In coco, flush w plain water every other time or not?

As a noob, I am learning from growweedeasy and cocoforcannabis. Things have been great but now they have different thoughts on feeding plants.

Nebula recommends "giving plain water every other watering to prevent nutrient buildup", while coco says it's important to always add fertilizer in the water (for nutrients and steady EC).

Since coco provides some specific reasons, I'm inclined to use his "high-frequency fertigation" method (frequent injection of fertilizers into water).

What do you guys think, is it better than flushing with plain water?

Materials: General Hydroponics Flora Series

personaly i would use plane water every other feeding, but otherw may be of more help

gardenmash said:

Since coco provides some specific reasons, I'm inclined to use his "high-frequency fertigation" method (frequent injection of fertilizers into water).

Click to expand...

That is the way to go. Check out this site

I feed daily to run off and I never use plain water.

If you run dry cycles you'll want to flush with low nutrient or .fresh water you only run dry cycle the first week or two to accelerate the root growth to get them root bound so you can speed along with multi feeds. If you aren't multi feeding in coco then what's the point. After this 2 week period and you begin feeding.multiple times a day the coco.stays moist and won't have salts building up. The only time you'd need to flush again is if your irrigation system f*cks up and goes a day or two dry then you might flush again pre feeding.

Using plain water in coco will give you problems, once they are established you want to feed them every time you water them. Only flush towards the end of the harvest.

if you see salt build up then I would probably give them a flush but I wouldn't do it every other time.

Both work, anyone that flushes and measures the ec will tell you that it takes many gallons of fresh water through a 10/15ltr pot to get an ec of 0.0

Personally I feed to run every time.

Wow, informative. Thank you guys!

The best product for flushing and avoiding salts in general is going to be Drip Clean by House & Garden. It's super cheap and low dosage 0.4ml/gal with nutrients. It literally will clean your measuring cups, drain trays and pots from nasty salt buildup without even scrubbing when mixed @ 1ml/gal.. You want to use it in your flush water @ 1ml/gal for the last week of growth with plain water. After adding your Drip Clean you do want to PH the water to 5.8.

In Coco your goal is to have 5.8-6.0 PH all the time. Usually start 6 VEG and 5.8 BLOOM. This is what I follow and it hasn't failed me. Once I go off those parameters in any brand of coco my garden shits the bed.

gardenmash said:

As a noob, I am learning from growweedeasy and cocoforcannabis. Things have been great but now they have different thoughts on feeding plants.

Nebula recommends "giving plain water every other watering to prevent nutrient buildup", while coco says it's important to always add fertilizer in the water (for nutrients and steady EC).

Since coco provides some specific reasons, I'm inclined to use his "high-frequency fertigation" method (frequent injection of fertilizers into water).

What do you guys think, is it better than flushing with plain water?

Materials: General Hydroponics Flora Series

Click to expand...

I've run in 50/50 Canna Coco/XLG Perlite with GH Flora Trio for years now. GH Flora was the only nutrient they had in 1996 LOL. About every 2 weeks I flush for 1 watering. I do NOT starve my plants at the end when they are putting on their final bulk.

Flushing is using a low osmolarity (low PPM solution) to draw excess nutrient from your substrate. My tap water is around 250 PPM so I simply use that. Flushing solution does not need to be pH balanced because you don't care about uptake and a transiently higher pH won't hurt and will actually help reset you pH if you've been over feeding and building up nutrient salts.

curious2garden said:

I've run in 50/50 Canna Coco/XLG Perlite with GH Flora Trio for years now. GH Flora was the only nutrient they had in 1996 LOL. About every 2 weeks I flush for 1 watering. I do NOT starve my plants at the end when they are putting on their final bulk.

Flushing is using a low osmolarity (low PPM solution) to draw excess nutrient from your substrate. My tap water is around 250 PPM so I simply use that. Flushing solution does not need to be pH balanced because you don't care about uptake and a transiently higher pH won't hurt and will actually help reset you pH if you've been over feeding and building up nutrient salts.

Click to expand...

Flushing solution does not need to be pH balanced because you don't care about uptake and a transiently higher pH won't hurt and will actually help reset you pH if you've been over feeding and building up nutrient salts.

I will say PH on the flush certainly matters depending on your approach. I don't do a water/feed/water/feed or feed/feed/water/feed schedule so it makes sense for me to begin giving them plain water near the end using ph balanced water & Drip Clean by H&G to dissolve nutrients & salts so the roots can uptake them. My runoff PPM is usually around 1600-2000 PPM so there is plenty of food usually in the coco for a good 2 weeks of plain ph balanced water with Drip Clean (Optional).

Flushing with plain water and not gradually tapering the plant off its food is just bound to cause the plant to stop drinking or turn herm especially people flushing with plain water for 2 weeks or more.

Does it make a good difference using a product like Drip Clean to flush? Keeping things simpler by sticking close to essentials would allow for a nicer first grow experience.

Originally, my plan was to start out small and cheap. How hard could it be to grow something that grows for free outside? But after a few days of researching these plants, my 'barebones' starter pack has now turned into an impressive pile of brown boxes, of which seemingly all are essential!

Nutrients, bags, spoons. Filters, fans and pans! GFCI power outlets so I don't electrocute myself, and even a smoke detector!

Very excited to do my own grow, supposedly there is a Gorilla Cookies Auto on a plane somewhere with my name on it.

calvin.m16 said:

Flushing solution does not need to be pH balanced because you don't care about uptake and a transiently higher pH won't hurt and will actually help reset you pH if you've been over feeding and building up nutrient salts.

I will say PH on the flush certainly matters depending on your approach. I don't do a water/feed/water/feed or feed/feed/water/feed schedule so it makes sense for me to begin giving them plain water near the end using ph balanced water & Drip Clean by H&G to dissolve nutrients & salts so the roots can uptake them. My runoff PPM is usually around 1600-2000 PPM so there is plenty of food usually in the coco for a good 2 weeks of plain ph balanced water with Drip Clean (Optional).

Flushing with plain water and not gradually tapering the plant off its food is just bound to cause the plant to stop drinking or turn herm especially people flushing with plain water for 2 weeks or more.

Click to expand...

I have not had a plant unintentionally herm on me. I've grown and bred (selfing and regs), for years now using this approach and before that in NFT rails. The only time I've had herms have either been rodelization or apomixis.

I've occasionally, because of smoking, run my pH way off (4.5) was the last boo boo (that lasted for 2 weeks). I did not have even one herm on that table. Although my plants did whine a bit, you saw leaf twisting and deviation, I caught it when I recalibrated my pH pen, as I should have done initially, instead of waiting to diagnose why my plants looked unhappy.

There are many ways to grow this plant. What you want in a 'flush' is to set up a concentration gradient so that you leach salts from high to low concentration areas thereby removing them from the substrate. I'm glad your use of one product works for you but you'll find there are ways to set up the same gradient without relying upon expensive products.

All the best in your grows

gardenmash said:

Does it make a good difference using a product like Drip Clean to flush? .....snip.....

Click to expand...

Nope, all you want is the difference in concentration gradient. So however you set it up is fine. My tap water at 250 fits that bill nicely.

Someone else mentioned that drip kleen/clean stuff for salt build up on another thread, apparently the chaps trays, pots etc all look salt free?
I can't help wonder what it is the Flora clean/kleen actually does to make salts more readily washed out?
I remember reading something about using water with a low ph for flushing, apparently the low ph dissolves salts better...

Never plain water for my coco.

Drip clean did nothing to the salt buildup on equipment the couple times I saw/tried. Just saying.
I'd like to know *what* exactly drip clean, and flora kleen are.

curious2garden said:

GH Flora was the only nutrient they had in 1996 LOL.

Click to expand...

Can't knock Earth Juice like that! lol

I also alternate feed with plain water. In early / mid flower I dont alternate I only feed until I see the fade. I dilute to cleanse. I don't use RO.

My tap is a hard 450/500.