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Thread: Very hard water in coco - which nutrients and feeding strategy

  1. #1

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    Default Very hard water in coco - which nutrients and feeding strategy

    Hi,

    Newbie here - just potted my first auto (wedding cheesecake auto) seedlings and they're currently on (pH corrected) tap water with Rhizotonic. Straight off the tap my EC meter is reading ~.75, which is crazy high, due to this, I was planning on keeping the seedlings just on tap water and Rhizotonic for the first week or so.

    Past this first week, I have an important decision to make - which nutrient line to use and feeding strategy. I have Canna Coco A&B and GH Tripart Flora series at my disposable to use. This gives me two options (I think):

    Option 1- Canna Coco A&B supposedly have enough CalMag to support the coco growth, which most likely would be a problem when combined with my current tap water. I could potentially mix my tap water with demineralized water and bring my EC down to ~.4 (which Canna considers normal water as per their feeding charts and growth guide) and just use their schedule as guideline.

    Option 2 - Tripart Flora has little CalMag compared to Canna Coco A&B, hence the usual need to add this on the side. I could potentially use these nutes and only add CalMag if any deficiency starts showing, but I would still have a really high EC to start with, giving very little room to add nutrients. Or can I assume that since I'm not adding any CalMag on the side, I can just stick to recommended feeding doses?

    Anyone with experience in any of this scenarios that can let me know if this makes sense or not? I'm almost tempted to run both options at the same time and see which plants behave better, flushing the medium in case of problems with one option and going with the other one...

    Cheers

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  3. #2

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    If your ec is really high dilute with bottled water for a few weeks, get to ec 0.
    4 then add a bit of a&b, you'll still need to feed from the off I think

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    "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."

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    Thanks, that's what my gut feeling was telling me. The reason that I wasn't planning on feeding nutes during the first few days was just due to what I thought was a common practice for autoflowers, as I read frequently that autos are particularly sensitive to nute burn during the first week and they can easily survive on just water due to the ruderalis genes.

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    My water is 0.6 from tap, first ~10 days only PhD water with rhizo, can feed them nutes from start also but ~0.1only.... I raised my ec every week about 0.1, better keep them a little starved than over feed..

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    Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking on doing, after the initial week or so, start it ~.1/.2 of nutes, followed by .1 weekly increases. Regardless, I'll aim to bring my tap water down to .4 and take it from there. I guess I'll be buying distilled water... lots of it...

    This approach with a lighter feeding I reckon might reduce the flushing time needed. Still not sure how I'll approach that, but I do tend to agree with people who state that simply cutting off food in one go can't have any positive effect on the plant, I'm more for dosing off gradually and just use the likes of Canna Flush for the final 2-5 few days.

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  11. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Crash3r View Post
    Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking on doing, after the initial week or so, start it ~.1/.2 of nutes, followed by .1 weekly increases. Regardless, I'll aim to bring my tap water down to .4 and take it from there. I guess I'll be buying distilled water... lots of it...

    This approach with a lighter feeding I reckon might reduce the flushing time needed. Still not sure how I'll approach that, but I do tend to agree with people who state that simply cutting off food in one go can't have any positive effect on the plant, I'm more for dosing off gradually and just use the likes of Canna Flush for the final 2-5 few days.
    The flush is to try and get rid of the chemicals in the feed, you'd be OK in soil with organic nutes not flushing, but only in an emergency like grot that I'd take down without at least a week of plain water in coco

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