Bizarre runoff in coco...??

[colour]

I use a 50/50 mix of Roots Organic coir and hydroton. I just tested the runoff and I'm getting 6.5 pH and 1500+ ppm.

I feed every morning with AN 3 part & CalMag. pH @ 5.6, 900 ppm.

What is causing the intense runoff?

colour Reviewed by colour on 05-21-2010. Bizarre runoff in coco...?? I use a 50/50 mix of Roots Organic coir and hydroton. I just tested the runoff and I'm getting 6.5 pH and 1500+ ppm. I feed every morning with AN 3 part & CalMag. pH @ 5.6, 900 ppm. What is causing the intense runoff? Rating: 5

[colour]

No ardent coco'ers?

[demoreal]

it is funny you say that. I do not know about coco but today at the hydro store I met this guy that just started using it and he said he loves it but everytime he checks runoff his tds is 200ppm higher than what he fed it.
I do not know about coco so someone else must answer.
does coco have a bunch of salt in it?
are you supposed to give it a good pre flush?
he said even during the pre flush he would always get a huge jump in tds, no matter how many times he flushed it. Even with all this hell he claims his plants are doing amazing in it. He likes it much better than rockwool which he used to use (I use rockwool).
I would like to learn too. I would like to try coco out.

[colour]

You know, I have six going right now and the 3 youngest ones are giving the highest tds reading- 900 in and 1600 out- and are looking the best!...strange. Most would say leave them alone but its just unsettling.

This morning I began the flushing process to try and reset the values. They call for a lot of water. This will take a while.

What sold me on coco is a video I found on youtube. Look up Canna Coco and watch the 3 part video. Good stuff.

[PhatJay]

Not many people on these forums grow in coco, so it might take a few days for you to get a reply. I use Canna Coco in pots, I know I should, but I have never bothered to read my outgoing TDS. I am going to be feeding in a few hours so I will take a TDS reading from the runoff and see what results I get.

does coco have a bunch of salt in it?
are you supposed to give it a good pre flush?

Coco has some salt in it, but it is supposed to be removed during the manufacturing process. There is no need to flush it before use, but I would suggest going with a tried and trusted brand.

[Weezard]

No ardent coco'ers?

There's a few of us.

Coco runoff is very different from soil, as you have seen.

Runoff readings are meaningless for PH. (Actully, that's a good thing, gives you a buffer.)
Runoff ppm is also "mis-leading"
"Flushing" coco is a bad idea.
Again, it is not soil.
Flushed coco is too clean and will suck elements out of your plants with osmotic pressure.
OK, there's just too much information to stuff into one post.

Do a search for coco and read yerself blind.


Do have one important tip though.
Coco is a cation exchange medium.
It needs CalMag with the first watering, but if you add Calmag to every watering, Phosphorus gets locked out, and they look like dis:
[attachment=o245563]

Very attractive, very potent, very tasty, but not healthy.

Aloha,
Weezard

[demoreal]

what do coco growers do if they are in a recirculating system?
It would drive me crazy.

[PhatJay]

Well I took some readings, my girls are 8 weeks into flower. I got 750ppm in and 1100 out.

[Weezard]

what do coco growers do if they are in a recirculating system?
It would drive me crazy.

How so?
As long as the water is carrying as much air as it will hold, and reasonable, (read lowish), nute levels, and keeps moving, you can treat coco like Hydrotron.:thumbsup:
You just can't treat it like rockwool, or soil.

Aloha,

Weezard

[khyberkitsune]

Let me weigh in.

For one, Coco can and will dissolve given certain pH swings from acidic to basic and back. And if you thought those were bad, I've had TDS swings upwards of +1000. This is why I quit using meters and went back with basic stuff and DWC. I know the medium will break down eventually and that most of it is insoluble to plants without a suitable microculture (which I almost never run though I should,) and thus it will either buffer or interfere with your nutrients, depending upon relative levels and composition of breaking medium.

Runoff is almost useless unless you have initial input levels and output readings of equal volumes of liquid to determine how the medium is acting as a buffer/filter/storage medium. On top of that, it would *REALLY* help to get a soil NPK/pH testing kit. Saves my ass every year outdoors on some herbs (most other plants don't seem to care too much but rosemary and lavendar are apparently picky bitches!)

What they need to do is make a laser-based soil analyzer. You can easily determine what's going on by watching soil emissions, whether or not it has a healthy bacterial culture, whether or not enough oxygen is present for roots, ditto nitrates, etc.

Sadly that's probably another decade away, even with my research and failed attempts at building such things since high school, 13 years ago!