INSIDE TENT
4x4 tent
HLG 700R FR
AC infinity
6" inline fan
2x Cloudray s6 fans
cloudforge t3 humidifier
timer for light
NUTES
Jacks
recharge
freebie azos and mykos wp from extreme gardening
other Equiptment
ph ppm meter
RO buddy 4 stage not sure if the 4th stage is good or not for the plants.
I put this project on hold for a while and I have pretty much everything I need to begin but now my confidence is wavering due to waiting so long and taking a break from studying up. I’m planning on dropping these seeds asap so my questions are: I know I still need PH up and down (just ordered it from amazon) but should I wash and buffer canna coco coir? Does anyone have experience with it? Is it beneficial to use the extreme gardening stuff with recharge? I kinda just need all hands on deck for this one and would appreciate any insight anyone could offer. Thanks!
I run the ro buddie 3 stage there a lot of mixed reviews on the di filter. Personally I wouldn’t use it just the 3 stage. But if your going to do straight ro water I highly recommend you buy a permeate pump for your ro system. It will cut your waste water by almost half and increases the ro output water at the same time. Are you planning on running the jacks 321? If so you will only need ph up with ro water and jacks. I would stick with only the 321 program no extra until your comfortable with this program.
I’ve recently went back to using the Canna Coco Coir blocks.
I’m using it, first to be worm bedding, mixing it with card board/paper crumbles, also with a portion of coco husks, a few other things.
After the worms turn it to castings, I then add it, to my medium mix.
When I soaked that CC block, over night to fluff it up. I did poke my BluLab down into the slurry, and did not see an elevated number, above my waters values. Many years ago, coir blocks would make my meter race upward usually pegging it, from salt.
Bagged coir for me is to expensive and bulky to get to my work area, without some peril anyway.
My water, is from our well, it runs about 575 PPM, out of the ground.
With a simply whole house water filter, then through an ozone purifier, it goes down to 225-250 PPM’s.
One of the reasons I add some local rock dust, and coco husks, is to give my biologicals (Recharge) a place to hold on to, or colonize. I’m not sure that is the correct term, but that is my reason.
The biologicals will feed on my premixed Down To Earth items, like kelp, alfalfa, acid mix, feather meal, langbeinite, guano, seafood meal, that is in my medium mix.
Once I’m in the week 6-7, of 10- 12 week run, I’ll give them some teas, or if they are really fading out, may mix up a portion of Jacks, and add Morbloom for flower driver.
All of our areas will be different than others are. I say, jump into the growing fray, and just fight it out, getting your harvest. We all beat out our own path, with trail and error.
What will bitch a person up, is reading advertisers words like it’s the gospel of growing. It’s the gospel of selling stuff. Not slagging every advertiser out there, but nonsense and FOMO building is the prime directive, many times.
Best of luck in your endeavor!!
Only thing I can offer up is dive in and learn from your mistakes. Most people make mistakes by over complicating a pretty simple process and that’s part of the process. Depends on brand of coco for wash but most are pre done and ready to go but some aren’t. Growing is all trial and error and the more info you have is sometimes detrimental when starting out as it can be a little overwhelming but it doesn’t need to be that way. Keep ph in check with coco and feed them and yiu should be fine. Stay on top of weekly IPM, that is where most people slack and pay for it. Much easier to prevent than cure.
I wash all coco, even Canna. It’s an easy way to eliminate any salt related issues down the road, when it’s much more of a pain to fix. I don’t buffer, but I do add gypsum (CaSO4) all grow. I don’t use the 4th stage with the RO Buddy, either.
Could you show some pics of how you set up your RO Buddy with a permeate pump. I use an RO Buddy, and would love to cut the waste.
I would have to disagree with this. Im running canna coco coir myself. I don’t wash the canna coco coir but I do buffer it with full strength jacks 321 and 30 ml cal mag per 5 gal batch. This is the way I do things but I ph to 5.4-5.5 and won’t water if it’s higher than 5.5. Ive found this helps me maintain that 6.0 ph in the medium when testing with my Hanna soil ph probe. If I don’t ph my water I’m sitting at 5.8-6.0 which gives me a soil ph close to 6.5 which causes issues with certain nutrient uptake i can’t remember off the top of my head. But main thing is this isn’t a soil and it isn’t hydroponic so you have to meet somewhere in the middle of the ph and do what works best for you. Watering at 5.4-5.5 has shown amazing results for me and I’ll continue to do things like this as I have the past year and a half now. The only other thing I can add to this is a inkbird controller for temp. If your not running the ac infinity cloudforge on their pro controller or app id reccomend getting another inkbird for humidity control. I also use recharge 2x a week real good stuff! Let’s see umm IPM would be handy for sure. The lost coast therapy is the best one I’ve used for not burning the plants and ypu can spray everyday just about if you wanted too. The next best for me would be azamax because it’s just good at what it does. I use 4 IPMs in rotation 1x a week. @Mr.greenbee id also like to hear about this permeate pump and how to set it up on the RO buddy
guessing youll need another timer for the cloudray fans, they dont like being on more than 16 or 18 hours a day for too long. could alternate them in 12 hr shifts.
temp controller might be unnecessary, i dont require one. the humidifier has a built in humidity controller but it only goes one way - if you bought the inkbird for RH it would allow easy addition of a dehumidifier in a pinch.
I’ve ran my (4) s6s 24/7 since I bought them. I’ve only had 1 that had an oscillating gear break after a few months and everything else is going strong. Never heard of fans on timers. Ps the oscillating gear broke because the tent was sucking in too much and it wasn’t fully going from side to side and kept clicking which caused the gears to fail
I’d add these into your regimen, barley straw will keep your root zone clean cheaply, BTI will prevent pests laying eggs, and the Seachem Safe will neutralize chlorine when you mix a reservoir so the biologicals work better:
