Oh, and the green is just algae - it is feeding off the nutrients that are wicking up to the surface.
HashGirl's First Indoor Grow: Dark Devil Autos In Hempy, 2020
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RedZedHead
Well-Known Member
I love the setup! I'm in.
That'll work. Or you can submerge (maybe have to hold it there) the cup in a container full of room-temperature water for a while, then kind of press on the cup while rotating it, maybe press up on the bottom. Or use a single-edge razor blade to cut downwards from the rim of the cup in three or four equidistant places and peel it open like a banana. Or... Probably depends on how rootbound they are (if at all), how much of a hurry you are in, how much mess you will tolerate, whether you want to reuse the cups or just chuck them into the recycling bin, et cetera.
Yep, I definitely entered old-fart mode early, lol. The newfangled words cause me to stumble, while I think about them. Hempy is a passive hydroponic method, but it's still a hydroponic one - you fertilize every time you add water, because you water with a nutrient solution. If it feels like there's air instead of nutrient solution in your reservoir, put some in. If you were mistaken, no worries, that's what the hole in the side of the container is for
.They're like babies, you might get wet now and then when caring for them. I'm curious: Do you mix up your nutrient solution ahead of time so that you don't have to do it every day or two? If so, do you aerate it, either constantly or for at least a few minutes prior to adding some to your plant containers? I just found myself wondering if that might be how the deep water culture method got started... Gardener has nutrient solution in a big aerated container, scoops some out regularly to feed plants... Finds eself standing there, looking back and forth from the tub of nutrient solution to the plant's container, and thinks, "What if I simply stick the plant in the nutrient solution? Hmm..."
Hmm...
.Did your husband find the information about coco coir that he was seeking? I only remember a few things: You can't rinse it too many times prior to using. After rinsing, it's helpful to presoak it in a weak solution of calcium nitrate (or some other form of calcium, but that one is cheap and readily available at nurseries, gardening stores, department stores, farm supply stores...) with - optionally - some Epsom salt (or other source of magnesium, but see previous in regards to availability and price) added, to replace some of the salt ions that the coco coir is holding with calcium (and, optionally, magnesium) ones, so that you don't have to worry about it doing so after you begin feeding your plant. Also, never allow the stuff to completely dry out when you're using it. If you do, it can be rather difficult to re-wet 100% of the coco coir, you might end up with one or more "persistently dry" pockets. Which could potentially cause some minor issue or other. I don't have a clue as to how likely such issues are - but it's kind of like driving fast through standing water, lol. You could encounter an issue (at least with a rear-wheel drive vehicle). That doesn't mean you will, but why take chances?
Rambling again, I suppose. G'night!
hempy and coco are so close it really makes no sense to do both. coco becomes more work in flower if anything, as you can wind up feeding multiple times a day. the res in hempy negates that mostly. coco has other appeals though.
i feed every second day. hempy cup seedlings and clones every third or fourth to start til they get established. you can do it on schedule.
it's really hard to overwater a hempy, and they benefit from keeping the res fresh. frequent feedings means the ph stays reasonable, and oxygen gets pulled in on a regular basis.
as they get older they'll use up more and more of the res, it's ok to let them have a bit of a dry cycle between feedings. this will happen after they've gotten bigger and the roots have hit the res. you've a ways to go yet.
a good measure to up pot is when the leaves hit the sides of the hempy cup. i hope you are not too early. the cups work for seedlings because the water doesn't have to wick so high up in the cup. it will be a little drier up at the top of the bucket.
if you plug the hole and let stand before draining when you feed, you should be ok. (flood and drain approach)
i feed every second day. hempy cup seedlings and clones every third or fourth to start til they get established. you can do it on schedule.
it's really hard to overwater a hempy, and they benefit from keeping the res fresh. frequent feedings means the ph stays reasonable, and oxygen gets pulled in on a regular basis.
as they get older they'll use up more and more of the res, it's ok to let them have a bit of a dry cycle between feedings. this will happen after they've gotten bigger and the roots have hit the res. you've a ways to go yet.
a good measure to up pot is when the leaves hit the sides of the hempy cup. i hope you are not too early. the cups work for seedlings because the water doesn't have to wick so high up in the cup. it will be a little drier up at the top of the bucket.
if you plug the hole and let stand before draining when you feed, you should be ok. (flood and drain approach)
Hempy and coco are not mutually exclusive. Hempy is the type of passive drain-to-waste hydro with the drain hole in the side of the bucket creating the reservoir. Next question is what type of inert grow medium to use with the hempy. the grow medium can be perlite, coco, a perlite/vermiculite mix, etc.
In other words, hempy is the style of growing and coco is the medium.
In other, other words, why not use coco as the medium in a hempy?
Hempy and coco are not mutually exclusive. Hempy is the type of passive drain-to-waste hydro with the drain hole in the side of the bucket creating the reservoir. Next question is what type of inert grow medium to use with the hempy. the grow medium can be perlite, coco, a perlite/vermiculite mix, etc.
In other words, hempy is the style of growing and coco is the medium.
In other, other words, why not use coco as the medium in a hempy?
the distinction is hempy utilizes hard sided buckets, has a reservoir, and the media is straight perlite, or a perlite and vermiculite mix. feeding and ph rules are similar but different. coco can use either soft or hard buckets, and was not originally built to use with a reservoir.
coco is a different concept, based on an industry product ( the coco ), designed to appeal to indoor soilless soil growers.
soilless soil is inert soil like HP promix.
hempy is a total diy approach developed entirely outside of the market.
as passive hydro it's possible to do "hempy" with hydroton. i grew passive in hydroton over 20 yrs ago, long before the terminology.
OK...So the problem with using coco in a hempy bucket is?
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- #148
Felipe. I told Felonious that the green wasn't an issue but he wanted me to ask anyways. 
Nothing to worry about. 
- Thread starter
- #150
Before I got those instructions from Sue, the bolded section above is how I envisioned transplanting them but I asked Sue just to make sure I got it right. For DDA1, I kind of wish I had done it this way since its one long thin root was tangled in the perlite and it was difficult to get loose. Cutting the cup, I could have just eased the perlite and seedling all at once into the hole in the 5L pot.
Yep, I definitely entered old-fart mode early, lol. The newfangled words cause me to stumble, while I think about them. Hempy is a passive hydroponic method, but it's still a hydroponic one - you fertilize every time you add water, because you water with a nutrient solution. If it feels like there's air instead of nutrient solution in your reservoir, put some in. If you were mistaken, no worries, that's what the hole in the side of the container is for
Fertigate seemed easier to use than always typing out water and nutes.
I have been mixing up the nutrient solution each time I water. Felonious said that it wasn't advisable to mix up a bunch ahead of time.
Hmm...
Did your husband find the information about coco coir that he was seeking? I only remember a few things: You can't rinse it too many times prior to using. After rinsing, it's helpful to presoak it in a weak solution of calcium nitrate (or some other form of calcium, but that one is cheap and readily available at nurseries, gardening stores, department stores, farm supply stores...) with - optionally - some Epsom salt (or other source of magnesium, but see previous in regards to availability and price) added, to replace some of the salt ions that the coco coir is holding with calcium (and, optionally, magnesium) ones, so that you don't have to worry about it doing so after you begin feeding your plant. Also, never allow the stuff to completely dry out when you're using it. If you do, it can be rather difficult to re-wet 100% of the coco coir, you might end up with one or more "persistently dry" pockets. Which could potentially cause some minor issue or other. I don't have a clue as to how likely such issues are - but it's kind of like driving fast through standing water, lol. You could encounter an issue (at least with a rear-wheel drive vehicle). That doesn't mean you will, but why take chances?
Rambling again, I suppose. G'night!
I sent him the link to Pennywise's journal but he said it was 300 pages and he didn't have time to go through all that. I told him that the information he was seeking was probably available in the first 10 to 20 pages since that's what I found with the Hempy Headquarters thread, which I never finished getting through. I will share the info above with him. Thank you, TS.
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- Thread starter
- #151
Thank you, bluter.
I'm not doing perlite and coco. I'm growing in perlite and my husband (Felonious) is growing in coco. His grow is separate from mine mostly. His one Dark Devil is in my tent with my 2 Dark Devils because they're on the same light schedule so it made sense.
And, I up potted early because I'm growing autos and @SweetSue said to transplant autos early because they don't like being transplanted at all.
So, you're saying that while the plants are still seedlings to only water and fertilize every 3 to 4 days and once they get bigger (how big?), that would change to every other day? Or, are you saying that when they're in the Solo cups they get water and nutes every 3 to 4 days and when they're up potted, that changes to every other day?
It isn’t necessary to untangle the roots from the perlite. The more attached, the better
You are very quick Krip! 
Piña Delores
Well-Known Member
All caught up.
Sounds like there's a competition brewing at your place.
Anyone running a book? My money's on you
Sounds like there's a competition brewing at your place.
Anyone running a book? My money's on you
While they’re still small you can get away with watering every 3-4 days. I had success when I kept that schedule up until they showed dramatic growth, (some here around 2-3 weeks in) and then I switched to every other day.
OK...So the problem with using coco in a hempy bucket is?
no issue. it won't wick as well and may break down a bit more than in a normal grow. it's works fine though, and several have done it. it's originally intended for a different style of grow.
pretty much how i approach it as well.
LOL.
It's not "the coco," it's coir. Although referring to it as coco coir (or, occasionally, coconut coir) is common, it's not technically correct (and somewhat comparable to referring to a tree as a wood tree).
The guy who first started telling people about it via the Internet, via the a.d.p.c Usenet newsgroup, because only pointy-head types had heard of the world wide web at the time, used a 50:50 mix of perlite and vermiculite. So, if you want to get pissy about it and demand "the original," you'll need to declare that a 100% perlite medium isn't a hempy setup, either.
Or you can just do what he did, and state that the hempy isn't the medium, it's "a bucket with a hole in it." Later clarified, for the anal retentive, to mean any container that would hold water, when the gardener drills/cuts/melts/chews a hole partway up the side in order to turn the lower portion of said container into an onboard reservoir.
In other words...
...is correct.
BtW, it seems somewhat... odd to state on the one hand that coir is an industry product, and on the other that hempy is a "total DiY approach," as if the medium used in (your definition of) hempy is any less an industry product. Perlite, as used in agriculture is expanded. That requires heating to 1,560–1,650 °F - something the average do-it-yourselfer is probably not equipped for
. You mentioned hydroton. IIRC, that was a brand name for the product from a German manufacturer (and it looks like it might be discontinued, maybe that old 50-liter bag in the basement is now a collector's item, lol?). The generic terminology for the product is lightweight expanded clay aggregate. Expanded - again, a good bit of heat is required in order to make the stuff. In this case, 2,190 °F (in a rotary kiln). So, again, an industry product.Coir has been around as "a product" since at least as far back as the first century, A.D. - a time when "DIY" was pretty much a way of life.
I'm not entirely certain what you mean, here. By definition, the hempy method IS a form of passive hydroponics - but it's like squares and rectangles - all hempies are passive hydroponic setups... but not all passive hydroponic setups are hempies; all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
Which terminology, specifically? Passive hydroponics? The first known use of the word "hydroponics" was in 1937, but the "passive" modifier would have come later (I don't know of any active hydroponic experiments in 1937, so it would have been a bit of an anachronism to have used it at that time. The earliest example that I, personally, know of was in a thin book on hydroponics I discovered in my local library back in the early 1980s that had a copyright date of 1972. Hydroton? That first got marketed 1981 or 1982, if I remember correctly (possibly not?), long after the stuff was first created back in 1917.
If you meant long before the term "hempy" was used... Entirely possible, I suppose. The term wasn't used - in relation to the growing of cannabis via this method, I mean - until the late '90s, maybe... 1997? I honestly don't remember, and all my old alt.drugs.pot.cultivation Usenet archives are on Commoodre 1581 5¼" floppies and PC-compatible Zip disks. I no longer have my Commodore computer hardware and, while I still have a Zip drive around here somewhere, it has a parallel port - and this laptop doesn't. I should probably run the big magnet across all that magnetic media and throw it away, but I hate the thought of doing so. Maybe I'll get lucky at a yard sale one of these days, IDK.
Anyway, yeah, it's not the choice of media - it's a container that the gardener has put a hole low down on the side of, for the purpose of turning the volume below the hole into a passive hydroponic reservoir. Use almost anything you like (he did once tell someone, "No, not soil") for media/substrate. For that matter, modify anything you want, if that means it ends up working better for you. Turn it into a small active(ly aerated) hydroponic setup, even. But that's truly not a "hempy." <SHRUGS> But that's only important to people who want to get technical about it, I assume
.
I told Felonious that the green wasn't an issue but he wanted me to ask anyways.
The only stupid question is one that a person has already asked and received the answer to. Er... My mind being much like a rotted-out floor in an old building (mind the holes, please
), I readily admit to occasionally asking a stupid question.That was just a random comment. At harvest time, if you take a look at the root zone area, you'll discover that the green algae only exists where the light reaches. IOW, the surface and maybe where the hole is. If you cover the top of your container with some sort of opaque material, you won't have the chlorophyll-using algae on top. But it might lead to actual issues, so you might as well live with it. If it displeases you, you could try putting some hydrogen peroxide in an empty spray bottle and misting it regularly. H2O2 decomposes into H2O and O2.
Fertigate seemed easier to use than always typing out water and nutes.
I was just having a little fun.
You're using General Hydroponics' three-part Flora series, aren't you? If so, it'll probably be fine. Keep the mixed solution sealed/covered/uncontaminated. Don't let the temperature drop a great deal (IOW, don't freeze it). Shake the s... not out of it before using. If you think about it, that stuff "sets" in people's DWC reservoirs for a while.
But if it worries you, mix it up fresh each time.
I don't know whether this current forum software allows a person to search a thread and get a results list of posts that are only the ones authored by the thread creator (IOW, the person whose journal it is). If so, that would help a lot. If not... IDK. You could do an advanced "site" search via Google, if the person didn't include their user name in the thread title (you'd just get every single post, lol).
There are "coir-specific" nutrients, such as CANNA's CANNA Coco line:
Code:
https://www.cannagardening.com/coco...and General Hydroponics' CocoTek stuff:
Code:
https://generalhydroponics.com/cocotek-nutrientWhile not necessary, they might make things easier for someone who doesn't have much experience of growing cannabis in coir.
Feed/water when needed. The plant sets the schedule. People's suggestions vis-à-vis frequency are just general recommendations. Grab a container that's the same size as the one(s) you're using. Fill it/them with perlite. Pick it up. Don't ever let your containers get that light, lol. Now create a hole in that container / those containers that matches the one(s) you're using. Put water in them until it starts leaking out. Give it a few minutes, then add more. Wait a while to make sure they've finished draining. Lift them again. When your containers feel like they have that much mass, you can assume their reservoirs are full. Yes, you'll have a plant growing in your in-use containers - but at seedling- and near seedling-size, it's not going to weigh much. And, by the time it does, you'll have figured out the whole concept of adding nutrient solution, methinks. You just currently have a case of that classic cannabis gardener thing, "newbie overthinking it"
.