Plain water between feeds

[al70]

Hi all, been growing in my 8x4 tent for a while now, no expert but i'm getting along just fine with the GWE site, i got a question, i use canna coco pro. along with the GH trio useing the feeding schedule found on GWE site, on the site it recommends plain ph'd water every other feed but i read somewhere else that putting plain water through coco will upset the cation, what does that mean ?? i'm guessing that plain water every other feed means just a splash and not water to runoff, i'm not sure so i'd like some advice from you guys, any input is much appreciated, cheers n goodluck.

 

[Waltermelon]

I always use plain water between my feeds and hadn't had an issue yet. For me I use the water day to flush salts from the coco. I use water and 1ml of "heavy 16 roots" on the water days and water till runoff.

 

[al70]

Hi watermelon, thanks for the quick reply first of all, so what is this { cation } thing that i'm hearing about, i dont know what [heavy 16 roots] is, so you're not actually plain watering between feeds, you're adding something, is there a reason for this, goodluck.

 

[Dutchman1]

Ya, you want to still water to runoff on a water only day.

 

[al70]

Did ye ever hear this stuff about f#';'#g up the cation in the coco ?

 

[Waltermelon]

Not sure what "cation" is but I'm sure a quick Google would let me know. I try not to cloud my mind with hyper technical terms, I'm a mechanic not a scientist lol.
I don't really count 1ml of mostly water solution in a container with 3785.41ml as adding anything. You'll probably get more tds in tap water, or residual nutes in the cooc than ro water with 1ml solution added.
The reason for the roots solution is that it does a great job of breaking down salts. I do use mostly salt ferts, mono potassium phosphate and potassium sulfate. The roots solution is really effective for clearing salts.

 

[Obi-Wan]

Without getting too scientific, cations are positively charged atoms or molecules. CEC or Cation Exchange Capacity refers to the ability of a soil or in this case Coco, to exchange or hold certain minerals(sodium, potassium, calcium, and Magnesium). Coco naturally wants to hold more sodium and potassium so it needs to be buffered to equalize the CEC to hold more Calcium and Magnesium. This is why most growers rehydrate their coco with water treated with a cal-mag product.

If you are concerned about disrupting the CEC, simply add a Cal-mag supplement to your water. So it would go...feed, feed, water with cal-mag.

 

[al70]

Thank you very much obi wan, that's the answer i've been looking for, i've been havin mag.def. issues useing, tap water, gh trio micro for hard water + epsom, gonna try this, thin it out,it makes sense now, cheers, goodluck.

 

[al70]

aahhhh gonna have to get scientific, got a cheap ph meter ec meter, got 35 seeds here, i'm gonna run a journal, i use drop test, obviously not getting right feedback, be back, be good, goodluck.