Grow Mediums Setting up first autopot run questions for the guru’s

[Lil Dab]

Sorry to jump on your thread, you mentioned Canna Coco bricks -- mine are arriving soon. Do you still have to strain away the coco dust if using Canna coco bricks? (as in the video below)

I don’t know would like that answer also. I tried rinsing mine yesterday. made a mess and seemed like I lost way to much in the rinsing process. I changed my plan there and am going to buffer then put in autopots. Then flush with my week 1 feed till ppm is at least less then 500ppm. Not sure if it’s right but did that first time with bagged coco and plants seems to be fine. I was over feeding causing issues. Don’t think coco was causing any issues but I semi new. So who knows

 

[JP1]

Video is pretty much the same way I do it except I do it outside with a hose since it's a ton of material to go down the tub drain. Also rinse your perlite. Can't buffer in the autopots, just not how it works. After I'm all rinsed I mix the coco and perlite in a big tub and fill up the fabric pots. The filled fabric pots then go into 5 gallon buckets to buffer. Takes about 1.5gal of solution to cover each pot. Good thing is you don't have to do it often since the coco is reusable

 

[Lil Dab]

Video is pretty much the same way I do it except I do it outside with a hose since it's a ton of material to go down the tub drain. Also rinse your perlite. Can't buffer in the autopots, just not how it works. After I'm all rinsed I mix the coco and perlite in a big tub and fill up the fabric pots. The filled fabric pots then go into 5 gallon buckets to buffer. Takes about 1.5gal of solution to cover each pot. Good thing is you don't have to do it often since the coco is reusable

@Jerseyphresh1 Is this rinsed enough? Chunks ok? Or should it be all fibers?

 

[JP1]

Looks ok. I generally do it until the water running out the strainer is basically clear

 

[JaysAutopots]

re: rinsing the Coco -- in the video he uses tap water ... what if my tap PH is high (~7.5)?
Shouldn't I be rinsing with corrected PH level water? Wouldn't the coco retain water that's too high PH if I don't correct it?

 

[JP1]

Ideally yes but that's a lot of buckets of water. The 1st step is really just hydrating and cleaning the coco and washing the salt out. When you buffer, just go with like 5.0 to bring it down. Twice. It'll correct itself pretty quickly after that once you start with the daily watering to runoff

 

[Lil Dab]

Ideally yes but that's a lot of buckets of water. The 1st step is really just hydrating and cleaning the coco and washing the salt out. When you buffer, just go with like 5.0 to bring it down. Twice. It'll correct itself pretty quickly after that once you start with the daily watering to runoff

@JaysAutopots .For me my tap water is not very good. so i thoroughly rinsed with tap water then flushed my tap out with RO. now i am letting coco buffer in Mega crop 2 part and epsom salt solution. i made a large strainer system out of two 18 gallon totes. so i can do what he did in video but a little larger scale. i am doing a large batch to fill (4) 3.9g autopots. i am going to PH my solution to 5.8 and let soak. i am going to do this twice as he does in video. not sure if this is right but it's what i got and have to start somewhere and dial in from there.

 

[JaysAutopots]

Ideally yes but that's a lot of buckets of water. The 1st step is really just hydrating and cleaning the coco and washing the salt out. When you buffer, just go with like 5.0 to bring it down. Twice. It'll correct itself pretty quickly after that once you start with the daily watering to runoff

Thanks - that makes sense... but I'll be in the autopot and not watering daily until runoff -- maybe I'll just do another round of rinsing once the perlite is mixed in

 

[Lil Dab]

Thanks - that makes sense... but I'll be in the autopot and not watering daily until runoff -- maybe I'll just do another round of rinsing once the perlite is mixed in

All i can say is make sure you do your homework first and setup a plan and stick to it. otherwise your going to get all sorts of different info and spun around. you have to add in all the variables. i don't know exactly what your using or doing. i am saying this as someone like yourself i think. im new and kept trying different stuff and wondering what went wrong. because i was trying to do what peter, bob, and joe were doing. but they are all doing different stuff and have each of their situations figured out. i guess all I'm trying to say is don't overthink it like me there's always next round to improve. i get better each run. Hope this helps. someone very reputable here told me "just grow plants"

 

[JP1]

Thanks - that makes sense... but I'll be in the autopot and not watering daily until runoff -- maybe I'll just do another round of rinsing once the perlite is mixed in

You'll be top watering until runoff every day for the 1st 2-3 weeks. Autopots don't get turned on until the leaves are about as wide as the pot