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First coco grow, can I feed with 1/4 strength nutes every water?

R

roperman

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Had some problems with yellow tips and am wondering if I can go with lower strength nutes, every watering with a lot of runoff. I have 5 gallon cloth pots, thinking two gallons each feed, so I get at least 3 or 4 quarts runnoff. I'm using GH nutes and calmag. Thinking to feed every two days. What do you think? Thanks.
 
I’m not a coco grower but if I were I’d check out nebulas tutorial using the gh nutes you are using. She has a feed chart and everything on there and I know several users here have had great success using that as a base.
 
If you are watering 2 gallons and getting 1 gallon as runoff you are wasting nutes. Try using less water. If you water with one gallon and get half a quart of runoff that would be enough.
 
it takes 1/4 of pot size, volume of water to get runoff. 5 gallon pots only need 1.25 gallons of aqua to achieve runoff. And thats barely any runoff. Its unlikely that one gallon will achieve any runoff let alone a quart(maybe with a lot of perlite).
 
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roperman said:
Had some problems with yellow tips and am wondering if I can go with lower strength nutes, every watering with a lot of runoff. I have 5 gallon cloth pots, thinking two gallons each feed, so I get at least 3 or 4 quarts runnoff. I'm using GH nutes and calmag. Thinking to feed every two days. What do you think? Thanks.
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Hey roperman, I'm just the guy you need to talk to! ;) I have been giving my last two coco grows GH FloraSeries + GH CALiMAGic every day or even three times a day using Nebula's coco feeding schedule, but diluted about 50%.

Like you, I got tip burn using it full strength every day, so now I'm using 100% of her recommended CaliMagic dose throughout the grow (we have very soft water here with no minerals, so I'm essentially running RO water) but 60% strength (max--you can use less) of the recommended FloraSeries.

Last grow was coco coir outdoors and daily drain to waste. This time it's indoors, automatically watering 3x daily during 24 hour light veg and 2x daily during 12-hour flower, recirculating the runoff into a reservoir. The timer runs the feed pump for two minutes so the plant gets over a gallon of nutes, but it all drains back into the reservoir, so no big deal.

I find that the recommended dose of CaliMagic is 400 PPM using the higher dose in the first weeks, then 200 PPM with the lower recommended dose later in the grow.

For the "Transition" nutes, you have about 200 PPM from the CaliMagic and about another 200 PPM of NPK from the half-strength FloraSeries for about 400 PPM or so total.

I have found that this setup with automatic watering and feeding and a reservoir means I can ignore the plant for a week if I need to, which was exactly my plan. When I was watering manually daily, I was a slave to my plant and couldn't take a vacation! And the plant is very happy. :)

Just one more note: Drain to waste is great because you never have to worry about nute replenishment, but recirculating with this dilute mix, I have to keep an eye on the PPMs in the reservoir and I sometimes give it a "bump" with a gallon or two of full strength just to top it off and make up for nutes used up by a rapidly growing plant.

Oh, I have about 6 gallons of coco coir with 30% perlite in a plastic woven wastebasket from Target that's lined with burlap, which make for a very nice air pot.

Coco is so easy and forgiving, and with a little aquarium pump on a timer, it's super easy. All I have to do is keep training her under her screen and defoliating the excess bushiness.
 
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9fingerleafs said:
If you are watering 2 gallons and getting 1 gallon as runoff you are wasting nutes. Try using less water. If you water with one gallon and get half a quart of runoff that would be enough.
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This is good info thats a huge waste. I never water til runoff with nutes. I give just enough. I check all levels when I water til runoff on water only days.
 
You can do whatever you want to. They are yours. I personally use a feed, water, water schedule at full strength and just a splash of additives on the water days. A lot of the yellowing issues can be solved by playing with your lights and you don't always have to add nutes. Moving your light up or down just 2-3" could solve your issues.
 
Your setup sounds pretty sweet, I was thinking of trying to set up a similar system in the future. Something where I can dictate when to spend the time with my plants. Currently watering my big tent is about an hour long process.
 
You mainly do that if you feed full strength helps control the ph levels and so you can feed full strength it helps stop the burns and in a 5gal pot you should do a gallon and half.
 
> Your setup sounds pretty sweet, I was thinking of trying to set up a similar system in the future. Something where I can dictate when to spend the time with my plants. Currently watering my big tent is about an hour long process.

Thanks. I used a $15 submersible aquarium circulation pump from the pet store operated by a digital timer plus some clear tubing and drip watering fittings from Home Depot--really cheap, simple, and easy.
I connected the pump to a six-outlet manifold from Home Depot, which not only distributes six ways but lets you adjust the flow. (Iearned about it here on the bubbleponics tutorial where this is a picture of it in action.).
As soon as this grow is done, I'm moving the pump setup onto my balcony to autowater my flowers and tomatoes this summer. Automation! Gotta love it! :)
 
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I guess the idea of the large volume was to avoid salt build up, if I'm using nutes every feeding. I've only got two plants going at the moment so making the extra isn't much of a problem for me. I'm planning on 1.6 gallons per plant, every feeding, using the same nutes you'd use in one gallon.
 
Yes, a sweet setup. I'm imagining your pots are elevated and above your reservoir and somehow the runoff drains back into the reservoir. Are you in a tent? I have a 4x4 that's 7 feet high... I'm trying to figure out how I'd collect runoff from both plants. I have them sitting on wire racks and I looked around and found two Sterlite storage bins that fit under the racks. I dump each one after the plant stops dripping. I could use both of them as the reservoir I guess if I could connect them together somehow. I bought a programmable drip pump when I was away for a week, so I am still using that for watering, very convenient. Since the tent is closed most of the time, I would think this would add a bunch to the humidity, and since I'm in flower, I'm reluctant to do that. Haven't pulled the plug yet and got a dehumidifier in my office where the tent is.

Here's the pump I got if anyone is interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0743F4532/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You say your nutes are diluted about 50% which is 1/4 strength. I figured out that if I use nutes for one gallon and using 1.6 gallons of water, that would give me 60% of the 1/2 strength, or a little more than 1/4 strength, more like 1/3 strength. Since 1.6 gallons would give me decent runoff each time, seemed like an easy change to my routine.

I appreciate the time you took to explain your setup.
 
Could you describe how you connected your aquarium pump to that manifold? It's designed to screw into half inch pipe, thanks.
 
I would mix it per gallon not split the feed between the 2gallons at that point your diluting the feed to 1/2 strength then
 
Exactly cause coco is like hydro so you want to fill that baby up and flush it out for good ph and no salt build ups, but only feed once a week and eventually you will be watering in between feeds, towards the last month and a half of my grow I would feed then water then feed and flush and that was every 3 to 4 days but i got super low humidity and the root ball filling it up completely to thank for that
 
How many gallons is your reservoir? Going to try this for my next grow. I'm imagining 4 large funnels catching the runoff from four plants into a 4 gallon res. The reservoir might be outside the tent if I can rig that. Thanks.
 
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