i just use the big stuff, but i am not selective about what coco gets used. once you grow one or two cycles with it, its going to progressively break down into smaller pieces anyway. use the fibers, but dont worry about the really fine stuff. your going to love this chipped coco. you may see a few bumps in the road as you get used to the medium, but overall coco is the best change i ever made. i was struggling to make a plant live till harvest until i swapped to chipped coco
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As @Yarddog said the really fine stuff doesnāt matter but use the rest and it breaks down over time anyways as you reuse it. When i was using bricks i would just scoop out the coco from my wash/soak bin with a strainer getting most of it but leaving the super fine stuff and sand that would settle out.
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whats the best nutrients to use out of cana coco or advanced nutrients ph perfect trio or ?
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I donāt re-use my coco. Iāve had too many flyin" fuckers in my house. Just like dirt the fucking little flyinā bastards lay their eggs in the substrate. Iāve been to university sites trying to find out how long eggs will last. While they all say up to 20 days, I canāt help thinking about spider mites. Those eggs will survive for a year or more, but under the right circumstances will still sprout the little web slingers. So I always toss the used stuff.
That said, I still separate the coco from the roots. I burn the roots and put the used coco in the garbage can. Since I am NOT re-using it, I let it dry completely out. This process can take quite a long time if you have the kind of root ball you are talking about. In the summer, I use a fan because of the high humidity in my basement. (Makes curing a bear in the summer too.)
To separate, I put it in a 5 gallon bucket along with a couple of 1 lb. stainless steel bar ends I brought home from work years ago. What you use for weight probably doesnāt matter, since Iāve also used a 5 lb. therapy ball (a small ball filled with sand). Put your root ball in the bucket along with the weight. Put a lid on it and shake. If you are as lazy as I am, you bounce it off a fitness ball to avoid getting muscles. 
When you finish, it is all loosened up and easy to separate.
Good luck.
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When you say fliers, do you mean gnats?
I get gnats in both new and old coco
Oh my god! Then i got lucky like never before. Not one single gnat in the whole grow, and it is coco from two different sources, one is the Canna Coco Plus Professional bag, the LGOGxSF are in that and two, the chips i bought locally from a guy in another province called Alajuela, it was sent to me by courier. I tested the chips and let it soaking over night to separate the pith and fibers from the chips, and those are the chips being used for the auto grow i ot going on.
Coco after soaking all night registered at 6.9pH and 0.4EC. I was really happy about it too.
Advanced all the way. I did literally throw away the ph meter when I started using it. As adjusting at all caused lockout for me particularly metals like zinc and iron. Once using as directed (well never more than 3/4 recommended dose for me as the water coming in at the tap was around the 400ppm mark. I used bloombastic as a finisher which plumped up the buds nicely but requires a longer flush to lose the taste) my mate used canna for 2 runs and now swears by AN too.
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Hey! @anon58740919 Your here now! Maybe a mod can edit
Using Coco as a Substrate - #30 by Jellypowered To give you proper credit since you are a member now!
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Cheers jelly. Thereās a few things Iād do differently if I was to do another coco run. Precharging with a fish blood and bone mix and a bit of seaweed. Try and get some organisms thriving. A layer of bonemeal on the top late on stimulated a lot of mycorrhizal activity. (Which Iāve read people say isnāt really feasable but most definitely is) still swear by amino acids too. Which @Jellypowered is what the paper should have been on lol
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im shocked cana coco isnt doing well so many swear by it
Canna coco isnāt the problem then. You might wanna check your methods. I was having problems with coco at first but my mistake was I was treating coco as if it was soil. I tweaked my ways and now Iām happy.
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I just dropped two new bales in water to soak. I hate having to use new coco. Old stuff works so much better.
@Yarddog, I am so sorry to take so long to respond here. I mustāve overlooked the notification that you had replied to me.
I mean gnats and thrips.
I personally find thrips to be a worse problem that gnats. I bottom feed my plants. In coco the greatest density is at the bottom. This foils the gnats because I keep the coco at the top dry with only an occasional top feeding. This and sticky traps keep the gnats under control.
Thrips are harder. They like the drain holes for their port of entry. In coco you need to keep the bottom moist because the feeding roots are congregated there. You need to be able to feed your plant. Top or bottom doesnāt matter, the coco down there is always appetizing to the little pests.
New coco doesnāt come with bug like soil. The gnats and thrips are finding their way to your grow on their own. My concern is that eggs could survive being dried out and re-hydrated later, similar to a seed. Maybe this is why spider mite eggs survive up to a year to re-infest. If they can do it, can eggs from fliers also do it?
Iāve tried to find an answer as to if this is possible or I am wasting money by worrying over an impossibility. I just keep getting pointers to pages saying basically the same things. The details tended to be concerned with larvae and adults in particular.
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I am growing from seed. I have transplanted my seedlings into 1 gallon containers with organic soil. Can I transplant them from their soil environment to cocoa?
@PapaDan: (I assume you meant coco instead of cocoa. 
) Yes you can. Just remember when the plant is harvested, that there is about a gallon of soil mixed in with the coco. I only say that because it will make it extremely to reclaim the coco from these plants, itād be easier to toss it.
Next time, try one of your seedlings in coco from the start. I was VERY pleasantly surprised with my 1st coco only grow.
@MadScientist: SOOO easy to do. You bury your plant just like soil, it just seems natural to treat the coco the same as soil.
@anon58740919, I purchased an R.O. system last year in September. Iād been buying R.O. water since my local grocery store started it in the early '90s. I also have a whole house filter to bring my PPM down to 370 for eliminating rust stains, because my water without the filters is a chunky orange. More orange that Trumpās face. Without the whole house filter, my R.O.filters would be done in a week or 2.
It ran about $200 and was very easy to install once I installed the whole house filter (it needed a loop of pipe which I tied into for the R.O. water). I use it mainly for feed water, but we also drink it, cook with it, make coffee with it and put it in the humidifier.
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Read this whole thread and it might help you @treedawg
yes please make a how to grow in coir that is easy to understand put in coir faq.
hey @Grower13 is there much difference between coco chips and coco croutons? is this the right kinda stuff
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Croutons are bigger, but chips work just as well.
I have been using AN just about the full lineup connissuer and not sure i would use anything else