COCO in smartpots in recirculating system, good or bad idea ?

[baldwinordie]

Hello everyone,

Im actually growing in coco with classic squared 3 Liters pots and for the moment I'm doing it the Drain To Waste style. I'm going to put my "babies" in a recirculating hydro system in a few days (it's the same as a Wilma system but mine is a

Platinium Hydrostar). I'm hesitating to switch to 7L smartpots or 18L classic squared pots. I really want to use smartpots because no coco fibers/particles will end up in the tank and I think my pump will apreciate.. On the other hand, a friend told

me not to because all the salts from the nutrients are going to accumulate at the bottom of smartpots since they cannot escape the pot which will not please the roots. Do you guys have any feedback, comments ?

I also have a few 18L classic pots left but I think it's pointless to use them because I only veged my "babies" for 20 days now and I think I'm going to let them veg 2 more weeks and then switch to 12/12. What do you guys think ? Isn't 18L too

big? And btw, my box is 1m² and I plan to SCROG.

Thanks in advance !

[baldwinordie]

Yo, no experts with coco or smartpots here ?

[sqysenberg]

coco is much easier to handle when its DTW because of the salts etc that u mentioned keeps the medium clean and charged, id make ur system into a multi feed drain to waste rather than recirc. unless u have nessesary reasons why you chose this way over the others?

[baldwinordie]

It's just that I don't have the choice and the money.. I already have that Platinium hydrostar system which is a recirculating one. I've seen others do it with that kind of system so I don't see why I couldn't do it as well.. I don't have the money and the space to

build a multi feed dtw that's the problem..

[Samwise Gamgee]

I use a Wilma 4 pot and coco, and recirculate the feed via drippers, I have been running this system a couple of years now, and had really great results

You can even put the dripper's on timers, and get a few days away without the plants batting an eyelid

[baldwinordie]

Actually I'm leaving on vacation for a week in a couple of days. That's exactly why I decided to put them in my recirc system ! What's your timing for the drippers ? I heard 15min on/hour was a good start, what do you think ?