All you need to know about how to feed in Coco

Barney86 said:
Had perfect timing there too Mr Sherlock.
That's what happens when the bottoms go yellow.
I mentioned another deficit that can happen in late veg.
Tops going yellow which is iron def that I use calmag+ to fix. Well its day 2 of 12/12 and bang on time. Iron def. Not to worry though thats just my cue start using the calmag+(ca,mg,fe&n) at quarter strength and it'll go away in a day or 2 :)


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They look healthy & happy. :thumb: I can't get away without using calmag because there are basically no minerals in my tap water. I always mixed it weak, about 60% what they recommend on the bottle. This grow I decided to try 100% to see if I could get less purple in the stems. So far I find the increase has really helped,no purple as of yet.

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Great guide mate, I'm on my first hybrid coco grow atm and loving it :goodjob:
 
SherlokOhmz said:
They look healthy & happy. :thumb: I can't get away without using calmag because there are basically no minerals in my tap water. I always mixed it weak, about 60% what they recommend on the bottle. This grow I decided to try 100% to see if I could get less purple in the stems. So far I find the increase has really helped,no purple as of yet.

IMG_20190624_024829.jpg

IMG_20190624_024829.jpg

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Yeah mate calmag is just one of grow life's inconsistencies.
Some need loads others need none. My tap water is only 48ppm and I now use a part veg nute that has a little of everything in it. It's just enough to get me by. I need calmag occasional for mag def but only when I'm being too lazy with res changes and the odd dose through bloom. It's usually the iron I'm using it for too.
There's loads of things can cause purple stems though. P def, cold, genetics and apparently cal def can cause it aswell but I've never looked into that one tbh.
 
Right let's get this finished off then, what have i missed?
Ah yes, "PH"
Now ph stands for "potential of hydrogen"
It's a measurement of how acidic or alkaline something is.
The scale goes from 1-14 with 7 being nutral. 1 being the most acidic and 14 being the most alkaline.

For coco and hydroponics, the useful ph range is 5.5-6.5.
If you feed out with that range nutrients will be locked out. Most of us generally stick to 5.7-6.3 for that reason but nothing bad will happen if you go a bit out of range for a day or two though. Just don't take the piss with it.

Now, cannabis doesn't just need it anywhere in that range, it's more specific than that.
During veg, assuming you are feeding correctly, the ph within the coco will drift upwards. It doesn't move much, so by feeding often at the lower range around 5.7, you will keep it in check no problem.

once you hit bloom the ph will start dropping so you need to go in at the higher end of 6.3-6.5 to keep it in range.

Now, this is something that I've gotten into so many arguments with people about on here. There's a ph/ppm guide kicking about and it completely misses the fact that ph drift reverses during bloom. This is why many brands of ph up are called 'ph bloom'. If the ph wasn't meant to drop in bloom it wouldn't be called that.
if the ph is rising during bloom then you're nutes are too strong.

ideally, you want a soil ph probe to check the coco but if all you got is a digital pen like most of us do then stick it in the run off. Its not a fantastically accurate way to do things but If it isnt drifting in the right direction then the nutes are too strong. Lower them a little at a time untill it corrects itself.

Checking the run off or probing the coco is something you would only do in the case of an issue though. If nothing's wrong, which it shouldn't be if you've followed the rules, feeding the right strength at the right ph for veg/bloom and feeding often enough then there's absolutely nothing to gain from checking it. It'll probably just make you worry.
Had to cover it though in order to be as comprehensive as I can.

As always, if they're not askin for it don't give them it. Just let them get on with it and have faith that feeding week and often, and always to run off, will keep everything in check.

There are literally hundreds of weird things that can go wrong when growing weed but when you feed by waiting for deficits you completely eliminate any chance of them happening and can rest assured that the deficits will 100% NOT cause any damage. You now know what to look for so you'll be waiting for it and prepared to sort it out when it happens.
 
Oh and no guide would be complete if I.didnt put it back in a nutshell for a debriefing.

So.. for those without a ppm meter....
Start at quarter strength of what the manufacturer recommends for full strength.

Once the bottoms go yellow go up 50% and do that each time they do.
If the mids lose colour and go blotchy or rusty looking spots appear then start calmag at quarter strength. If it reappears a few weeks later, then go up by 50% again.

If the tops go yellow it's iron def. You can iether use a bottle of micro or as I do and buy calmag with added iron and save needing the micro. Iron is generally all you need it for anyway.

If there's anything I've missed or if anyone can see anything I've got wrong then please feel free to point it out.
All comments, questions and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

Thanks for reading folks. Hope this helps some guys out :)
 
Oh shit missed out bloom nutes haha. Good job they're easy too.

When you go into bloom, all you do is hold the strengths you were feeding up untill that point with the bloom nutes.
Only the a&b or veg/bloom bottle changes.
If your adding any extras keep them the same. Especially the root boost. Trust me, the roots go mental during the stretch and for a week or so after.

Some strains will want a little extra during the stretch but as always they'll tell you with the yellowing etc. If you want to add a little extra just in case it certainly shouldn't hurt them as were feeding light anyway.

The only thing you really need to watch for with bloom thats different is Phosphorus (p) def.
It's a tricky one to spot and a tricky one to diagnose.

The first sign is the stems going purple but that can be also be caused by cold stress or ph lockout. it can simply be genetic, some plants just get purple/red stems anyway and I've heard from reputable sources that calcium def can cause it but that one I've not looked into tbh.

The second stage is the leaves go like a mental metallic, purple kinda colour and it's bloody hard to shift.

To avoid this possibility though I start quarter strength PK booster at week 3 of 12/12.
It's not enough to burn anything if the plant isnt ready for it yet so won't hurt them. Once the buds are fairly well formed you can go upto half strength PK but there's honestly no point going all the way to full unless you're plants are looking like 10 ouncers.
If you go to far with it the tips will start to burn. I'm which case go back to the previous dose.

Once the buds are fully formed and you post that thread that says " how long to harvest?"
Once a couple guys tell you it's 3 weeks away you can cut all the nutes in half.
Once your 2 weeks away cut it in half again.
And for the final week cut it in half again.

Flushing is for toilets. It might be something that benefits soil growers I really don't know but we don't need to do it. Just feed right up. You'll see the plant is cannibalizing itself anyway. The leaves will go all sorts of weird and wonderful colours but just keep cutting back.

HOLY FUCK I THINK I'VE JUST SUSSED IT!!!
I THINK I KNOW WHY PEOPLE FLUSH INSTEAD OF CUTTING THE NUTES!!!!!

I was about to go on my usual rant there of why it's bad for them in coco but I've just had an epiphany.

People flush because they think it washes excess nutes out of the buds and gives a smoother smoke.
That's an absolute 100% myth and here's why.

When the leaves start going mental due to the lack of feed. What they're doing is reliquidising the nutes in the leaves and moving them INTO the buds to make sure they have all they need to survive for as long as possible.
That's the plants only thought in life. Do whatever it takes to make those buds last as long as possible for the best chance of reproduction.
They literally eat themselves to feed the buds.

So, now that we've realised that we can't possibly take anything out of the buds, why would people starve them???
Could it be that back in the days you had to flush because you smoked most of the sugar leaves too. And those will taste fuckin nasty if they're still full of nutes. Wouldn't be able to sell that for top dollar in a month of Sunday's.
They were also mostly soil growers so couldn't possibly have known what hydro growers know today about how nutes work because you just can't measure it in soil.
Wooaaahhh.... that's getting a copy and paste into a thread me thinks:)

If I think of anything else I'll add it in but fairly sure I've covered all the basics now lol.
 
Hey @Barney86, thanks for putting all this info together, great read :)

I got a new good quality EC pen so I've started testing my runoff just for kicks and I think you're right, I'm getting some weird numbers but the plants look great so I think testing my runoff is just confusing things. The runoff ppm is way higher than the nute solution going in, but I realised I'm letting some runoff sit overnight before collecting it so the increase could be explained by evaporation... as far as I understand it ppm is just a linear measurement of salt suspended in the water so if you have a solution that's 500ppm and 50% of the water evaporates from it, it would make sense for you to be left with a solution up around 1000ppm (you've still got the same amount of salts but in half the water so the ppm would double.. I think?).

I'm going to set up a drain system for my plants to make it easy to get runoff, at the moment they just sit in small trays and I have to move the plant to drain the runoff which is a pain. Once I do that I'm going to collect runoff at different stages so that I can do some proper testing, I like all the sciencey numbers stuff so that sounds like a fun saturday night for me haha
 
SherlokOhmz said:
It's more like a scratch pad that a sponge, it does not hold any water. That is what they are for, I hate seeing roots after feeding them.
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Thanks for the tip! I've seen photos with a top layer of white pebble-y looking things which I figure was the same sort of idea, but the scourer pads look like an easier solution as I could just pull them off if I need to get to the soil.

I'm getting the girls out of the tent tonight to do some topping so I think I'll add something similar :)
 
Barney86 said:
Right let's get this finished off then, what have i missed?
Ah yes, "PH"
Now ph stands for "potential of hydrogen"
It's a measurement of how acidic or alkaline something is.
The scale goes from 1-14 with 7 being nutral. 1 being the most acidic and 14 being the most alkaline.

For coco and hydroponics, the useful ph range is 5.5-6.5.
If you feed out with that range nutrients will be locked out. Most of us generally stick to 5.7-6.3 for that reason but nothing bad will happen if you go a bit out of range for a day or two though. Just don't take the piss with it.

Now, cannabis doesn't just need it anywhere in that range, it's more specific than that.
During veg, assuming you are feeding correctly, the ph within the coco will drift upwards. It doesn't move much, so by feeding often at the lower range around 5.7, you will keep it in check no problem.

once you hit bloom the ph will start dropping so you need to go in at the higher end of 6.3-6.5 to keep it in range.

Now, this is something that I've gotten into so many arguments with people about on here. There's a ph/ppm guide kicking about and it completely misses the fact that ph drift reverses during bloom. This is why many brands of ph up are called 'ph bloom'. If the ph wasn't meant to drop in bloom it wouldn't be called that.
if the ph is rising during bloom then you're nutes are too strong.

ideally, you want a soil ph probe to check the coco but if all you got is a digital pen like most of us do then stick it in the run off. Its not a fantastically accurate way to do things but If it isnt drifting in the right direction then the nutes are too strong. Lower them a little at a time untill it corrects itself.

Checking the run off or probing the coco is something you would only do in the case of an issue though. If nothing's wrong, which it shouldn't be if you've followed the rules, feeding the right strength at the right ph for veg/bloom and feeding often enough then there's absolutely nothing to gain from checking it. It'll probably just make you worry.
Had to cover it though in order to be as comprehensive as I can.

As always, if they're not askin for it don't give them it. Just let them get on with it and have faith that feeding week and often, and always to run off, will keep everything in check.

There are literally hundreds of weird things that can go wrong when growing weed but when you feed by waiting for deficits you completely eliminate any chance of them happening and can rest assured that the deficits will 100% NOT cause any damage. You now know what to look for so you'll be waiting for it and prepared to sort it out when it happens.
Click to expand...
Ive seen some of your controversy about ph falling in bloom with others, this is my 1st INDOOR dwc grow, (ive grown a number of times outside) and during flower my ph has been DROPPING like crazy so i totally agree with you... Thanks for the info and postings, growing a mother in coco for 1st time and it has helped
 
Barney86 said:
Flushing is for toilets. It might be something that benefits soil growers I really don't know but we don't need to do it. Just feed right up. You'll see the plant is cannibalizing itself anyway. The leaves will go all sorts of weird and wonderful colours but just keep cutting back.



People flush because they think it washes excess nutes out of the buds and gives a smoother smoke.
That's an absolute 100% myth and here's why.

When the leaves start going mental due to the lack of feed. What they're doing is reliquidising the nutes in the leaves and moving them INTO the buds to make sure they have all they need to survive for as long as possible.
That's the plants only thought in life. Do whatever it takes to make those buds last as long as possible for the best chance of reproduction.
They literally eat themselves to feed the buds.

So, now that we've realised that we can't possibly take anything out of the buds, why would people starve them???
Could it be that back in the days you had to flush because you smoked most of the sugar leaves too. And those will taste fuckin nasty if they're still full of nutes. Wouldn't be able to sell that for top dollar in a month of Sunday's.
They were also mostly soil growers so couldn't possibly have known what hydro growers know today about how nutes work because you just can't measure it in soil.
Wooaaahhh.... that's getting a copy and paste into a thread me thinks:)
Click to expand...

Good stuff Barney in my opinion a lot of people harvest too early ....We forget the basics of plants … all of these plants have a LIFE cycle and when its nearing the end it actually cuts down on feeding and starts to cannibalize itself, to me when you have nice fat juicy flowers and you start to see that you got about two weeks or so before they are fully ripe . To me if you wait it is smoother smoke not because of a flush per say but because the buds are vine ripened …take for instance a tomato in your grocery store they get them on the green side they are still reddish and taste like tomatoes and will ripen a little more with time but pick one that has been ripened on the vine and you get a completely different tomato profile .
Again Good write up way to give back to the community .
 
d42zero said:
Hey @Barney86, thanks for putting all this info together, great read :)

I got a new good quality EC pen so I've started testing my runoff just for kicks and I think you're right, I'm getting some weird numbers but the plants look great so I think testing my runoff is just confusing things. The runoff ppm is way higher than the nute solution going in, but I realised I'm letting some runoff sit overnight before collecting it so the increase could be explained by evaporation... as far as I understand it ppm is just a linear measurement of salt suspended in the water so if you have a solution that's 500ppm and 50% of the water evaporates from it, it would make sense for you to be left with a solution up around 1000ppm (you've still got the same amount of salts but in half the water so the ppm would double.. I think?).

I'm going to set up a drain system for my plants to make it easy to get runoff, at the moment they just sit in small trays and I have to move the plant to drain the runoff which is a pain. Once I do that I'm going to collect runoff at different stages so that I can do some proper testing, I like all the sciencey numbers stuff so that sounds like a fun saturday night for me haha
Click to expand...
Yeah mate thats exactly how it works. It's what's left after the plants fed that causes the ph to swing. Partly from root secretions and party from the concentration of nutes. The stronger you feed, the more the ppm of the media will rise because there will be more nutes less water. That in turn is what knocks the ph off.
By keeping the nutes as light as you can you slow that effect right down. If they're too light it will speed it up again so it just about finding the sweet spot. Which is generally around the 350-500ppm(+ the water) mark for most strains of average 3-5oz kinda size.
 
Barney86 said:
Yeah mate thats exactly how it works. It's what's left after the plants fed that causes the ph to swing. Partly from root secretions and party from the concentration of nutes. The stronger you feed, the more the ppm of the media will rise/fall because there will be more nutes less water. That in turn is what knocks the ph off.
By keeping the nutes as light as you can you slow that effect right down. If they're too light it will speed it up again so it just about finding the sweet spot. Which is generally around the 350-500ppm(+ the water) mark for most strains of average 3-5oz kinda size.
Click to expand...

What if I want a 10oz plant :laughtwo::laughtwo:
 
d42zero said:
What if I want a 10oz plant :laughtwo::laughtwo:
Click to expand...
Asuming you know how to do it you just keep going up 50% each time the yellow kicks in mate. I've done 1 at over 20oz and she needed about 1400ppm for the first few weeks of bloom but never over 1000 for the rest of it. That was with dutch pro nutes who's recommended dose is 2500ppm so barely went over half strength. :)
 
No Pain said:
Good stuff Barney in my opinion a lot of people harvest too early ....We forget the basics of plants … all of these plants have a LIFE cycle and when its nearing the end it actually cuts down on feeding and starts to cannibalize itself, to me when you have nice fat juicy flowers and you start to see that you got about two weeks or so before they are fully ripe . To me if you wait it is smoother smoke not because of a flush per say but because the buds are vine ripened …take for instance a tomato in your grocery store they get them on the green side they are still reddish and taste like tomatoes and will ripen a little more with time but pick one that has been ripened on the vine and you get a completely different tomato profile .
Again Good write up way to give back to the community .
Click to expand...
Yeah mate fully agree. They kinda flush themselves anyway. Something only resevoir growers can really see cos we've got it on the ppm meter. Lucky if they can absorb 200ppm by the last week and once they're done they pretty much stop taking nutes altogether and just drink a little water to survive.
Don't see the point in starving them. Just cut back and the leaves all die off etc anyway.
Ooooohhh shit actually! There's a member on here showed me a link the other week. Some American dude finally done a chemical test to check the levels of everything in the buds on flushed vs non flushed plants and guess what.
Science now says that you can't flush a plant. Haha Fuck I can't believe I forgot about that. Gonna have to go track him down so I can save that link for reference. :)
 
Barney86 said:
Yeah mate fully agree. They kinda flush themselves anyway. Something only resevoir growers can really see cos we've got it on the ppm meter. Lucky if they can absorb 200ppm by the last week and once they're done they pretty much stop taking nutes altogether and just drink a little water to survive.
Don't see the point in starving them. Just cut back and the leaves all die off etc anyway.
Ooooohhh shit actually! There's a member on here showed me a link the other week. Some American dude finally done a chemical test to check the levels of everything in the buds on flushed vs non flushed plants and guess what.
Science now says that you can't flush a plant. Haha Fuck I can't believe I forgot about that. Gonna have to go track him down so I can save that link for reference. :)
Click to expand...
yeah im getting ready to give mine a res change and take it down to about 250 ppm on a 500 scale. You are right hydro growers would have the ability to see this if they let them go long enough because we monitor the feed .

yes I do remember reading/hearing something about a test now that you mention it.

as far as flavor that some people don't think about is the quality of the nutrients they give the plants . I mean nutreints are the plants life line and food source and one cannot expect to have a bodybuilder body on a junk food diet.
 
Barney86 said:
HOW TO FEED A PLANT IN COCO

This is a tried and tested, 100% full proof way to hand feed plants in coco.
Just follow a few simple rules and all will go perfectly.

13 words is all you need to know.

Feed quarter strength nutes at the right ph as often as you can.

That's it in a nutshell. 13 words.

This sounds a bit crazy but here's why that's all you need to know....
Wouldn't be science if I didn't back it up with some techno jargon and numbers now would it :)

Coco is effectively just an empty sponge.
It doesn't do anything.
Just provides something for your roots to grow in.
Coco doesn't buffer ph levels or breakdown solids into nutrient form like soil does.
It's just an empty sponge.
It abides by the same rules as DWC, NFT, ebb&flo and every other hydro method.

There are brands of coco that come preloaded with nutrients but I can't recomend strongly enough to avoid them.

For best results you really want to be watering this stuff as much as possible.
Having anything in slow release form is a bad idea because the more you water, the stronger it will get.

Due to the volume of water going through it you're also best to use around 30% perilite mixed in with the coco.
By doing this you will increase the drainage capabilities of the media.
That means you're increasing the amount of oxygen available to the roots.
And that my friends means your plants can't drown!

Let's just clarify that one too.
There is no such thing as giving too much water to a cannabis plant.
Otherwise DWC wouldn't exist would It??

The problems people get from feeding high volumes come from a lack of oxygen. Nothing else.
There are various reasons behind it but the actual problem is the lack of O2.

In a 70/30 coco/perilite mix, you can feed as much as you want and it will just run right through it, bringing more and more oxygen to the roots every time you try to drown them.

This is also why we only need to feed quarter strength nutes.
The extra oxygen from the Increased watering rates and awesome aeration of the media means the nutrients are more readily available for the plant to absorb them.

(Tbc tomorrow. Night time now. )
Click to expand...
What! Wow! Someone to help me. I have seedlings popping up in Coco Coir. That substrate was never rinsed prior to grow. I didn't know! I was under the impression from another source ph is to be 7. Si on 1st grow I did that they were beautiful ut only flowered list the smell/ cut at 100 days/2.5 oz only...... that being said I just washed out my plants with low ph H20. One plant is yellowing and not growing. The rest were starting to see the same at the bottom of the plant just a few leaves. I'm confused about EC and TDS Coco, and test meter. I Understand you don't have to calibrate the meter if it's EC. Mine is EC. I just don't want to lose again. They were pretty and big and full- just flowered no buds. I fertilized everyday at full strength for 2 weeks at a 7 ph. That being said you can see my mistakes! Light
Barney86 said:
Hi 420 !

So,
As much as possible, I like to spend my time on here helping out new coco/hydro growers.

I started out like those guys and someone spoon fed me untill I was a big boy and could handle reading a number on a stick.

I'm finding myself spending my limited time here on the wrong things though and I've finally worked out how to work my "Sig"

So here is the first of a few threads that I'll add to my Sig In order to allow me to spend my time here more productively.....
Click to expand...
 

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