Help please

[Chris209]

I've started seeds in coco and have a home made mix ready to transplant in to when ready. It's indoor, auto, and I just want to check the mix to see if it's ok. It is 25 litres for 5x5ltr pots
60% coco fibre
30% perlite
10% worm castings
3 tablespoons of fish blood and bone Half tablespoon Epsom salts
4 handfuls chicken manure pellets

I have A&B to feed later, would this mix be ok or do I need to re-do?

 

[013]

Hmmm I’m not a coco grower but coco is not soil. Coco is a hydro format and it is intended to be used with bottle nutrients. I don’t think you can mix worm castings, chicken manure, fish, blood or bone meal into coco. I’m mean yeah sure you can add them but I suspect troubles will arise pretty quickly.
Coco lacks the microbes to breakdown those elements into useful food for your plant. Now that same mix of ingredients would be good in a peat based substrate.

Emilya or Nunyabiz will be around in a few and can elaborate more.

 

[SmokingWings]

There was a guy who experimented with using organic style of nutrients in a coco and perlite mix. I don't think it worked out well.

But, others are experimenting with coco and organics with some success. It seems to take a couple of attempts before they get the plants to grow properly.

You might want to poke around at some of the threads in the hydro and coco sections and see what is what there.

 

[Chris209]

There was a guy who experimented with using organic style of nutrients in a coco and perlite mix. I don't think it worked out well.

But, others are experimenting with coco and organics with some success. It seems to take a couple of attempts before they get the plants to grow properly.

You might want to poke around at some of the threads in the hydro and coco sections and see what is what there.

Thanks.

 

[013]

Hey Chris,

I was slamming to get out the door this morning. Hope I didn’t discourage you in any way, that is never my intent. I just know from a new growers’ perspective there are so many systems for growing yet they are not all directly interchangeable. Don’t make the mistake of calling your coco - soil. Tell them straight up it’s coco, or that will lead to confusions here on the help boards. Coco looks like soil but it has to be treated uniquely, technically speaking coco is a hydro growing method. Coco is inert and there are zero nutrients in coco unless the bag says it’s pre-charged with nutrients. Typically coco is a rather sterile environment and generally speaking coco does not mix well with organic type nutrients like guano, worm castings etc. But once again I don’t grow in coco but have picked up a bit of the methods used for those types of grows.

Anyway wanted to follow up and wish you the best of luck!

 

[Chris209]

Hmmm I’m not a coco grower but coco is not soil. Coco is a hydro format and it is intended to be used with bottle nutrients. I don’t think you can mix worm castings, chicken manure, fish, blood or bone meal into coco. I’m mean yeah sure you can add them but I suspect troubles will arise pretty quickly.
Coco lacks the microbes to breakdown those elements into useful food for your plant. Now that same mix of ingredients would be good in a peat based substrate.

Emilya or Nunyabiz will be around in a few and can elaborate more.

Thanks.

Hey Chris,

I was slamming to get out the door this morning. Hope I didn’t discourage you in any way, that is never my intent. I just know from a new growers’ perspective there are so many systems for growing yet they are not all directly interchangeable. Don’t make the mistake of calling your coco - soil. Tell them straight up it’s coco, or that will lead to confusions here on the help boards. Coco looks like soil but it has to be treated uniquely, technically speaking coco is a hydro growing method. Coco is inert and there are zero nutrients in coco. Typically coco is a rather sterile environment and generally speaking coco does not mix well with organic type nutrients like guano, worm castings etc. But once again I don’t grow in coco but have picked up a bit of the methods used for those types of grows.

Anyway wanted to follow up and wish you the best of luck!

Hey, thanks a lot. I had a good look around the forums today and I understand what you're saying now. Story of my life, over complicating...
I purchased a mix like suggested in a few responses, Biobiz All-mix, It consists of 20% sphagnum peat moss, 35% garden peat, 10% high quality organic BioBizz Worm-Humus, 30% perlite and 5% BioBizz Pre-Mix.
I have A&B and cal-mag also.
I think I made another newb mistake too, started seeds in pure coco, not realising it had no nutrients. They've popped and are just appearing so was thinking to top dress with the mix just to provide some nutrients until I transplant to final pot.

 

[013]

Cool deal, awesome job on doing your own digging on the boards here. You will be fine and when a problem arises someone is always here! That’s hard for me cuz I don’t know what’s in 1/10 of these products and yes when you cross the pond it’s different still. Even US and Canada, they cant get half our products up north.

keep after it and great idea on the top dress - you’ve got this!

 

[Bubbalove]

Hey Chris, seems like you have all the solutions already. However, I wanted to throw a little spin on it with the success I have had with autos if thats cool. For the most part, autos dont need as much in the way of nutes as photoperiod plants require (my opinion), there are some hungry strains out there, but for the most part they are light nibblers. For my auto mix, I use peet based products such as ProMix HP. Its essentially peet moss and perlite with some mycorrhizae. The mycorrhizae helps with root development. I drop the seed right in the middle and water the seed a little each day (keeping it moist, not soaked) under my light - I do not do a dark sprout with autos. For the fertilizer I use 1 cup of an organic product that is 4-6-4 for a 5 gal pot. I use something called Sustane, its cheap, organic and works awesome (you can buy it at a turf supply store). You can use Gaia Greens or some product like that but the price tag is substantial in comparison. Reason I use a 5 gal, well I like bigger pots. But you can amend the amount to suit whatever pot size you are wanting to use. Some guys prefer 1 gals. Once the gals are growing well and a decent size I then like to top dress it once a month with a couple tablespoons of the 4-6-4. For the last month I do not add anything and it seems to go decent. I just finished off some StarDawg from FastBuds and it kicked my butt... Throw in a worm casting tea with a little 4-6-4 (the first tea do not add until your past month 1) in there every 2 weeks and your going to get some decent dank. Sometimes if she looks a little behind in the first month I do a mycorrhizae tea with no nutes. Just to give those roots a little push... Make sure to start a journal so we can watch those ladies develop!