I edited my post. I'll be thinking on it. I'm a ways away from change at the moment, but it's piqued my interest.
hi guys i do rockwool top feed, ph monitoring is killin me, literally- u dont PH?? water here in California is completely fucked up, PH is 8.3, screwing up hydro ppm big time, ro dont help, makes it 7.8-worthless i have all those same nutes, use a different enzyme tho i'm about to go buy coco, i have pertile BIG chunks, use that? or get small stuff? i was thinking of 20% vermiculite- coco don't hold much water same formula for flower??? i do no-till also so i will be comparing results and doing a journal peace dr
NO pHing is right! My tap water is 8.5ish, with the nutrients and enzymes its down to <6.5 My personal theory here is as the water is absorbed and evaporated the pH of the coco drops slowly as the concentration of nutrients increases since water is always dissipated faster than nutrients in the substrate. This occurs slowly over the day or two between waterings where the pH swings through the whole range of maximum nutrient absorption from 6.5 down to 5.5 then when you water to runoff +10% you effectively reset the substrate pH back to 6.5 to repeat the cycle again. This is just my personal theory however and shouldn't be taken as fact! Here's a few more at week 5 of flower to show how well this system works! Peace & Love PyspherE
Hey man nice to meet ya! We have a couple guys in California using this method with great results.. Still no need to ph when you are using tap water. Chunky perlite works just fine.. I've used all kinds and I like that Sunleaves brand the best so far.. It's like the perfect size pieces about a centimeter. Same formula for veg and flower with the base nutrients.. Only differences is the Excellerator is veg and the Floralicious Plus in flower.
Can't say I'm sold on coco yet, I'm thinking I used the wrong perlite so user error. However I'm stoked on switching the nute line up. The peat plants I have going are the best looking I've had yet IMO, if I had been using florakleen before my issue itd be even better. I lost a few bud sites during that
are you keeping the coco nice and saturated? I was letting mine get too dry when I first started this method Til iron told me you want to keep the coco nice and saturated. Thus the everyday watering of fresh nutes. Once I started keeping the pots nice and wet things just took off like a bandit in the night. Boom! POW! Beautiful plants all around. For what it's worth the root stimulator is amazing stuff too add to your mix. I'm just now seeing the results of the floralishous harvested a lemon skunk tonight that was denser than before about the same frost coverage smells amazing. But I haven't harvest a plant yet from using them start to finish. It can only get better I'm sure. Glad your peat is doing ok
The wrong perlite? I don't think you can use the wrong perlite homie... And I seriously doubt it would have a huge impact on how the plant is growing. Try keeping it more wet like Toke suggested.. Especially the older they get.. They can really drink up the nutrients.
Yeah maybe I'll do it again. When I did it when she was younger she got droopy like I was over watering. I need to find bigger water containers, like a 2gal water jug lol. Isn't there two kinds of perlite, regular and coarse? Using a gallon each watering
You can't really overwater in coco hombre.. They need to stay as wet as possible without sitting in runoff all the time. You could water 100 times a day if you wanted and the coco is only gonna hold so much... Which just so happens to be the perfect level of moisture.. That's what makes coco such a great medium to work with. Perlite is perlite.. Some is bigger, but it all does the same thing--aerate the root zone.
I prefer the coco pith myself.. The chips don't seem to have that same moisture holding capability that the pith has. Give it a whirl man! It's worked well for a lot of people.
Ya then follow it up tomorrow.. It's all about keeping it wet all the time with fresh nutrients. Just as long as it's not sitting in runoff for too long, you should be good to go. Now, if it sits in the runoff too long, you will start to see other deficiencies pop up.. So it's kind of a balancing act, but once you get it, the plants will explode with growth.