I’ve used coco twice before and never had any smells other than a slight earthy smell. I just ordered some mother earth coco and after re-hydrating some to start seedlings noticed it has a weird off smell…almost like some chemical. As I said I’ve only used it twice before but I’ve always just re-hydrated it and planted in it. While the seedlings have sprouted over a few days it’s got a little worse. Anybody experienced this before?
That’s not normal. I use this and it is always low EC and hella clean.
Could also be chlorine in your water. Let any water from tap sit from 24 hours. If you have Chloramines in your water then that won’t help and you need a reverse osmosis filter.
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Thanks, that’s about the size I got but the mother earth brand…people said it was a good brand so I went with it. I’m not sure how to go about a return since the brick is already opened. Shovel it in a box and give it back to Amazon…lol.
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It’s well water @40ppm so not much there. It’s acidic @ 5ph but I don’t think it would make it smell like this.
Any reason you’re not using Canna bricks?
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This is exactly what I’ve used for years, and I can attest that it does have a chemical smell to it (to me). I think it’s the calcium it’s buffered with, or it’s just the natural smell of coco. I use hot water to break down the whole brick and almost have to wear a mask when I break it up, but it works great.
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Coco smells of nothing, even buffered
Any smell is cheap processing and you’re using a sub standard product
I respectfully disagree.
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The coco I listed is the cleanest I’ve ever used. It smells like coco coir. The second best would be botanicare coco bale. They don’t sell that anymore.
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I love it too. I’ve never found any nails, glass or other debris in it. I think I found a small rock once, but it’s worth every penny to me and my girls.
I think you’re right though, it’s just what coco smell like.
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I second this, it works great. Add water and then get to using it.
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I did my first run with cheap coco bricks and had a few problems, but no funny smells. I struggled to get it to dry out much (I think it had a lot of dust which was making it muddy, plus I didn’t buffer it or know what calmag was at the time) but after harvest realised that was mostly due to stunted roots not drinking much. The runoff was crazy high too so I was trying to fully flush with fresh nutes every watering. Second run I switched to Canna and it’s been a complete breeze in comparison. I would recommend using Canna Coco if you can source it, even padding it out 60/40 with perlite to make it go further.
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I’ve used mother earth before and didn’t smell this so went with what I knew, but I’ve only used coco twice before and got small bricks. Is Canna brand competitive on price, I’ll look at them on Amazon. Like anything else we all like our brands…any particular reason you like them?
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May be a type of funji. I notice in some, a smell like nail polish. A white speckle looking funji usually on the top of the media. Hydrophobic and can release more smell as the media gets wet.
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Don’t see anything white but dam…got a refund from Amazon. Had to chat with a rep since the auto refund way doesn’t have a option of no return product. The rep was like we can make a exception this time…I’m like dude if you want I can shovel it back in a box and send a bunch of wet soil to you guys.
Anyways the manufacture sent me this email…what infection are they talking about? This smells like a chemical. I’m wondering if the above poster is correct it’s some sort of buffer solution or something they didn’t wash out.
"Good morning, This is definitely not normal, please return them and we will be sure to recall materials from the dealer for testing if they ask for them back, otherwise they are usually destroyed in field and replaced.
Most likely the materials sat in very hot temperatures for a period of time, which could cause the odor if the infection set in deep into the material.
Thank you"
Canna is the industry standard, I’ve never encountered better
Greenshydro gave me a bag of every brand of coco in the UK to try, Canna was the only one that was consistently clean, they store the coco in sealed bins in Sri Lanka to prevent crap getting in, all the others had some form of contamination, over half had a gritty feel which is sand
Given the relatively low cost of the substrate you’re going to grow your plants in it seems foolish to cheap out on the basics
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I have run mostly mother Earth brand in the past since it was the cheapest and never encountered that smell before. I did always have to rinse it thoroughly though, I drilled holes in a 5 gallon bucket and ran water through. Good job on the refund too
Why did you rinse the soil? Trying to learn.
To remove the small particles that muddy up the coco, leaving only/mostly bigger coco pieces/pith. Better drainage and easier for roots to grow. I haven’t even used perlite the last couple grows, the plants don’t seem to mind.
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^It shouldn’t even need to be rinsed. I PH water to 5.8… then I put some large pieces in a glass bowl and pour some of the water on. Then i break it up with my hands and squeeze out the excess water. Then I put it right into the container. It is the fastest most convenient stuff i’ve used. So much time saving.
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