Grow Mediums Rinsing Used Coco with High PPM water

[proustdreams]

Hi, I'm approaching the finish line for my first grow and I had a question about reusing coco. I do have RO water, but the volume and pressure is so low I don't think it would be effective for rinsing my coco of peat and dust. Can I rinse my coco in high EC water? My tap ppm is about 700-800 (1.4-1.6 EC).

 

[JP1]

You can "wash" it in hot tap water like that to flush the old salts out, but then you're gonna need to flush that with ro and calmag to get it ready to reuse until you get the runoff to around 200 ppm. Probably save you a lot of trouble to just do it with the ro from the beginning. Store up the ro in buckets so you've got enough to do it. There are also products you can add to help flush the salts out faster

 

[American Hillbilly]

When I reuse my coco, I follow the same exact process as when I wash/buffer it when new. I do my first rinse with high PPM well water, around 350ppm. The vast majority of that is calcium carbonate and magnesium, so I don't find it to be a big deal. After I buffer it overnight, I rinse again with my well water until the PPM falls down to whats going in. Then finish it off with R/O water.

In your case, depending on how much you need to rinse, I'd consider just buying jugs of water. Do you know whats in your water? I'd probably follow the same procedure I do now with your water unless there is "bad" stuff in it. Just adjust your buffer solution to make sure you have 1500ish PPM of calmag on top of your waters PPM.

 

[DoobieGrows]

Hi, I'm approaching the finish line for my first grow and I had a question about reusing coco. I do have RO water, but the volume and pressure is so low I don't think it would be effective for rinsing my coco of peat and dust. Can I rinse my coco in high EC water? My tap ppm is about 700-800 (1.4-1.6 EC).

Do you drink that tap water? That's insane how high it is.