help plz

[Guest weekprik]

OK guys and gals, Ive finally brought my own house,

so I need to set up something more permanant and was thinking of using my double wardrobe,

It has a power point inside the wardrobe but its mounted high so humidity etc isnt an issue,

 

Iam thinking that I want to try my hand at growing in Coco, and my local store has $5-00 slabs of coco, thaty look like those sealed slabs of rockwool,

 

A/ is Coco slabs ok for MJ???

 

b/ can I use my normal hydro nutes or do I have to buy those coco nutes?? hydro shop said it was fine to use whatever I currently use.

 

c/ the closet has sliding doors at the moment, should I hang hindge doors instead?

 

d/ Can I use a 1000m2 per hr hydro fan($90-00), in the wardrobe to exhaust into the ceiling area, and use a passive venting drawing air from the houses ventilation, ie cut a hole in the wardrobe and pull air from behind the bricks. or should I use the hung doors and vent from my bedroom (has a/c in bedroom)

 

e/ can I start clones off in the slab, or do I have to repot them?

 

f/ what watering schedule should I use? it would be harder to test the soil as its in a sealed slab.

 

g/ The hydroshop guy told me Ph is not a problem in Coco, and not to even bother testing it?

 

h/ What growth rate can I expect?

 

Thanks people, I need to set this up withing the next few weeks.

 

e/

[Luke Skywalker]

Right.... let's see if I can't help ya out.

 

It has a power point inside the wardrobe but its mounted high so humidity etc isnt an issue,

 

Humidity is always an issue with powerpoints. Nuff said.

 

To your specific q's....

 

1) Are coco slabs okay? Yeah, depends on how you're growing tho. If you're talking about the thin slabs then these may be suitable for clones, but I wouldn't grow a seed plant in it. Still, it's up to you. I'd personally go with a perlite/coco mix if I was using it. Watch out for scarid fly.

 

2) yes, you can use normal nutes, but coco draws on and releases some nutrients, as it's an organic, as opposed to inorganic base media. So it's usually recommended to get some coco-based nutrients. These are comparable, and can also be used in soil growing too, so they double up. I'd go with em if you can get some. You may have some problems, if only minor, if you go with standard hydro nutrients.

 

3) Uh, it's up to you. What's more convenient?

 

4) The air behind the bricks should be fine for an intake, make sure you screen it off tho, as there's likely to be lots of dust, and possibly some insects in there too. If you can get the aircon in there tho, and it's not a problem for ya, then I'd go with that. Depends on how hot it is really, but it's your house, you can do with it as you like.

 

5) I'd start clones in either peat cubes or growool, then transplant, could be a bitch getting a large coco-slab under a humidicrib. Course, individual ones could be used, but then you're not certain every clones going to take, and you'll get better selection of plants if you take a bunch more than you need and transplant the best into the system.

 

6) coco holds more water than most other media, (except maybe vermiculite) so it's not going to need much watering. Just water until theres a decent amount of runoff, you should be able to see when they need another irrigation. It's an individual climate thing, but every 6 hrs maybe? 10 initially? I'm not sure, I've never grown in these slabs. Any chance of a pic?

 

7) coco shouldn't be outside the nominal ph range, (6 - 7 or so, as it's organic in nature) but it always pays to check. You should be soaking the slabs with ph adjusted water anyway, so it shouldn't really be an issue after that.

 

8) Dunno, how good can you provide the basics to the plant? If you can, then they should grow like weeds.

[Guest BudWaver]

hey man...ph shouldnt be a problem with coco if your doing run to waste...It is a factor when you use a recirc system...

 

I would personally use the pre expanded slabs of coco...as you have to soak the blocks...flush them then soak them again and its a fuck load of hassle....buy the bags of it and add your perlite like luke said

 

Id water 3 times per day in grow and more if its stinking hot in the room...and in flower I watered 5-6 times per day altho I was told this wasnt necessary....old habits die hard

 

Coco nutes are optimal...but normal nutes will do just fine....I really didint notice any substantial difference....

 

Rely on passive intake of air is a good idea...as long as you have a powerful extraction fan...Id also use a small circulatory fan in there as well so there are no stale pockets...

 

Spray the room first with surface spray b4 you do anything to kill everything...then introduce your medium etc....

 

Sliding doors are fine as long as you can block the light off.....

 

What strain ya gonna grow?