I agree @Grower13 when I made the switch I was in a coco coir, perlite, and peat mix, still have plants in it I water about every 4 days maybe longer. The chips the plants did not like , loke you said the first 2-3 weeks constantly adkusti g ph . Now they are flooded ( maunually) once a day for 15 minutes and they are loving life. I don’t get as much of the natural ph ramp you do without the resivor and so forth. But I do ramp from about 5.9 to 6.2 manually if needed during that weeks feeding. Great stuff once the plants that are in the blend are done that mix will get tilled into the garden.
Peace OG
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I know @Mr.Sparkle uses coco in handmade fabric mini pots. Perhaps he can chime in here.
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I would be delighted to see some of that, since that is the way i will be doing it maybe…
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coco is a renewable resource and when used by itself to grow… when it’s to worn out to grow in it becomes compost… so very environmentally friendly… arguably more than most organic soil.
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I’d like to see this… might help relieve the root bound clones in my farm.
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@MadScientist Yeah i use Fabric pots for my grows, with coco being my substrate of choice.
Well what do you want to know ?
Guess i could start with reasons and what ive been through or issues, and why i go with coco over say soil.
First to address the fabric pots there was a couple reasons why i went down that route many years ago and haven’t looked back, first was as @Grower13 mentioned i was having rootbound issues as due to my micro growing nature my plants would just lock out and stall in time as it was unavoidable due to my small container volume but it was just something i accepted and worked around, but also around the same i was getting tired and annoyed of my traditional watering methods so i was starting to play around with bottom feeding in trays.
This was right around the time fabric bags were just starting to appear so as a trial i made up a bunch of pots as i already had some fabric on hand, well fast forward to now, the reason i stuck with the fabric post is they proved there worth for me in that they’re super easy to water and when combined with trays, the air exchange capacity of the medium is great and its not like you get air pockets like plastic containers, also the air pruning is huge in that before roots would drive down then start to circle which would cause the plant to stall and just elongate at that point but also the pots their centers and top typically had very few roots in them and i wanted to yield all the medium space i could for obvious volume limitations associated with micro grows.
Needless to say my roots now are solid through out the medium, and the plants don’t stall out like before they just grow till the maximum they possibly can given there volume of media, which makes it super easy to keep things in check as far as plant size is concerned.
As for Coco, it was a convenience thing initially, i use to grow organically with my own soil mixes and teas and such and i got good results and some of them mere coco based, but with a proper soil mix its really just a choice in what route you want to go or have available to you, as you can yield great with both options, but say for new growers the main issue with soils is there is such a variety that a lot of new growers just go grab whatever the can find at their local big box store not knowing there is a difference, if they were grabbing promix hp or sunshine mix 4 or similar mixes they would do great, but you see a lot of people just grabbing whatever cheap generic potting soil that if far from ideal for our use, and don’t get me wrong the same thing can happen with coco it just that were getting a pure-ish singular product so its pretty hard to screw up so long as some precautions are taken like rinsing and precharging and such.
Now advantages i have found with coco is its water holding capacity is awesome, it also has a natural good wicking ability that is excellent if your tray feeding, and its air holding capacity is also excellent, and your roots love it, but there are difference in coco, i currently use Canna Coco and honestly they can take my money any day but ill get into that later.
I started off with brick coco because of the convenience of it being so small and compact for storage and that for my micro grow all i had to do was re-hydrate a half or full block every now and then when i needed to and not have a big bail or bag stored somewhere and you can find it pretty much anywhere such as pet stores, to your local big box stores or easily get some shipped.
The issues with brick coco though are the need to re-hydrate, and rinse, and rinse again, due to the sand and salt you would find in there and having to pre-charge afterwards which is just a lot of hassle but i did for years. Also your brick coco also tend to have a lot of pith “small particles” in it which as other may or may not realize that actually allows your coco to hold onto too much water and thus why a lot of people mix perlite into their coco whether they realize that’s the issue or not, as perlite helps with getting a better non compacted airy mix, and i use to do that as well.
Now bricked croutons or chips are an exception because they all have little pith due to them being big particles, which is why those growers whom use that stuff typically just use it straight and so would i, as the particles are big enough that you don’t run into those water logging issues.
But to go back to the Canna Coco reason why i like it is its already re-hydrated which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it as i mentioned above in the advantage for brick coco, but also i dont have to rinse it as its clean and i mean non existent PPM levels, and the particle size in excellent due to pre-screening so it has very little pith so in all you can just run it straight out of the bag and thats it without having to worry about anything else.
Now the things you do have to deal with when using coco is your pH, and also your calcium and magnesium feeds, but that pretty easy, for pH as stated 5.8-6.2 is ideal, now something i have noticed more recently and had to take into consideration is that plants acidify more once they start to hit flower, so i typically run a pH on the higher side once in flower as it acidify over time dropping you lower where as if you were already low it can drop you too low for a smooth run. Cal and Mag if running any nutrient that contains it in decent portions you don’t have to worry about, if its doesn’t have it then you need to worry which is no different than any media but that and if you have precharged your coco before hand or it is already done then you have nothing to worry about.
Coco is an excellent media and works well for me wanting to keep things simple.
As for roots here’s are acouple example of some of my older smaller fabric pots which i think they were around 400ml of volume. Ive since changed to a little different style of fabric pot that works better but its still the same.
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also should mention i reuse my coco till it starts to break down and the particle become too small, once that happens its off to the garden, house plants or compost.
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As it did to me, that was my first terrible mistake in the last coco grow…
So it’s not gonna clog my roots then… Which was the second terrible mistake.
Thanks for the time devoted to teaching me about advantages of coco and its pros and cons man! Plus, it was great reading…
@Mr.Sparkle, thanks so much. I can get Canna Coco like nothing… And would be using Technaflora nutes, and if one was to use Canna nutes, hwo do you deliver Cal Mag?
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If you are using nutes formulated for Coco, chances are it has a decent Cal Mag ratio already. I’ve seen plenty of “cal-mag” only bottles at my buddies hydro store, so there are plenty of options. 
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A good friends method (@anon58740919) for preparing brick (unprepared) coco.
If you are unsure if your coco has been prewashed before pressed into bricks, it goes without saying you should flush the shit out of it first.
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Is there any difference between using 3 gal pots and 5 gal pots?
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yes…
How big do you want to grow, or how big is your space.
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I would like this topic to be added to the OverGrow FAQ. So I am asking a few questions that members would need to know.
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Well pot size dictates how big your plant will be apart from genetic limitations, so basic answer is if you want big plant go with big pots.
But saying that you can grow pretty big plants in 3 to 5gals of media
For most typical growers that say are closet or tent growers a couple to a bunch of 2 or 3 gallons pots depending on your space is more than enough in my opinion, if your growing in small rooms and want Big plants then you can bump up the pot size, but usually at that level you should already know what your doing.
I will state though that i’m a micro grower just for calrification so my perception on what is needed may be different than some, but i normally can yield 40-50+grams from 2liters or a 1/2gal of media all done in 500ml pots, so i just grow smaller than a lot 
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Let’s choose what are the best nutes you can use in coco coir mediums…
- Canna Nutes
- Lucas Formula
- TechnaFlora
- Fox Farms
- Remo Nutes
- BioBizz
- Advanced Nutes
- General Hydroponics
0 voters
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“best” is going to be different for everyone, but I’ve used Canna and GH (micro and bloom 6:9) with success. GH nutes in 6 gallon containers are a pretty good deal. In my opinion they can all grow great plants. Who’s marketing do you like the best?
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Actually i was just trying to establish what are the most efficient brands that everyone uses for coco grows, specifically for coco. Thanks Rick.
I’m going to be testing out Emerald Harvest’s line this run.
Since they aren’t coco specific I went ahead and bought their cal-mag to go with the Micro-grow-bloom I got
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Just sayin… In less than 20 characters.
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I use General Hydroponics, Maxi Gro and Bloom only, which is simple, easy, and lasts forever, i use Gro only at around 0.6ec for the first 1.5-2.5weeks, then 1.2ec through week 2 to 2.5-4, then i start to transitioning to bloom at a 1/2 ratio gro/bloom for week 4-6 at an ec of 1.2-1.4, then finish out with either a ratio of 1/3 gro/bloom or straight bloom at and ec of 1.2-1.4 from week 6 till finish.
Thats for autos though, photoperiods once i flip to flower will get that 1.2ec of gro for the first 2-2.5 weeks before i switch over to that 1/2 gro/bloom ratio, and 1/3 after week 5-6, to straight bloom week 7.5-9 if its a longer flowering strain.
Im always tweaking though but that works pretty decent for me and my setups at the moment.
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