Watering questions

[Jay T Trichomes]

I currently have a 5x5 with 6 autoflowers in them.
-led light (4) 288 quantum boards with a Meanwell 480 driver.
- coco w/perlite
- I water with ph between 6.5 and 6.8
- using dr earth 4-4-4 mixed in with the medium

My lady’s are about 15 days after germination.Before I joined 420 and read Emilya’s post about watering potted plants, I was watering twice a day and only doing a small circle around the plant, and gradually made the watering circle bigger, I believe I started to get droop on one of my plants from overwatering. I wasn’t using much water but I don’t think I ever have the medium enough time to dry out and roots were cut off from oxygen?? My question is .. Should I be watering the whole 3 gallon fabric pot until I see runoff , and then just watering like that again when they are dried up. I’m just a little nervous since I’ve already have overwatered. Thanks for any help in advance . First grow for me. Still a serious newbie. I’ve included a pic of all of them as well as my droopy lady.

 

[Old Salt]

Coco/perlite is a drain to waste hydroponics system. @Emilya's post is for soil based grows. At this stage of growth you should be watering once per day to run off. Dr Earth seems to be for soil, not coco/perlite. I'd wait for someone who knows for sure, but I'd be tempted to re-pot them, either in soil, or coco/perlite and use the proper nutrients for that medium.

Soil holds the water for your plants, while coco/perlite lets the water drain out. They are two entirely different methods of growing. You may want to take a look at my completed journal.

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

Thanks for the response Salt. I forgot to mention I do have 30% of perlite mixed with my Coco. Also think I read some articles awhile back about people using dr earths with their coco. And now you got me hoping I really did read that, if not I will be re potting like you suggested. Let me get back to reading!!

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

Salt,

So I did just find the forums with growers using dry amendments mixed with their Coco/perlite mix. Then top dressing with dry amendments around the flowering stage again. So hopefully I’m not going crazy. But after reading your post I think I’m going to water once sail and getting runoff, then repeat. If anyone else has any input on dry amendments and coco/perlite medium please chime in. First grow , and I’m all ears for any advice

 

[gr865]

@ Jay T Trichomes

Please read this and if you have question beyond this, then ask!

https://www.cannagardening.com/run_to_waste_basic_primer

 

[barillaro]

Hey man just a heads up I believe Coco pH should be lower, could be wrong but I do 5.8-6.3 myself. Also beware nutrient building up if you don't water to run off. I was watering ~290ppm but since the nutes never left the Coco, the plants were eventually getting hit with 1200 ppm and I had to flush with distilled water

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

That article was just what I needed for clarification gr865, thanks. Barillaro, I’ve read a lot of contradictory things about the ph. So to be honest I may be totally wrong on what the ph should be. And I wish I would have been soaking my soil with some overflow everytime, but I was just a little nervous after I thought I overwatered one of them already. Maybe the plant that is droopy also had a nutrient overload as well? Not for sure. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[barillaro]

No worries Jay, if you want to look at my current grow I went through nutrient deficiency as well as nutrient overdose/ lockout. At different PH levels your plants cannl pull in different nutrients better so it's better to vary your pH slightly every watering

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

I’ll take a look at it now.

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

Barillaro, I checked your grow out bud. Are you using liquid Nutes? I’m using dry ammendments, so I water with just ph’ed water. I believe that’s why my ph is supposed to be a little higher. 6.5 to 6.8.

 

[barillaro]

Ahh got it, yea I'm using the general hydroponics trio, liquid based

 

[Barney86]

Hiya buddy, what salt n that have said so far about the watering etc is spot on. Can't trreat coco like soil, it doesn't react well. Regarding the ph, if your feeding right, the ph of the media will naturally rise during veg and drop during bloom. To combat this effect, you go in at 5.7 for veg and 6.3 for bloom. That gives you the best window for nutrient uptake and avoids having to flush to reset the ph. Usually start getting problems at 5.5 and 6.5. Not gonna kill them if it goes off for a while but it will cause problems eventually. Twisty leaves is usually the first sign that the ph is misbehaving.

 

[MickFoster]

You're not growing in soil so forget everything you think you know. Coco is "drain to waste" hydroponics - it should be fed nutrients, pH'd around 6.0 to substantial run off daily and twice a day in flower. You have 30% perlite so overwatering isn't an issue - even 100% coco will still hold 30% oxygen when saturated making it almost impossible to overwater. Daily feeding to run off is necessary to refresh the nutes, pull in fresh oxygen to the roots, and prevent salt build up. And never use plain water - always nutes.

Did you pre-charge your coco before using it?
I don't know anything about the nutes you are using, but I suggest a liquid nute with plenty of calcium and magnesium.
GH Maxi Series, GH Flora Series, GH FloraNova Series, Canna A+B, and DynaGrow and Bloom are good options.
Good luck.

 

[PE636]

I would highly recommend against using powdered fertilizer as top dressing in coco. Its going to be awfully tricky to regulate with the amount and frequency coco needs to be watered. Perhaps it can work ok for you though, never know if you don't try! I'd be skeptical of using anything above 6.3 ph, so if leaves start going weird that would be my first suspect. Best of luck!

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

You guys are great! I really appreciate all the insight. So maybe a little background on why I chose to use coco/perlite. There is a guy I was following on YouTube for a year or so named Mr.Canucks grow. He uses coco and I am basically following the ph he said he uses daily. Now after seeing his beautiful ladies over and over I thought hmmm.... How easy does that look. Now of course I knew I couldn’t just jump into growing and get the same results of someone who has been doing this for years and has plenty of experience. ( Like I say to my boss when I’m hiring people.. I’d take experience over schooling any day. ) So now I’m kinda in the air about my choice of medium. So after reading Barney’s post about twisty leaves , I’m convinced it’s a ph problem, since everyone agrees I CANT overwater my coco.So today I’m going to take the advice of the experienced, and change my ph to an acceptable level and keep you guys posted in my grow journal. I’m interested in learning whatever I can. I’ve been stuck in the wormhole of cannabis reading for a year or so know, but it always seems to be 2 sides to every story. So I’m going to take Barney’s advice and start with his PH schedule and see how these lil ladies do for the next week or so!! Thanks again everyone

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

Also I do recall from one of his videos, him giving a detailed description of why his ph is between 6.5 and 6.8. I’m going to try and find that and see what his explanation was?? Because people were saying the same thing about his ph levels. So he was trying to answer it for people.

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

And Mick, yes I precharged my coco with dr earths 4-4-4 dry amendments. I was going to too dress at the 5th week for my autoflowers with a little more 4-4-4 and also dr earths blom booster 3-9-4

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

My next real concern is I have 9 more photo periods. 3 that sprouted in my closet and under an hlg40 led bar, and 6 germinating as we speak. I sure would hate to not solve my problems and kill off all these ladies. Here is a pic of 4 of my green crack strain (photoperiod) in another 5x5 tent under 1200w bestva elite series light. To me these look good at this stage?? Any thoughts?

 

[Jay T Trichomes]

So after going down the worm hole for a few hours this morning, I watched Mr. Canucks Grow videos about autoflowers w coco medium and dry amendments. And if anyone gets a chance and could watch one of his autoflower videos and let me know what you think. That was the style I was trying to duplicate. So I just want to know if I’m crazy for thinking I could make that work, or if it’s just a lot more talent than I have at the moment? I’m goin to start ph-ing my water around 5.7 to 6.0 as per the recommendations you guys suggested , because with the droopy and weird shaped leaves ,I definitely believe something isn’t quite right.

 

[Sketch96]

Very interested in how this works for you as I have been following mr canuck as well. I am using canna coco with the same dry amendments as Mr canuck is using. Gaia green. I am having some issues with twisted warped leaves. And now it looks like I may have nitrogen toxicity. I started watering at 6.8, then down to 6.5 and have now dropped down to 6.3. Been frustrating trying to get it dialed in.

I did flush one of the plants completely to switch over to advanced nutrients sensi bloom coco grow just to see if I can turn things around to compare. It's been 4 days since flush and today I will start it on daily watering at 6.1 and see what changes.

Mr canuck makes it look easy! it hasn't been for me so far. Keep us posted as I am in the same boat as you are.