I recently attempted to reuse the coco medium from my last grow. Put it into a tote box and broke it up nice, and filled up a 1 G fabric pot to flush and test it. To my surprise, it was pretty rich, @ 4870 PPM. I've never seen it that high before, so I tested it again. Then I grabbed my back up meter, and tested it again! I'm not sure if it was sugars or salts, but I knew I had to flush the hell out of it before I put seedlings in it. So I set up a perfectly clean, 5 gallon pot, and filled it up. I thought about it, and decided to use hot water to flush the coco, due to the amount of build up. This might be where I went wrong, and I wonder if anyone has had similar experiences? I put about 20 gallons through it and got it under 200 PPM. I set it up on grill to drain overnight. I went to grab it the next evening. and it was completely water logged. I could pick up a handful and wring it out like a soaked cloth. It's been a week now, and it's still far too wet to plant anything in. I can still reach down, grab a handful, and wring the water out of it. Please let me know if you've ever heard of this, or had similar disasters please. Thanks, Vince.
couple things that may help you are a) a 5gal paint strainer bag , and b) a vacuum manifold. I wrote something on this in an earlier thread: The Fast and Furious Flush'o'matic
So, just wring it out of excess moisture and use that to plant in. I would highly suggest you saturate it with a calmag solution overnight first though. Coco still holds 30% oxygen even when saturated.
What brand of coco are you using? There are some 'coco products' that are coco mixed with other things, some of which can hold a lot of water. For example Royal Gold Tupur, which is to me the Cadillac of coco, add forest peat. For me, that makes it way too soggy, really like a much sharper dryback. Even though it has perlite, I mix on more to get the drying time I like. Definitely not dissing on Royal Gold or Tupur. Royal Gold has exceptionally clean products, can be used right out of the bag with no rinsing needed. Tupur is just amazing. When you feel it in your hands, its like, oh yeah this is it!
Thanks for the replies! What I didn't tell you..... After it wouldn't drain, I wrung out was I could. once the page gets emptier, I was able to twist it and get a lot out. I can't believe. how much water remained in that stuff for over a week. I spread it out on a tarp and dried it up better. I used it to plant a selling,, but just one to see how it goes. Of course, it's done the same thing again. Try to water it, and I can't get a drop of runoff! It's Cana product, which I'm using exclusively. Every other plant has run off within 10 seconds of feeding! I may have to pull the seedling before the roots are drown.
If the water was hot enough, that might have an effect on the moisture retention capacity of the coco. I know of some mushroom growers who will use hot water when expanding the bricks, and even wrap the bucket it's in with a blanket to help it "cook" longer.
Yes,I always use fairly warm water on the bricks. I see growth on the plant. Maybe I'll just leave it and see what happens. I'm not saying it looks healthy, but it it has definitely grown. The roots are likely still in the plug, and the plug drains fine. Using Cana. Always had great product from them. The thing to consider is, this same coco was used 2 months ago, and it drained fine every feed. My hot water is super hot, so I'm starting to think I changed the structure of coco somehow, and it's more like mud when it's wet now. I'm not exaggerating when I say, there's standing. water at the top of the pot half in deep, and not a single drop coming out the bottom! This morning, I decided to ram a long wooden stabilizer stick, about a 1/4 inch in diameter, down through the soil and out the bottom of the bag. It started to drip, but I just lifted here now, and it's a heavy girl! It is growing, worst case, I toss the coco and start the transplant over. I am going to use the same procedure, same soil, but with warm water flush. Thank you so much guys for the help! This is my first time on a forum type page, and this great! After reading through the discussions for a few days, I realized there are a lot of super talented growers on here and the information you provide is priceless. I'm going to start this experiment now with the warm water flush, and see if the results are different. Thanks again!
BTW, I apologize for the typos. I'm really not illiterate. Ha haha... I think my wireless keyboard has a mind of it's own sometimes. So many errors and I'm sorry about that. I find it frustrating when I'm reading other posts with a ton of typos, and here, I look back and mine are atrocious!
Well this stuff is definitely hanging onto the water. It's in a 5 G fabric pot, and if I add exactly 1 G of water, it pools at the top, and takes about 45 seconds for it to drop below the top of the coco! I'm going for a redo! Same procedures, with one change. Warm water rather than hot. We may have uncovered a little know characteristic of coco. If that's the case, and this saves others from making the same mistake, it will be worth it.