Alternative medium to lugging bags of soil

How is this stuff?

1 Like

Iā€™m not a Coco grower but if youā€™re going to try coco you need a good PH and EC meter. As itā€™s a neutral medium with no food in it you have to feed at every watering and you need to water to decent runoff to prevent salt buildup. Itā€™s a great way to grow big plants but if youā€™re hand watering small pots it can be a lot of work. It should never get dried out so you have to water daily, if not multiple times a day. I hand water and Iā€™m disabled so watering 2-4 times a day just isnā€™t practical for me. If I had an automatic watering system Iā€™d give it a try. The site Coco for Cannabis is an excellent source of information on using it as a medium. Hereā€™s a link to their site.

Iā€™m sure there are a bunch of experienced Coco guys here that can help as well.

3 Likes

Watering 2-4 times daily is not an option. Looks like Iā€™ll stick to cocoloco.

1 Like

Get four bags, 16 cubic feet, about $120 and itā€™ll last a long time:

You can do a 5-gallon bucket DWC for each plant-- a small air pump costs about $12, $2 for tubing and $6 for a 4 pack of small air stonesā€¦ then you need net-pot lids at around $3 each and either pea gravel (well washed) or hydrotons (rinsed)
Itā€™s a cost starting up-- but EVERYTHING gets re-usedā€¦just soak in mild bleach solution, rinse and air dry for a couple days before re-using.
Bigger air pump = more buckets. I get my bucketā€™s for about $5 at Harbor Freight, Lowes, Walmart etcā€¦
Fill each bucket with pH adjusted nute solution, test and adjust it every couple days and top-off as necessary to keep full and atthe PPM/EC and pH needed.
I only dumped if they vegged more than 6-7 weeksā€¦and always between veg/bloom to change the nute n-p-k ratios. Very easy to maintainā€¦ no mess.

2 Likes

If you use big pots you can water less frequently but a lot of people that run coco seriously have automated watering systems in place and can run small pots. Isnā€™t Cocoloco just coco and perlite? If it is it will still require the care and feeding the coco does

2 Likes

The place I got it from said coco and soil?

This is the way.

1 Like

I buy 11lb blocks of coco coir just about fills a 20 gallon tote after mixing bit of perlite/compost.

I personally use ProMix from Menards. Itā€™s 1/3 of the price of ProMix at any hydro shop, and the plants donā€™t care one bit. I grow in boxes because my backyard is a swamp. Iā€™ll be on my 5th season in the boxes, and top them off at the beginning of the run. I run some Canna Zym and let sit for about a week, pour in 5 gallons of Boogie Brew, top with a little EWC, plant, then watch the trees grow. Fairly inexpensive and works for me very well.


This is from season 4 with the same batch of ProMix, using the method above, plants didnā€™t seem to mind that it was ā€œreusedā€

8 Likes

Grow It Coco Husks, large chunk perlite, sunshine mix 4 or Pro Mix, with a bag of EWC. Thatā€™s my medium.

3 Likes

Where can I buy large bags of the chunk perlite? Benefit to chunk vs the small balls? I may try to mix some perlite into my prolix to stretch the bags furtherā€¦.

1 Like

Home Depot

This is what youā€™re looking for, shipping is killer so youā€™ll probably have to special order it through your local garden center, Hydrofarm dealer, or maybe Loweā€™s/Home Depot or a Ace/True Value hardware store. Grade 8 is the chunks about 0.75-1.25ā€

https://seresag.com/products/grow-t-8-perlite-4-cu-ft?currency=USD&variant=41017519243321&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2v-gBhC1ARIsAOQdKY3rbw5MtWbafw_giAPUoc2i5AKAqOx7jw3VjLhRl7jpugJthY8LVtAaAqKTEALw_wcB

I like perlite but just as good or better for soil aeration is pumice, itā€™s naturally porous but not as fluffy and light as perlite or vermiculite since it didnā€™t get popped in a furnace. It doesnā€™t float up or blow around when itā€™s dry and itā€™s about the same price. Iā€™ve been mixing ProMix HP with extra pumice and gypsum granules and itā€™s been going great for me with the usual soil amendments and liquids.

If anyone is looking for grow media shipped to them, AM Leonard, a big farm supplier is having one of their $125 free shipping sales:

Youā€™re hilarious. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Thereā€™s entire civilizations of insects roaming my pots, especially soil mites and rolly pollies. Now and then a fungus gnat, then I just stop watering til theyā€™re gone again.
Itā€™s the insects and mycorrhizal fungi that regulate everything and keep the balance.
Been growing for over a year and a half this way.
No diseases because diversity takes care of itself.
Itā€™s working fine for me.
Ofcourse I donā€™t get harvests like the synthetic fertilizer guys but then again Iā€™m growing for the cost of the electricity of my LED, thatā€™s it. Itā€™s a very robust system, a quite natural micro eco system.

You can judge all you want, meanwhile Iā€™ll enjoy my harvest. :+1:

1 Like

I donā€™t judge anything but my bill.

Look man, for you, your bill for your led may only take pennies, cause for you maybe power is cheap.

How does 50 cents per kWh sound? Cause thatā€™s what Europeans (in my country at least) get to pay for their power.

Running a QB at those prices, means you have to push it all you can to reach a harvest at 4 bucks a gram, homegrown.

Not entirely sure of those numbers but I once did a quick calculation years before and then it was a nice 1 buck a gram at good yields. Then power prices quadrupled.

Iā€™m not paying to keep bugs in my house.

Just looked it up, IDK your local but the US is 15 cents. Back when that was our pricing I too thought about techniques like yours. No deal anymore here.

2 Likes

50c kWh? Insane. I thought 11c was robbery.

1 Like

Yup. Blame Putin. Well, 48 cts to be exact.

Oh and they also dare charge you fees to deliver it. How they manage to explain to govt that they didnā€™t pay for powerlines but do get to cash in on our use of them is beyond comprehension.

https://pahydroponics.com/ I drive over to them, grab a giant bag of lg chunk perlite, a bale of either ProMix or Sunshine mix4, 2 - 30# bags of EWC, and 2 coco husks.
This will be a full year of medium.