Grow Room JD's Coco Micro SoG.

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey guys. So, parameters have changed a little bit in the box. I built a diy carbon filter as I started getting whiffs of weed in the house from time to time. I built it with a 120mm pc fan, a 4l square PP pot, some mosquito net, hot glue and aluminum tape. Works very well so far as I can only smell the plants when I open the box, no odor left in the house. The filter is connected to the power supply exhaust with the pc fan used to push the air through the carbon and the power supply fan to push it out of the box. Temps climbed buy a mere degree celsius and are at 26/27 degrees.

About the plants now. They are doing okay but obviously crave calcium and magnesium. I probably completely screwed the buffer of the coco when I washed it. So I spent my last grow budget money on some calmag that should arrive within 10 days. Until then I gave them a human grade Ca/Mg/Zn (I checked, it has the same forms of cal and mag as a grow supplement, plants seem to take it well) supplement to try and keep them growing. I completely laid off the brita filter as it probably was taking too much calmag out of my soft tap water. From now on I'll only use "rested" tap water (0.3ec) for my feedings.

I also decided that the crates weren't helping as they kept the plants crammed together. I added some fresh coco to the bags that now sit pretty out of the crates. My idea of feeding the plants without runoff using light (0.6ec) solution wasn't a good idea with my soft filtered water so I nixed that too and I am now back to drain to waste (10/30%) with adequate 0.8ec feedings.

Overall things are slowly dialing in. I wasn't expecting such need for tweaking parameters that worked well in bigger pots not so long ago, but hey, the plants need what the plants need. I started this grow with the expandable seeds I had because I was expecting some tuning, turns out, I was right to do so.

Some pictures.

Improvised carbon filter.

The fan pushing air through the carbon.

Plants aren't doing too bad, but I am not happy with how they are right now. They should be more developed at this stage.

Obvious calmag issues.

More of the same.

JD out.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

A suggestion for calmag in coco, i use dolomite lime at 1-2 tbsp gallon of mix, it also stabilizes the ph and is something i cant recommend enough, i haven't had any issues with either pH, calcium, or magnesium since i started adding that to my mixes years ago.

 

[Dr. Babnik]

A suggestion for calmag in coco, i use dolomite lime at 1-2 tbsp gallon of mix, it also stabilizes the ph and is something i cant recommend enough, i haven't had any issues with either pH, calcium, or magnesium since i started adding that to my mixes years ago.

Great! I use dolomite i soil. I am about to do my first coco grow. I was afraid dolomite lime would keep the pH to high. Soil it buffers to approx pH 6.8.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

With coco you cant really get a good measure of what the actual pH of it is due to its exchange capacity and how it works, so even when measuring its run off it gives false reading to what actually happening, or from my understanding of it all.

To me having a stable pH with an addition of some cal-mag that may be a bit higher than perfectly ideal fro a hydro type environment 6.2 vs 6.8, beats having to consistently take readings, and trying to tweak and adjust your feed water to fix whatever readings you may be getting, id rather keep it simple and not have to worry about things. Most people (larger grows) who run coco coir don't think about it, as they are typically in a drain to waste situation where their consistently feeding their plants with dripper systems that are keeping the medium well saturated with high turn over and are using a pH'ed and cal-maged nutrient water that never has time to deplete fully. So they don't run into the same issues as non-drain to waste systems or mixes that are pre-loaded with the nutrients they need for the entire grow.

There use to be some old threads on other forums specifically about the reasoning's that dolomite lime and coco go very well together, and right into the science of it, but they may be hard to find now.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey guys, welcome.

Mr Sparkle, I must admit, adding dolomite to coco sounds pretty good, especially if it stabilizes the pH while adding calmag to the substrate. I'll definitely keep that in mind for later grows as I can't seem to find that stuff around where I live so I'll have to order it online which I can't right now as my budget is capped. Anyway, the calmag I ordered seem to be good stuff and should do it for now. Thanks for the tip, mate, highly appreciated.

Cue update.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey guys. My grow is getting better overall, most plants are still calmag deficient but they seem to cope with it. Yesterday while browsing the net for info I found out that the Maxicrop seaweed extract I have is pretty good stuff when used as a foliar additive and humates help with recovering from deficiencies so I decided to do a foliar feeding with both and see how it goes. Well, it works pretty well, especially considering that I did not add a wetting agent so I had to let the plants dry out of the box to avoid light burns on the leafs. Since then I read that you could use a tiny bit of dishwashing liquid as a wetting agent without ill effects on the plant so I'll give it a shot later today.

I haven't watered my plants in 3 days as I was waiting for the coco to dry a little to encourage root grow. Plants kept growing nicely so I guess it was a good decision. They will receive another foliar feeding later today (seaweed/humates but no nutes) and I'll water them tomorrow with nutes and myccorhizae.

Pictures:

They are looking better, the foliar did them good.

They are a tad too light colored but I think it is because of the calmag issue as it affects chlorophyll production.

The guillotine and sin tra bajo on the right will probably give me troubles during flowering. Getting a bit tall already, I'm not happy whit it.

These 2 SS#1 have a perfect stature for my grow conditions and they look very good with almost no sign of deficiency. I hope they are male and female, I'd love to make seeds out of these two.

JD out.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

New growth looks good, so keep on doing what your doing, i'll probably go back and read through this whole thread tomorrow, instead of just the last couple of posts like last time

But yeah definitely looks like overwatering possibly caused the lockout issue, i've had the same issues in the past with straight coco in plastic pots, was kinda the reason i now run perlite mixed in, plus fabric pots help.

Also don't discredit the guillotine and sin tra bajo just yet, can do that once they start to flower, but a good majority of the tastier bud ive have grown and what i like the best has come from lankier sativa leaning plants.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Hey Mr Sparkle. I must admit, up until now, this grow made me feel like a noob. I used to grow in coco/perlite in smart pots, but in much larger pots (3gl and 5gl). My last grows, both with synthetic fertilizers and organic amendments where done using blumats, without runoff, with very good results. I took a break of over a year then I started this grow with much tighter conditions. I will completely agree with you that overwatering was my main problem. I tried to emulate a blumat grow by hand, with very low ec and no runoff. Turned out it was a serious mistake.

I made, a few days ago, several fabric pots of the same dimensions as the grow bags I am using right now. But I don't think I will use them in my next grow. Fabric pots of such small dimensions (0.5l) will break my spirit during flowering when my plants will ask for a few waterings a daily. I will, instead, use some biochemical filter at the bottom of my grow bags in my next grow to provide bottom aeration to the bags as well as a media suitable for beneficial micro organism with excellent water to air ratio, that should fix my aeration problem without increasing too much watering frequency. I will also respect wet/dry cycles during vegetative grow and DTW from the beginning.

Last thing to fix, properly prepping my coco. This time around I did it wrong. I just washed the coco and messed up the calmag and pH buffer for sure. Next time I will prep my coco 24h beforehand and buffer it properly with calmag and beneficials.

My only concerns with the guillotine (less about the STB as she slowed down a bit) are with height, I don't doubt she will give good medicine, but I will have a hard time keeping her under control. I really like sativas, but I can't "afford" them in my tiny box.

I need to take the time and properly read your growjournal too. I read it diagonally and I realize we have pretty much the same type of grow. I, no doubt, have a lot to learn from you. Thanks for pitching in, mate, it is highly appreciated.

Cue update.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Here we go, guys, we finally have takeoff. My plants are now growing at a much more suitable rate for a coco grow. They all look good and seem to be ready to thrive. For the moment, there is no sign of preflowers, but they should start appearing pretty soon. I need to start thinking about how I will deal with the males as I want to control pollination to make seeds with selected parents.

My concerns about the guillotine are increasing as she grew a couple of inches in the last 2 days. I hope above hopes that it is the beginning of her stretch and that she will cool it off soon but I don't expect it to be so. I will have to LST the heck out of her very soon.

I watered to waste yesterday (A+B, Maxicrop, myccomadness, AtaClean, Humates, pH at about 6) with 1.0ec, my runoff is at 1.4ec. It is a tad high but I would say within the acceptable range as my plants do not show overfeeding signs. Most are still a bit light green because of the past overwatering but I see no new signs of calmag def. I will keep respecting wet/dry cycles until the flowering starts then I will switch to daily feedings as my plants should be able to take it at that point.

Pictures:

Much better looking plants, they finally seem happy again.

Colors are slowly coming back, no signs of new calmag issue.

The guillotine is going crazy one me, she is good looking but will have a hard time thriving her way in that tiny space.

JD out.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

Quick update. I said yesterday that I was expecting to see preflowers pretty soon, well I've seen the first ones today. The lanky STB and all 3 SS#1 are female. Normal for the STB as it is a feminized plant but, even though I should be happy to have more females, I'm very disappointed that all SS#1 are females, I was hopping to have a male to make seeds with them. Only 2 chances left, the 2 KVS are from regular seeds and are not declared yet, hopefully at least one is a male.