"After sprouting, seeds were placed in Solo cups with Coco/Perlite mix.
Then watered with water only (pH = 7.0 or real close)"


Got two comments.

Coco is often called solid state hydro.
It works very well but does require a much lower PH, (There's no buffering)
It's best with a PH of 5.2 - 5.8.


My local nursery was out of Botanicare bricks.
So, I decided to try a bag of Black Gold uncompressed coco.

Wiped me out!
Killed everything I tried to sprout in it!

Tasted OK, (I always taste the medium), smelled fine, no visible critters, even under 400x magnification.
Rinsed it well, though I've never had to rinse Botanicare.
No clues in the runoff.
Had me scratchin' new holes in my head.

All I can figure is microbial critters.

My Mickey mouse microscope only goes to 400x.
Baked some of the BG coco in the oven and stunk up my kitchen.
Tried "flushing" with boiling water.
Old, same, shit!
Tossed the rest of the BG and sterilized everything.
Bought a Botanicare brick and started over.

Immediately reinfected!
That's the problem with microbes, one itty speck of coco can harbor millions of spores.

So, I hired some "hit-bugs" from OGbiowar.
Germ warfare!
Got umpty-million goodguy minions on the job.
The battle rages in the underground.

All my yellow, sickly, veggies immediately perked up and sprouted new, healthy, green leaf.
After a week they looked like healthy plants grafted to fuckulated mutant stock.

Now I add some "good wee beasties" to my coco during re-hydration.
My sprouts are looking good so far.

Disclaimer:

This is all guesswork born of desperation.

I don't own any stock in OGbiowar.
Don't even know if it's that kind of company
If I had any cash, I'd look into it though.

Aloha,
Weezard