Is water quality sufficient for coco grow

[darkgrower]

Hello,

I plan on switching from soil to coco but unfortunately my Soil grows were not that good so far.
Basically when I start watering more, I get all sorts of problems which I had with several different nutrients so I suspect that the quality of my water is not that good and could cause these issues/lockouts, also the PH in the medium was drifting quite a bit.

So knowing all these issues I wanted to check the more experienced growers if this is a good quality water to start with, I will be using Canna Coco Proffesional Plus which is pre-buffered and also Canna Coco A + B pk13/14 nutrients.

I will be using Autopot for watering.

Basically this is the water report from the water company:

Do I need to bring my water to 0.4EC by mixing it with RO water or should I use RO water completely?

 

[JP1]

That's pretty hard water. You're gonna have to water it down with RO/distilled or spring water. If you go with straight RO you're gonna need to supplement calmag

 

[Lil Dab]

Hello,

I plan on switching from soil to coco but unfortunately my Soil grows were not that good so far.
Basically when I start watering more, I get all sorts of problems which I had with several different nutrients so I suspect that the quality of my water is not that good and could cause these issues/lockouts, also the PH in the medium was drifting quite a bit.

So knowing all these issues I wanted to check the more experienced growers if this is a good quality water to start with, I will be using Canna Coco Proffesional Plus which is pre-buffered and also Canna Coco A + B pk13/14 nutrients.

Basically this is the water report from the water company:


View attachment 1730791


Do I need to bring my water to 0.4EC by mixing it with RO water or should I use RO water completely?

I’d dilute to <150ppm(500scale) or you can go straight RO and add calmag but then watch that the calmag isn’t adding too much nitrogen. You can also use water soluble gypsum and Epsom salt to buffer your RO which doesn’t add any N

I’m gonna tag @Mañ'O'Green he’s typically the water report guy or maybe @Waira can chime in

 

[Waira]

-- Hay dg', here's the scoop...
As JP mentioned, that water is very hard, a lot of dissolved minerals in it which makes it really bad for coco! Soil is more forgiving with this than coco by MILES, coco needs to be very low ppm to start with. Usually the specific-made nutes for coco use cover the adjustments for this, but even so I'd start with a blend that get the base water at around 100ppm, give or take...
Straight RO/DI is stripped of it's pH buffering minerals, namely, CaCO3, so as is it's prone to wild pH swings from minimal inputs. Again, some coco-nutes are formulated to deal with this, other nutes not so much... Many folks end up dosing with a Ca-Mg product to compensate for coco's being Ca hog. Coco is a huge Ca hog, Mg to a lesser degree, this is what is meant by CEC buffering, not to be confused with pH buffering...
Coco needs to run at lower pH that soil, and the range for various nutrient ions to be available for uptake is narrower; not as bad as straight hydro, but less flexible than true soil for sure...

Coco is not an easy soilless media to work with, do you homework on it first. It's very bitchy about it's CEC characteristics, all too easy for that to go sideways. Once that's off, it can be a real bitch to get back in line...
Once dialed in, along with coco's excellent drainage and fluffy breathing texture, you can grow monsters in relatively small containers, but that makes for high maintenance to say the least. You cannot treat coco like soil, it's not a soil at all in fact, and if you do your grow results will be far worse, not better...
Bottom line, I don't recommend you switch to coco as a solution to soil troubles as it isn't a "simpler alternative", quite to opposite!

As for soil and very hard water, that will catch up to it as well as the mineral load accumulates and starts to fuck with pH, EC-ppm load in the soil, and nutrient uptake. What soil are you using, and what nutes? pH is still king in soil, but generally it's more flexible and buffers better because of the components in it to help with this...
Have a look in the Infirmary Defc. Pic Depot, 2nd page there are charts showing best pH range for nute uptake.
Figuring out why you have troubles with soil grows is a pretty big can of worms, but we need details to make recommendations...
Could be the cumulative hardness issue is the main problem, especially if you found that most of the trouble starts later in the grow, not right off the bat or soon after...

I'm a soil guy, and I have hard water locally as well. I use a mix of tap and water from those self-fill places to deal with this. You can use bottled water too, that has a light ppm load for "taste" reasons.
I say stay with soil, use a good quality brand for starters. No Fox Farms shit(very hit&miss quality), no budget shwag, not Promix either because that's a peat based soilless medium. I have had good consistent results from Roots Organic brand which seems to be fairly well available. Royal Gold King's mix is a coco-based true soil, also pretty good... See what you have around your area

 

[darkgrower]

-- Hay dg', here's the scoop...
As JP mentioned, that water is very hard, a lot of dissolved minerals in it which makes it really bad for coco! Soil is more forgiving with this than coco by MILES, coco needs to be very low ppm to start with. Usually the specific-made nutes for coco use cover the adjustments for this, but even so I'd start with a blend that get the base water at around 100ppm, give or take...
Straight RO/DI is stripped of it's pH buffering minerals, namely, CaCO3, so as is it's prone to wild pH swings from minimal inputs. Again, some coco-nutes are formulated to deal with this, other nutes not so much... Many folks end up dosing with a Ca-Mg product to compensate for coco's being Ca hog. Coco is a huge Ca hog, Mg to a lesser degree, this is what is meant by CEC buffering, not to be confused with pH buffering...
Coco needs to run at lower pH that soil, and the range for various nutrient ions to be available for uptake is narrower; not as bad as straight hydro, but less flexible than true soil for sure...

Coco is not an easy soilless media to work with, do you homework on it first. It's very bitchy about it's CEC characteristics, all too easy for that to go sideways. Once that's off, it can be a real bitch to get back in line...
Once dialed in, along with coco's excellent drainage and fluffy breathing texture, you can grow monsters in relatively small containers, but that makes for high maintenance to say the least. You cannot treat coco like soil, it's not a soil at all in fact, and if you do your grow results will be far worse, not better...
Bottom line, I don't recommend you switch to coco as a solution to soil troubles as it isn't a "simpler alternative", quite to opposite!

As for soil and very hard water, that will catch up to it as well as the mineral load accumulates and starts to fuck with pH, EC-ppm load in the soil, and nutrient uptake. What soil are you using, and what nutes? pH is still king in soil, but generally it's more flexible and buffers better because of the components in it to help with this...
Have a look in the Infirmary Defc. Pic Depot, 2nd page there are charts showing best pH range for nute uptake.
Figuring out why you have troubles with soil grows is a pretty big can of worms, but we need details to make recommendations...
Could be the cumulative hardness issue is the main problem, especially if you found that most of the trouble starts later in the grow, not right off the bat or soon after...

I'm a soil guy, and I have hard water locally as well. I use a mix of tap and water from those self-fill places to deal with this. You can use bottled water too, that has a light ppm load for "taste" reasons.
I say stay with soil, use a good quality brand for starters. No Fox Farms shit(very hit&miss quality), no budget shwag, not Promix either because that's a peat based soilless medium. I have had good consistent results from Roots Organic brand which seems to be fairly well available. Royal Gold King's mix is a coco-based true soil, also pretty good... See what you have around your area

Hey @Waira,

Thank you for the reply.
I am using Xpert Nutrients microbial mix:

Xpert Nutrients Microbial Mix 50L | SUST0248 | Natural Systems

<p>Microbial Mix 50L, the revolutionary substrate mix from Xpert Nutrients. Designed as an advanced biostimulant, This unique formula acts as the perfect ally for your plants by increasing their metabolism and promoting a healthy growth from root to top.</p>

naturalsystems.eu

and currently im using BioBizz organic nutes almost the whole line:
FishMix
BioBloom
TopMax
AlgaMic
BioGrow

I started feeding from the 3rd week onward because the Microbial mix is fertilized soil and it has enough nutes inside.

Previously I used BioBizz AllMix soil and it always ends the same way, as soon as the plants start flowering Im seeing all sorts of issues and when I check the PH it suddenly rises from 6.5 to 7.5 as soon as I start watering with a larger quantity. I PH the water to 6.5 but somehow it still rises in the medium.

I also tried dry organic nutes similar to Gaia Green with top dressing and the same thing happened with it also. The only common thing in all my 4 grows was the tap water and now im thinking that all problems are coming from that so I wanna adjust if possible.

I am aware that Coco is pretty different then Soil and also not that forgiving, I did read a lot on the subject and Im still not sure if I should go with it or stay with soil and try to adjust the water this time.

 

[Waira]

I started feeding from the 3rd week onward because the Microbial mix is fertilized soil and it has enough nutes inside.

Previously I used BioBizz AllMix soil and it always ends the same way, as soon as the plants start flowering Im seeing all sorts of issues and when I check the PH it suddenly rises from 6.5 to 7.5 as soon as I start watering with a larger quantity. I PH the water to 6.5 but somehow it still rises in the medium.

I forgot to ask if this is well water?

The soil and nutes all look fine to me,... my wager is the water is the villain here mate, this observation pretty much nails it. Cumulative build-up is insidious, it seems okay for a while then it goes sideways fast, often at transition... That's a big shift for the plant regardless, add in pH problems and lockout/antagonistic uptake issues and it becomes an impossible mess to fix at the worst possible time!
...pH'ing is all well and good, but it doesn't do anything to remove the mineral load, and with all that CaCO3 around, it'll slap that pH'ing into irrelevance - LOL .....You cannot fight the chemistry this way, alas...

Did you check out those charts yet? Mulder's Wheel of Confusion tells the tale of antagonistic uptake relations, also commiserate demand changes with certain other inputs...

Another great read is the APTUS grow bible, a PDF...

--> here are two very good charts to contemplate from APTUS

This is the antagonistic uptake chart, more user friendly that Mulder's....

This one shows relative demands at different stages-->

...in your case, it's not so much the free Ca++ (likely not much all things considered; CaCO3 isn't especially dissolvable in water particularly when pH is alkaline).
It's the carbonate, CO3-- that's neutralizing the acidity, snagging up free H+ and turning into bicarbonate HCO3-.....it's why the pH'ing of inputs doesn't seem to help.
Basically the pH and mineral load is wreaking havoc with the nutes and their uptake.
I think getting your water sorted will see big improvements! Shoot for about 100-150ppms, this is what I do at least....

 

[darkgrower]

I forgot to ask if this is well water?

The soil and nutes all look fine to me,... my wager is the water is the villain here mate, this observation pretty much nails it. Cumulative build-up is insidious, it seems okay for a while then it goes sideways fast, often at transition... That's a big shift for the plant regardless, add in pH problems and lockout/antagonistic uptake issues and it becomes an impossible mess to fix at the worst possible time!
...pH'ing is all well and good, but it doesn't do anything to remove the mineral load, and with all that CaCO3 around, it'll slap that pH'ing into irrelevance - LOL .....You cannot fight the chemistry this way, alas...

Did you check out those charts yet? Mulder's Wheel of Confusion tells the tale of antagonistic uptake relations, also commiserate demand changes with certain other inputs... View attachment 1730953
Another great read is the APTUS grow bible, a PDF...

--> here are two very good charts to contemplate from APTUS

This is the antagonistic uptake chart, more user friendly that Mulder's....
View attachment 1730954


This one shows relative demands at different stages-->
View attachment 1730955

...in your case, it's not so much the free Ca++ (likely not much all things considered; CaCO3 isn't especially dissolvable in water particularly when pH is alkaline).
It's the carbonate, CO3-- that's neutralizing the acidity, snagging up free H+ and turning into bicarbonate HCO3-.....it's why the pH'ing of inputs doesn't seem to help.
Basically the pH and mineral load is wreaking havoc with the nutes and their uptake.
I think getting your water sorted will see big improvements! Shoot for about 100-150ppms, this is what I do at least....

@Waira yeah I saw the charts mate, went through everything you sent me and now I have better understanding of how crap my water is

My next grow will be better I hope, I also did a bit of research on Biotabs which seems a foolproof way to grow with Autopots so I might lean that way we will see.

The Stages in Plant Development chart is awesome, I was not aware of the nutrient uptake of the plant throughout the stages of life at all, I mean not that I did some colossal mistakes regarding nutes but its rly good to know what the plant needs and most importantly WHEN it needs it.

Thank you for explaining how my water reacts with the soil too, I wasn't aware that the carbonate could neutralize the acidity, I always thought if you PH your water to the right lvl everything will be fine, well now I know I was wrong for that too haha.

Last question, when you say 100-150ppm you mean on the 500 scale? If it is then that would be around 0.3EC in m/S, do I need to supply additional CalMag with this?

And to answer your question, this is not well water, its my city drinking water basically.
I was also thinking in investing into RO filters for one of my taps so I don't have to use bottled water, it will get expensive quite quick in Autopots thats for sure.

 

[BII]

An RO filter (ideally a 3-4 stage filtration system) is what you want. It will solve your water problem.. Once you have the filter, you can add tap water and/or Ca/Mg supplements if needed.

 

[Waira]

My next grow will be better I hope, I also did a bit of research on Biotabs which seems a foolproof way to grow with Autopots so I might lean that way we will see.

...seen some fine growers doing this MO - ...recommend getting the whole line-up, including the PK booster. Some other tips & hacks for adjusting things to shorter life cycle auto's are out there, worth looking/asking around... I'm pretty sure some peep's split the pucks up, a chunk here, there deeper, etc.,...

he Stages in Plant Development chart is awesome, I was not aware of the nutrient uptake of the plant throughout the stages of life at all, I mean not that I did some colossal mistakes regarding nutes but its rly good to know what the plant needs and most importantly WHEN it needs it.

I ran Sick Bay here for years, and I'd say bad timing and/or overly generous feeding were very common as the core of many troubles... Too much at once or so, and cumulative build-up particularly with PK boosters --too much too soon!

Thank you for explaining how my water reacts with the soil too, I wasn't aware that the carbonate could neutralize the acidity, I always thought if you PH your water to the right lvl everything will be fine, well now I know I was wrong for that too haha.

The pH is always in motion, as it were... many things influence it, including what the plant/root zone is exuding, the soil herd itself and what they do to the exudates.... Then you have the mineral interactions (like lime/oyster shell), organic components breakdown, the water and any associated hardness,..on and on LOL -- staying in range really is a juggling act, but with the right components in the medium and helpful supp's like humic-fulvic and amino's (think chelation here) you can create a pretty solid buffering capacity... If you're going organic, the soil herd is especially important here as well for helping with buffering, not just breaking down the goods into available forms...

But yeah, your in going water/nute soln. pH does not equal what the actual in-pot pH is, though proper pH'ing really helps maintain it in range!
pH can vary in different areas too within the same pot, ditto for TDS/EC readings ...*(oh, right I'm thinking in the 1.0 EC = 500ppm scale)...

Last question, when you say 100-150ppm you mean on the 500 scale? If it is then that would be around 0.3EC in m/S, do I need to supply additional CalMag with this?

yup! As for Ca-Mg, that depends on what you're growing in, like coco vs. peat soilless, or true soil (and it's components, like lime which is a form of CaCO3), and then there's the nutes/supp's themselves and what they contain...
To me, whatever Ca there is in my water I consider as incidental and largely unavailable, not a significant source of available free Ca++. This is why humic fulvic and amino's are big time beneficial, on several levels actually, but chelation is HUGE! Any charged ion is looking for a (neutralizing) hook-up, and ones with 2+ charging are quite reactive and can become locked up into a form that makes them unavailable no matter how much is present. Chelators "insulate" the charge without actually becoming bonded to it, protecting it's availability until the plant snags it...
Si is a must IMO too, but it's prone to cross react and so it should go into a nute soln first and be well mixed before adding other stuff.
Also seen some hydro growers accidentally make gypsum soup in their res' after adding stuff with high Ca and something else with sulfate in
it ... that, is a hot mess!

And to answer your question, this is not well water, its my city drinking water basically.
I was also thinking in investing into RO filters for one of my taps so I don't have to use bottled water, it will get expensive quite quick in Autopots thats for sure.

...good on the cit water... I remember one guy here who was an otherwise fine grow was ALWAYS plagued by issues even though his well water was not that hard. Other dissolved stuff was wreaking havoc with the mineral nutes he used in a slow-motion way, like you...similar later stage shit going sideways. That didn't clear until he got a system made for dealing with dissolved metals (Fe in particular) first. and then onto the regular RO system...
Though the self fill machines are an economical option, if you have them around locally...
Small output hobby/aquarium type RO systems are fine for what amounts you'll use, it's what I have for other hobby plants as well like carnivores which detest hard water...

 

[darkgrower]

But yeah, your in going water/nute soln. pH does not equal what the actual in-pot pH is, though proper pH'ing really helps maintain it in range!
pH can vary in different areas too within the same pot, ditto for TDS/EC readings ...*(oh, right I'm thinking in the 1.0 EC = 500ppm scale)...

@Waira the plan is biotabs full line with 50% BioBizz LightMix soil + 30% perlite and 20% added worm castings.
Not sure if I will need to start supplying small amounts of CalMag from the start to the end of the grow because Silicium Flash is suppose to have CalMag as far as I read on BioTabs but I also found posts of growers which experienced these issues when the flowering starts.

I also checked the new BioTabs manual for Autopot systems but they dont even mention the PK5-8 there at all which is weird.

I guess I will ask for advice before starting my next grow, I also wanna know how I can incorporate the PK Booster, since I wont be able to put it in my reservoir, it would clog up the lines, I guess turn off the autopot 24h before, feed the PK booster, wait 24h then turn the autopot back on.

I will try to go through the forums and check what others have done.