CMH + Strips Coco Cavern

Indoor Growing Growroom Diaries
1543

Hey just started my first run in coco and after a lot of reading it seems canna coco and most high-end bagged stuff was good to go out of the bag? At least not necessary to rinse salt or dust off, just water with your solution and plant. I was only able to get floraflex locally but it claims to have an ec <0.6 and doesn’t have any dust in the bag.

Anyway probably doesn’t help you but I was stoked to see this thread since I came across @GramTorino in every coco/jacks search… lol. Now I have 1500 more posts to read :call_me_hand:

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1544

Yea, I was reading canna’s site and their brick is supposed to be the same exact stuff as their bagged. I emailed them to ask about this part:

“It is washed and buffered, not steam sterilized and RHP certified for horticulture. The buffering process allows CANNA to “pre-program” the medium to a certain age. This ensures the same consistent, high quality medium time after time.”
And I just this moment realized that “, …not steam sterilized…” is probably supposed to say “hot” steam sterilized. Haha! Why would one brag about it not being sterilized.

I also doublechecked the brand of brick I bought, growit commercial compressed. It says:

“GROW!T Commercial Coco is Hydrofarm’s premium growing medium brand, designed specifically for the professional grower. The entire line of GROW!T Commercial Coco is lab tested lab tested for heavy metals, so your plants can grow in the purest coco available. This high-quality coir is processed indoors to eliminate debris and pollutants. Repeated washes and buffering are applied to achieve extra-low ppm/EC levels, so you can apply nutrients and supplements the same day you plant.”

The amount I broke off, soaked in boiling water, left over night, checked ec, drained and then rinsed a strainer full at a time of, had broken bits of some plastic ring, plastic bag like material, rocks and maybe some other hard rock/bone pieces. The water that came out was quite dark at first (I think that’s normal for brick coco at least) but maybe some of that is the buffering agents - I duno though.
There was quite a bit of very fine dust crap when agitating the strainer with water flow over it. The strainer holes were only 1/16" big (coco for cannabis used one with 1/8" I think, he now uses 1/16" I think, can’t remember). The result, particle size wise, just looks like it’d be better consistency for plants after rinsing it.
But I’m a little less worried about the EC I measured, now that I see it claims to be buffered.

So you got bagged, to be clear, not brick, right? I don’t think the bagged stuff ever really has any noticeable amount of “dust” in it. Maybe some of the dust in the bricks is created by the compressing of the coco.

The coco “chips” or “chunks” sound interesting too.

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1545

That’s right. I did water each solo cup with 5ml/g calmag just to be safe , but was later told it really isn’t necessary.

From what’s I’ve read the blocks are always hit or miss…but I’m surprised they say

And then you found all of that in a small sample :joy:. Maybe that process only applies to their bagged coco?

What was the EC after soaking?

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1546

Yea, I know! Haha. That’s the process from the product page of the commercial compressed stuff though. Right on the hydrofarm site, and other sites.

It’ll come to me some time tonight. I just remember being surprised because I was expecting maybe 0.1 - 0.2 ec (I don’t know why; because they’re bragging I guess). I think it was 0.5 - 0.6 ec, actually, now that I’m thinking. Because I remember switching into “tds mode”, which I’ve set to .5 (500ppm scale) and it read 250 or 255 ish (“ppm”).
Our tap water is about 0.1 ec / 50 “ppm”.

It probably felt worse/saltier just visually because you see all this brown/red water coming out and think “You want me to put plants directly into this!?”…

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1547

I just put some of the floraflex coco into a cup and it was .1 ec but doesn’t claim to be buffered so that sounds about right for your brick.

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1548

I wonder if their bagged stuff is the exact same as is in their “compressed into a grow bag” ready to go product. I have 10 of those.

Thanks.

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1549

Or maybe the “not” isn’t a typo. Because I was just reading this from the canna site The Story Of Canna Coco. Where it says:

“Big take away is this: while the coco is sterilized pretty thoroughly through UV light, it does not last long and by avoiding heat/ steam sterilization, the particle size remains in place and the particle characteristics remain unaltered. They hold the amount of water they are designed for and salt levels remain in check. All this results in a product that has the correct chemical/ physical profile, the correct age, and decomposition rate. Now it is chemically ‘fixed’ through a conditioning process (buffering) to perform as it must, under the correct growing conditions, to produce quality crops.”

So I guess they don’t heat or steam sterilize it.

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1550

Still not growing.
Smoking, yes! Lol

Also went back to this habit.

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1551

Hi @Nitt
Hope you are doing great with your growing, and life in gen.

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1552

@ifish
My man. How are you doing!!! Great I hope.

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1553

All good gt , lying low nowadays on here , all familiar faces have dwindled away
Sometimes I feel like joining you for some pool and beers and taken down the light lol plenty of weed about here nowadays : )

Still wear my hat , fun times : )

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1554

Good to see you around @GramTorino, I was starting to get a little worried there.

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1555

Glad to see you’re doing well!! @GramTorino

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1556

It’s going.
Good to see you, man.

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1557

Hey Gram, good to see you back!

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