I decided to add a tiny tiny amount of dolomite lime to the top of the medium. The scooper I used was 1/8 tsp, and I filled that maybe 1/10 of the way. The run off shot up to 7.0. I did run some extra ph'd water through, but could only get it down to 6.8. In ed's guide, he say's runoff doesn't matter. Does anyone agree with this? I am thinking my stall in growing means I should do light feeding. I am going to do a 1/8 dose of AN's jungle juice micro, and 1/8 dose of AN's jungle juice grow. The seedlings have just become slightly yellow and are growing painfully slow. Like 10 - 14 days and the second set of leaves are just pushing the tips up. Would love to hear what you have to say. I am freaking out over the high ph.
Ohh - 250w MH, im 70/30 coco / perlite mixture. Coco was soaked and flushed. I was planning on feeding tomorrow after pots have had time to dry out.
coco doesnt need to be amended with anything, mixing a bunch of crap in it will only mess with your grow just stick with a good PH meter and coco specific nutes
also coco has 0 nutrients in it, it must be fed from day 1 but start very lightly and every watering is fine. are you feeding nutes? and ive never done any runoff tests on any of my grows and i havent had 1 problem with PH
ed knows his shit but i also believe that what works for one person....... isnt going to work the same for another person, ya know? bcolt is right. dont mix a bunch of extra shit in w/ coco the only thing i would mix in is chunky perlite and any mycorrhizea(sp) i personally use a little less than about 50/50 perlite to coco alont w/ some Great White
Well... AskEd doesn't use dolomite in his coco mixes anymore. Takes too long to break down and there should be plenty of calcium and magnesium to start with. Runoff numbers are only useful when collected over time. A single, snapshot, reading provides very little insight and it would be a mistake to read into it to far and make a knee jerk reaction. Use the suggested strength of your nutrients and keep good records. For what it's worth, pH readings in coco are going to be misleading and should probably be between 6.2 and 6.8pH. In coco, the EC is much more important to be aware of.
Ok, 10 year soil grower here, I usually don't need to nute for a while. Coco has been a fun learning adventure to say the least. I am using an's jungle juice line. They recommend .8 ml per US gallon for seedlings per the back of the bottle. I'll try .5 ml micro and .5 ml grow today. See if that perks em up. Should I ph lower than 5.8 to help correct run off? Or stick to 5.8?
Stick to 5.8. I use the clonex formula its low strength nutes perfect for young plants in coco. Make sure you use coco specific nutes, i use Ionic grow and bloom if you use r/o water you might need to give it some calmag but other than that it will have everything you need for coco. Keep it simple with coco for great results
I don't have coco specific nutes, just an jungle juice. AN has updated their statement on jungle juice, sayings it perfectly acceptable to use in coco. It has 5% calcium in its micro line
There aren't really that many brands of coco specific nutes on the market, but in general you want to lean towards hydroponic supplies, not soil. Also dolomite lime doesn't have that much of a value in coco considering the time it takes for it to cook and become readily available. Also, I used to check runoff, I have since stopped though, and honestly since I've stopped and just focused on making sure the medium and nutrient solutions are balanced, my quality has gone way up.
Ok - I ran .5ml micro and .6ml grow - I see more / quicker growth now overnight which is nice. The old growth and new growth is still a little light in color, but hopefully that will subside as I water more with this weak nutrient solution. Thanks for the advice, first coco grow is beginning to move along. I could probably use a heavier solution, but I am waiting for my ec meter and solution show up first.
Yea the light color is probably from not being fed, ive seen it a few times when i was starting out. You can slowly start adding more nutes until you see a tiny bit of burn on the tips to get a feel for how much you can feed
id rather slightly under-feed a plant than to over feed of course, that happy median is where ya wanna hit
As an update, I skipped watering yesterday because the containers were pretty wet. Just fed again from the same gallon on light nutes. Two havent quite recovered the nice shade of green I prefer, but they are showing new growth daily. The other two are nice and green and noticeably growing on a daily basis. So happy I got them back to moving forward ty again.
if you let your feed water sit out for a day or 2 be sure to re-check your ph. it will rise then you could be feeding your plants a higher ph than you should just a heads up
its good to feed every watering but not good to water wet young ones, let those young girls get a little thirsty before you soak 'em, i like to see root bound they love a good soak and grow like crazy, never let them get really dry, use the weight as an indicator if possible it flattens the learning curve. iv'e been coco for many years and H & G for the last few, i won't be changing.
Very true! Can even change in a short period of time! Couple hours. Always good to check and recheck! Sent from my iPhone using GC Forum