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 webster10
Registered: 12/15/13
Posts: 466
Last seen: 9 years, 26 days
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 How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? 
#754721 - 10/26/14 04:11 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I'm going to be putting my mothers in coco in maybe 2 gallon pots. I'm only going to have 3 mothers so I decided that hand watering coco would be the best setup for a mix of growth rate/maintenance. I'm gonna water once a day but what I'm wondering is what to do with the runoff? Should I put a tray under them and water and then remove the tray and empty outside of the grow room? That seems like it'd be a hassle having to do it every day.
Is coco even the best thing to be using in this scenario? I didn't want to go hydro with these because I'd need another res, pump and timer all for only 3 plants.
Should I just use soil so I only have to do the trey thing once every few days?
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 Magash
The Feminizer
Registered: 04/21/08
Posts: 6,634
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: webster10]
#754724 - 10/26/14 04:38 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I use to just leave the water in the tray. Never had any problems.
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All creatures tremble when faced with violence. All creatures fear death, all love life. If we can only see ourselves in others, then how could we possibly hurt another creature?
 Join us at the Growery!
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webster10
Registered: 12/15/13
Posts: 466
Last seen: 9 years, 26 days
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: Magash]
#754757 - 10/26/14 08:38 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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With soil or coco? And would the evaporation not create enough humidity to do anything?
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phychotron
Medicated
Registered: 02/17/11
Posts: 1,995
Loc: Earth (mostly) 
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: webster10]
#754762 - 10/26/14 11:13 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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http://www.growery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/704152
http://www.growery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/722233
that's got my water system and setup. I set up the flood trays so I can drain it when I flush. Flushing without trays sucks, moving to flush sucks, the trays allow them to stay put.
Sometimes the plants get too much water, I was lazy and let it stay flooded (with the bottom inch or so of the pots under water) and they were fine this last time. Probably not ideal but worked.
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Any help given is for educational purposes only. Its your responsibility not to break any applicable laws
 Bamboo Bongs I make | Perfect Dry and Cure | Grapegod under LED
“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player.” ~ Albert Einstein
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Magash
The Feminizer
Registered: 04/21/08
Posts: 6,634
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: webster10]
#754763 - 10/26/14 11:38 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
webster10 said:
With soil or coco? And would the evaporation not create enough humidity to do anything?
Soil, I hate coco for growing plants.(I have no good reason for this but I hate it with a passion). Humidity wasn't a problem. Remember when hand watering the majority of the water is lost to evaporation weather there is water in the trays or not. I use far less water now that I'm hydro then when using soil.
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All creatures tremble when faced with violence. All creatures fear death, all love life. If we can only see ourselves in others, then how could we possibly hurt another creature?
Join us at the Growery!
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webster10
Registered: 12/15/13
Posts: 466
Last seen: 9 years, 26 days
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: phychotron]
#754770 - 10/27/14 04:37 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Thanks for the information both of you.
@psycho - How often are you watering in that tray setup? And are giving nutes every time you water? I'm definitely going to buy a tray but I'm going to have to hand water 
@Magash - I know you said you have no good reason but do you have any reason? Hand watering daily seems like a pita but I've heard the growth rates are better than soil 
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phychotron
Medicated
Registered: 02/17/11
Posts: 1,995
Loc: Earth (mostly)
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: webster10]
#754771 - 10/27/14 05:24 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I used to hand water at first, then I used Blumats auto watering, using just a 5 gallon bucket. At first it would use 4-20 gallons a week with the blumats, but now I'm able to water better than just a drip as needed--the whole pot gets water now instead of just the top.
It seems like I'm going through a lot more water/nutrients now that I water like this, but I'm getting it down and not using as strong of nutrients. I also will feed it plain water every once in awhile, as the coco builds up nutrients. Not necessarily to flush, but to use up the existing nutrients in the coco.
Right now in veg I'm manually feeding every 2-3 days. at the peak it was every 12 hours needed water--with a break every few days to keep it from getting oversaturated. I need what is called a 'cyclestat' to get a good pump cycle that's easy to adjust as the plants need it. the 24 hour timer's are a bit tricky to time out.
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Any help given is for educational purposes only. Its your responsibility not to break any applicable laws
Bamboo Bongs I make | Perfect Dry and Cure | Grapegod under LED
“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player.” ~ Albert Einstein
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webster10
Registered: 12/15/13
Posts: 466
Last seen: 9 years, 26 days
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: phychotron]
#754772 - 10/27/14 06:30 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I'm thinking I'm just gonna buy a tray like the ones in that thread you linked me to. And then I'm just gonna use a hose with a watering can I really can't be bothered to have another res, pump and a whole new set up made just for 3 plants that I'm only going to need for like 4 months out of the whole year. I'm thinking I'll just water until I see runoff with nutrients once a day. And maybe once every 5 waterings I'll use just tap to kind of "flush" to get them to use up the nutrients that are already in the coco like you said. What brand of coco do you use? And are you adding any perlite or anything else?
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phychotron
Medicated
Registered: 02/17/11
Posts: 1,995
Loc: Earth (mostly)
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: webster10]
#754807 - 10/27/14 02:34 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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make a shower ring manifold, then when your ready to water, dunk your pump into a 5 gallon bucket and connect a hose. No res needed, just easier to hook a hose to a T and drop the pump into the water and let it do all the work.
Trust me when I say its a pain in the ass watering plants manually for any extended length of time.
Pump, $20; bucket, $5, hose/T's $10
I use canna nutrients and their brand coco. They mix it so that it holds a set amount of water. Otherwise I will use any brand bagged coco coir. The brick stuff sucks, you gotta treat it. I spoke with canna at great length about their stuff, they said not to mix with perlite, that they personally hate perlite-- they designed their coco to avoid using it.
I usualy don't add anything, just double dose of zym at first when re-using it. I did add some microbes to see if anything changes but its hard to tell any difference. Canna told me that they don't make a microbe product because it's not needed with coco, that they innoculate it with trich and say its good enough, and that the salt nutrients will just kill them off anyway. To use very sparingly and that most microbe products are just sales gimmicks.
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Any help given is for educational purposes only. Its your responsibility not to break any applicable laws
Bamboo Bongs I make | Perfect Dry and Cure | Grapegod under LED
“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player.” ~ Albert Einstein
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captain.koons
Failed Botanist
Registered: 06/25/08
Posts: 6,170
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Re: How do you soil/coco users deal with runoff? [Re: phychotron]
#756479 - 11/08/14 02:39 PM (10 years, 24 days ago) |
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With coco you're looking for around 20% run off, this is to avoid nutrient build up in the medium and making the medium too acidic. This is also going to flush out old nutrients, draw in fresh air, and to some extent prevent root rot. You can reduce this 20% figure by using a more coco specific nutrient recipe such as the 6micro/9bloom recipe, a pH of 6.0-6.2, and minimal run off, this would avoid the need to remove run off on a daily basis you would also save over 20% of your nutrients!
A 2 gal pot of coco may take as much as 3L of water for 20% run off so you'd be getting approx 600ml of run off doing this every day or two might prove to require draining. I'd also prefer to not have my roots sitting in a pool of stagnant nutrient solution.
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