Grow Mediums Residual Dish Soap

[tronN00dles]

Hey folks,

I’m about to start my first coco/photoperiod run. I just put my rehydrated coco in a buffering solution as per CocoForCannabis.

Before hand, I washed out some buckets with dish soap and water, but it appears I didn’t do a very good job rinsing the bucket I used to mix my buffering solution, as after I poured it into my coco, I noticed some dish soapy-looking bubbles in my mix.

Should I start over? I’m going to be putting a fair bit of plain pH’ed water supplemented with some Yucca Powder through this coco to bring my EC down before I go putting plants in there. I should also point out this is the first of a "double-soak", so I will soak again in a fresh buffering solution (in a non-soapy bucket!) again tomorrow....

Is some residual dish soap here a cause for concern?

 

[BII]

How much "dish soap" (actually detergent) could you possibly see or remain after rinsing? Any residues, such as adsorbed to plastic surface, are trivial. Otherwise, your "soap" and yucca are both surfactants/detergents. With both obviously non-toxic, how/why do you imagine or perceive any hazard or problem with a few dish detergent molecules perhaps hanging around?

Besides seeing a need to add surfactant(why?), what type/brand of poor quality coco do you have such that you see a need to, as you describe, doubly soak and buffer it? That's pretty radical, particularly when good quality coco, such as Canna brand, should be fully ready right out of the bag. Although some may say it can't hurt, I'd definitely not be adding yucca or otherwise messing at a most basic level with any high quality, pre-buffered coco product. If your coco is buffered, it it likely not optimal to be funkily trying to buffer it yourself, with "double-soking" doubling or more any damage you do. Otherwise, I presume it is better to pre-treat the coco with a low dose of grow nutes vs. rinsing/flushing with just water and yucca.

 

[tronN00dles]

How much "dish soap" (actually detergent) could you possibly see or remain after rinsing? Any residues, such as adsorbed to plastic surface, are trivial. Otherwise, your "soap" and yucca are both surfactants/detergents. With both obviously non-toxic, how/why do you imagine or perceive any hazard or problem with a few dish detergent molecules perhaps hanging around?

Besides seeing a need to add surfactant(why?), what type/brand of poor quality coco do you have such that you see a need to, as you describe, doubly soak and buffer it? That's pretty radical, particularly when good quality coco, such as Canna brand, should be fully ready right out of the bag. Although some may say it can't hurt, I'd definitely not be adding yucca or otherwise messing at a most basic level with any high quality, pre-buffered coco product. If your coco is buffered, it it likely not optimal to be funkily trying to buffer it yourself, with "double-soking" doubling or more any damage you do. And otherwise, I presume it is better to pre-treat the coco with a low dose of grow nutes vs. rinsing/flushing with just water and yucca.

I’m using a brick of dehydrated unbuffered coco. I’m going to rehydrate, buffer, and mix with a lot of perlite. I’m going to do high frequency fertigation but I have a large pot, hence the yucca powder as part of my nutrient solutions.

My concern simply came from all the bubbles I saw when I poured 2 gallons of my buffering solution onto my coco. The entire top later pretty well appeared to be covered in small bubbles with a soapy-sheen. I was immediately transported back to a few years ago when I drank red-wine out of an improperly rinsed decanter. Soapy wine is not a good time

Anyway, I’m following the buffering guide from cocoforcannabis.com. It just involves starting with a brick of dehydrated unbuffered coco, then rehydrating it and then letting it sit in a cal mag solution for 8 hours, pouring off and repeating once more with a fresh solution.

I agree, it wouldn’t be much detergent…I was just alarmed by the quantity of soapy bubbles I was seeing.

 

[tronN00dles]

I think this was a false alarm. I took a bit of the sludge out and agitated the shit out of it. If it were soapy, it would have been obvious then, but it wasn’t. I think the bubbles I’m seeing are just pockets of air escaping out of the coco, which shouldn’t surprise me based on coco’s airy reputation. The sheen must have been a lighting thing….

Nervous Nelly over here….