Hey folks, Sky your a breath of fresh air, LOL.
Well with watering, there are two schools of thoughts, but I am going to talk about the method I use because I have found that most use it and i think that it puts plants on par with hydro.
I hand water my plants every day, rooted clones get just enough to get a little run off and once in the 3 gallon pots they are on a half gallon a day feeding. This allows the roots to be like the roots in a hydro system IE massive.
I water every day and the coco is still very wet from the day before, but there is really no fear of over watering coco for the fact that coco carries a 60% airation with in the medium and as I water the new water pushes the old stagnate water out and as the new water sinks into the soil it not only brings in new O2 threw the water, but pulls in new O2 from the room. When I water I can litterly hear the water and air penetrating the coco, kind of like a bowl of rice crispies.
I use 3 gallon pots because I want 4 to 6 ounces off each plant give or take, but with 2 gallon pots I think that 3 to 5 ounce yields are reasonable too. The one thing is you do use allot of water, but I just have a 15 and 30 gallon Tupperware container that I constantly keep full with 5 gallon buckets so I am not making new batches of water every day. I keep 1 air stone in the water to keep it from going stagnate. Warning, not all organic nutes should be constantly aerated because they can loos some of there NPK values.
On the other hand coco holds so much water and O2 that if you want you can just water every few days and will have no problems, but the roots will grow more like a soil grow and you will need bigger pots for bigger yields IMO.
Sky, that pump should be fine for a 8 large plant set up, 3 gallons at a half gallon per day, or more plants with smaller pots. Once my room is on the same cycle, all the girls starting at the same time I will automate the room and just run a dripper to each pot and have them on a timer.
Sky you should be able to find coco at most garden stores from what I am starting to notice. If you can get the bags of loose coco it is nice, but I use GH coco bricks because know one up here carries the bags. The brick can contain some sodium so I just flush it by adding a bunch of water when I expand the brick and the run off that the coco gets when I put in the pot seems to be sufficient to flush the coco.
Now with nutes, many will only use coco specific nutes, but I have great success with the GH and CalMag IMO is a must when in coco for the fact that coco buffers calcium and magnesium different that soil and strait hydro, so that CalMag at half strength every feeding keeps me from running into defs.
Well, I am sure I will remember more later, as a matter of fact, the coco is nice because unlike hydro temps are not a medium problem like when you have water in a res which may need a chiller that can run approx 500 bucks. The coco seems to stay somewhat cool, cooler than soil and I could probably find out why, but I just don't feel like digging all around for one small point of why I use it.
Well, hope that this info helps. Feel free to ask any more questions, this seems like a short essay in it self.
PS, Sky SuperThrive is at my local store, but if you don't find it I would just keep using the vit B from Home Depot. I would put a ML in a gallon and thin a spray bottle for misting as well.