Washing Coco

Discussion in 'Coco Coir' started by FlavorFav, Feb 23, 2022.

  1. I'm washing coco on my first hydro grow, and I feel like I may be flushing a significant amount down the drain. Probably need to find a better method, but I'm using a strainer and a 5 gallon bucket. I flood it in the bucket and strain it, then rinse it in the strainer using my shower spray. I'll try the two tote method next time with holes in one of them.

    My well water is at 100ppm, and the first wash comes out at 200 ppm on top of that for 300 ppm. The final rinse is 50 to 100 ppm for a total of 150-200 ppm.

    Do I need to wash so much, or is 200 ppm acceptable?

    I do wash a lot of sand off of it, but being inert I don't think it's bad if it stayed in there. A lot of cheap potting soil has a considerable amount of sand, and farmers over in Florida basically grow in all sand.

    So, what's an acceptable ppm for coco runoff before adding nutrients?
     
  2. try using a 'hash bag' of ~200 micron. You can go lower if you like.
    this isn't right. Coco needs to be charged, unless its precharged, and if that's the case, you are stripping the calcium that it was charged with (!)

    I recommend you look over this article for a bit of education before you actually use that coco. Its a nice site for coco instructions.
     
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  3. Thank you!
     
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  4. Apparently what I'm losing in coco volume is meant to be lost. The author calls it coco peat and says that it retains too much water. He also uses a mesh strainer, so that's not what I should be worried about. My biggest mistake is not buffering the medium, and I'm seeing the effects already on the seedlings I've already transplanted.

    I know you know -- I'm just spelling it out to the passing reader.
     
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  5. I still recommend a mesh bag. Its just easier to handle and probably cheaper than the mesh screen.
    upload_2022-2-23_3-12-38.png
    One aspect is that you can pour the coco into the bag and let that soak in a rich calmag solution for an hour or two (or overnight) and then just pick it up and strain.
    You can repeat the procedure in a fresh solution for a double charge without even removing anything. At 250 micron, you will lose most of the dust.

    but yea, you can use the mesh screen too :)
     
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  6. I place the coco in a 5 gallon bucket filled with a light nute solution.
    I swish it around and scoop out whatever floats.........the fine powder sinks to the bottom.
    Then I place the coco in another bucket with a light nute solution, and let it sit overnight.
     
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  7. Ooh! That's a really nice product! ...especially because I'm going to start vermi-composting my kitchen scraps. The worms arrive today. I'll also look for smaller mesh sizes for brewing compost tea, but that's for the future. Eventually I want to transition to growing organic, but I do have 25 lb bags of nutes to go through.

    Will mixing cal-nitrate and magnesium sulfate solution work in place of cal-mag? I've heard cal-mag is essentially those two ingredients.
     
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  8. it can, but calmag also contains iron, which you don't want to lock out.
     

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