 gallon reservoir. They both drain into a 5 gallon bucket that I have to empty every 2-3 weeks. It’s inside a tub incase it overflows

I normally run 2 plants per tray, or 4 total. I can run double the number of plants but 4 is a happy medium and allows the plants to get big and produce larger buds. No matter how many plants I run, the yield is usually the same amount.






The front part of the closet has a veg tent high on the wall and below that are some ph controllers and a 10 gallon reservoir with veg nutes. You can see the black tubing from the rez up through the tent’s exhaust where it floods a small tray with vegging plants.



Medium and Nutes
I use coco, no particular brand since my grow stores never have the Botanicare that I like. I go for the ready to use stuff in the bag because it’s the easiest. Blocks are great but I am super lazy nowadays and I do a minimal amount of work where I can.

I don’t mix anything with the coco, I don’t even rinse the shit (except for seedlings) I just pour it in a smart pot and stick the plant in. I have tried every mix you can think of - organics, perlite, mixed coarseness and all that and have had some amazing results. But straight coco uncomplicates things and lets me be the lazy grower I aspire to.

Nutes are also uncomplicated, I use Fox Farms Grow (hydro version) for veg and Cocotek for flower. No CalMag, additives, carbs or silicon even. I have tried countless products and brands, and honestly the more crap I put in my water the more problems I had.

I used to do the RO water thing and manually adjust with CalMag, but switching to good ol’ tap water solved all my calcium issues. The water out of the tap here is 195-210 PPM, of mostly calcium. This is a perfect base to work from, I just add enough Fox Farms to get a final reading of 900 PPM for veg. I use this to feed my veg plants right from the start – even before they have broken ground. This had also been a key thing for my system, the seedlings start green and beautiful this way.

For flower, I add equal parts of A & B until I get a final reading of 1200 PPM. I start this a week after flipping to 12/12 and keep it at 1200 until harvest. I rarely have deficiencies with this formula and the final product is premium fat buds with good flavor and plenty of potency.


These are ph controller, and I love them. They automatically add some ph down and keep the rez at a steady 5.8 and if it ever drops to 5.7 then I know the rez level is low, so that acts like a low-water alert. These are expensive – I paid $420 for each one, but how can you say no to a price like that? I have had both of these for over 5 years and they are fucking solid. Worth every penny!


The rez’s have a huge air stone keeping things mixed up.


I usually wrap a towel around the tubes and cords going into the rez to keep light out. Light = funk growth in the rez!



Lighting
The flower space is basically 2’ x 4’ with some room around the edges. To light it up I have four 300W LEDs. I believe they are GalaxyHydros, nothing special I found them on Amazon for around $99 each. I cannot say enough good things about these, they use 165W each and put out little heat, and the results are better than my HPS systems that I fought so hard to keep cool. I know there are smaller & more efficient ones now but these have been sterling performers for over 5 years now.




I use chicken wire to keep the plants from growing into the lights. And for support I have the green wires zig-zaged across the trays. This works extremely well for the plants in the back that I have a hard time reaching in full flower.


To keep these unruly bitches in line during flower, I have my whoop-ass stick to bend and break necks as needed.

There are two strips powering the grow, each on it’s own 20 amp breaker so I try to keep the LED’s & flower rez on one switch and most everything else on the other. For this space it’s plenty of power.



Ventilation
I have a big carbon filter and 8” Vortex fan keeping things non-stinky and providing plenty of air flow. Temps and humidity are optimum. Unfortunately I could not mound the filter up high so it sits on the ground but is plenty effective nonetheless. You can see the air duct coming up from the back of the closet, up over the lights and it has a T section where some air goes into the veg tent and the rest goes out of the closet.




Air comes in through a vent in the wall that is fed from a filtered vent in the bedroom. I really like that the air coming in is going through a filter.



Veg Tent
This is an 18” x 36” tent that holds up to 10 plants in 5” rounds. I have an old T5 veg light that we have been using for over ten years. One day I will switch to LED but for now it remains a beast and gets the youngin’s off to such a good start.

When the flowering plants are 6 weeks from being cut, I usually plant the seeds for the next round. Since we still have another 4 weeks or so until that point, I’m using the veg tent to grow lettuce. On the left you can see the feeder tube come in from the rez. I have it set to pump in ½ gallon every 36 hours or so. It floods the tray and they bottom feed.



The Flowering Trays

Currently I’m running on of my wife’s (MrsEd) favorite strains – Iced Grapefruit by Female Seeds. It’s a nice sativa with amazing healing properties for pain and the like. Normally you expect this from Indicas but this is a special one for sure.

These ladies spent 30 days in veg and I just transplanted them about 2 weeks ago. I flipped them to 12/12 last weekend.






I will post some pics once a week, we should be calling first bud in another 10 days or so.

 

Thanks B! Exciting to be back - this place has changed a little since last time I was on but still looks like a great group of growers.

Been dialing in this grow space for several years, damn thing runs itself now. Like a horse that knows its way home LOL I'm just hoping this run does me proud since I'm posting pics this round.

 

Thank you, appreciate the kind words!

Anytime I feed less than 800 PPM I have issues, stunted growth and yellowing mostly. I get the feeling it's not your PPM the plant isn't liking. What kind of issues were you having? Feel free to post any pics here, I don't mind giving my 2 cents

 

Thanks Nex! Glad I could be a part of your coming over to the coco side I've been growing for over 30 years, and coco is definitely the best part of all that, I never have turned back either.

 

Thank you, great to be back! I'm hoping they stay healthy and happy since I'm putting them on the internet

 

Thanks for the warm welcome HTown - or should I say home town? I thought my rez's were going to freeze over the last few weeks!

Lovin' these LEDs, sure makes life easier indoors especially the lower power consumption.

 

The yellowing between the veins looks like some early mag deficiency but that can be caused by some other things as well. The red stems to me is a bigger tell tale that the plant is not feeding correctly - phosphorus and potassium deficiencies cause this a lot.

My suspects would be the nute mix or the ph. If you are in coco then it's pretty hard to mess up the ph IMO, as long as the mix is between 5.2 and 7.0 coco can usually work with that.

Can you tell me what you are feeding and the ph/ppm numbers? If you are using coco specific nutes and adding calmag or any mg supplement, then you could be locking out the mag. I've done this many times before myself and it drove me crazy until I figured out what was happening. Most coco specific nutes already account for coco's behavior with calcium/magnesium so you don't need to supplement it because it can lock it out if there is too much.

Also one more suspect, if you have a lot of perlite mixed in with the coco then there is a lot less coco to feed the roots. I had a mix of 1/2 coco and 1/2 perlite and constantly had issues. I had a number of deficiencies showing and as the plants got bigger they started stunting and getting unhealthier. Perlite does not hold on to any nutes, it takes up a lot of space and blocks any nutrient storage for that area just like rocks would. With less coco in the pot, it means less nutrients for the roots to feed on - thus deficiencies. This can be remedied by doubling the size of your pots, or doubling on the watering. The coco is a nutrient reserve, like a gas tank and it has to be replenished when the roots pull from the coco (which is constantly with vigorous plants).

This is one reason I don't mix anything into my coco anymore - it prevents a lot of deficiencies and headaches. A pot full of pure coco is a massive storage unit for nutes. There is still plenty of air for the roots, especially when using smart pots.

I hope that makes sense!

 

Thank you my neighbor and friend, dammit I could have used you when I was getting this op set up! LOL

I hope all your pipes made it through as well, I can go without power but no water sucks!

 

Thanks Sticky I really appreciate the kind words. We have run this strain many times and it usually produces dense pear-shaped buds that are super sticky and hard as a baseball. I really hope my girls put on a show this round!