Please Help, Beginning of 3rd Weed Veg

UKHG

Well-Known Member
I have just googled it it looks like coke loool.
So what does it do, do you put it in the soil for water to extract the minerals out of it? i'm highly confused

i just put 3 litres of perlite with coco in a 30 litre pot and its nicely done the job mate 3 qwid cheap as chips
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
PS no i don't live in this town that is a hydroponic store on a completely different part of my country, just has the list so i know what to get around here.
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
Noone can help of which to use for vegging?
i read up on a forum saying house and garden is better as canna started watering down their products but i can't find anywhere local where house and garden are available
 

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
How are the plants? are they still alive? lol
You should consider getting new seeds and starting over. Now that you know about the nutrients youll be able to give them a good head start

What you need in that link is the Canna Coco Nutrients. they are two bottles one is labeled A, the other is labeled B. You mix the A in the water, then mix an equal amount of B into the water and then you adjust the acidity of the water using pH up or pH down.
pH is a scale for measuring how acidic or alkaline a solution is. You dont really need to understand it completely but basically. A pH higher than 7 is considered alkaline and is the opposite of an acid. Alkaline is also refered to as "base". A pH below 7 is acidic and is the opposite of alkaline. 7 is neutral. %100 pure filtered water has a pH of 7.

Youll need a pH pen and a ppm meter.

Hydroponic nutrients are comprised of salts containing the nutrients your plants need to grow. Salts have a unique quality that they dissolve in water and also increase the electrical conductivity of the water they are disolved into. The more salt you add to water the easier electricity passes through it. The ppm meter uses this principal to measure how much salt is dissolved into the solution.

PPM can be an accurate way to guage how much nutrients are dissolved in your nutrient solution.

You will need a pH down product and a pH up product. You don't have to buy the expensive canna pH adjusters if you can find a cheaper one online because its nothing fancy, just acid disolved in water. You can even use vinegar as a pH down.

I should mention that if your ppm meter and pH pen don't come with a calibration solution it is recommended you get some. For the pH pen youll need a Buffer solution that is calibrated to pH 7 and another calibrated to pH4. you then place the pH pen in those solutions and if the reading is off you adjust the calibration screw with a small screwdriver.
With the ppm pen you place the probe into a solution that is calibrated to 1000ppm and adjust the pen until it reads 1000ppm.

You may not end up buying the exact same products as me so read up and find out what youll need for your situation, some ppm pens read out in EC which is a different scale, but the same principals apply. Some pH pens may require different buffer solutions for calibration. If you get the more expensive pens you likely will not regret it later on as they will hold their calibration more accurately, and you will be able to rely on them to be accurate.

Good luck, hopefully that covers everything
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
Dont get those nutrients, they arent formulated for coco growing
I won't my friend i'm going to get this one http://www.wellingborough-hydroponics.com/90320/info.php?p=7&pid=2965265&ack=9 the canna coco a + b, since there is nowhere local that i can get house and garden, they are still alive buddy infact grown a little bit :L
The ph up + ph down which was suppose to be delivered the beginning of next week since i purchased it yesterday came about half hour ago :L soil is dryish so i'm going to let the roots get air to them plus it will be ready to be watered with it's new nutrients :D tonight + get to the hydroponics store tomorrow as early as i can and get them nutrients.
Will get a ppm pen aswell

So i mix however much of A i am using with the same amount of B,
Check the ph if the ph is say 5 i want to use ph up ( the ph kit says if i want to aim for 6 5 is ten times stronger than 6)
I wan't the ph to be between around 6 - 6.2 + with my nutrient's i want the water i am going to water the plant's with to have a ppm of 1000 (depending on what meter the ppm pen is reading on?)
Please correct me if i am wrong on any here, thank you for the help
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
When my first successful harvest is complete the grow journal is going to have dedications to you dillestpickle...
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
PPM pen's (ec pens) at my hydro store are 55quid :/ i will have to go without a pen for a while but i will get a pepit so i know i am putting the correct amount in
 

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
PPM pen's (ec pens) at my hydro store are 55quid :/ i will have to go without a pen for a while but i will get a pepit so i know i am putting the correct amount in
That will work fine. You need to to do a bit of math and figure out how many mL of nutrient to add. You should aim for a ppm of around 400ppm for now since your plants are so small. 1000ppm could cause nutrient burns and parts of the leaves will die.
an easy way to figure it without having to do much math is use 1/4 of the maximum recommended dose.

Remember your pH should be 5.8, as that is considered the "sweet spot" for hydroponic growing. Try to keep it as close to 5.8 as possible. Don't be confused when you see people talking about pH of 6.5 they are talking about soil growing.

The whole EC/TDS/PPM thing is a rather confusing situation. TDS(total dissolved solids) can by calculated by measuring the EC(elecrical conductivity) of water, which can be used to calculate roughly the ppm(part per million) of disolved salts in the solution.

I won't get into it any further at the moment if you are using a Pipet that is totally fine. you can roughly guestimate your ppm with some math. Remember that tap water has some dissolved solids already present in it, roughly 150ppm where I live.. If the strongest recommended nutrient strength is 1400ppm at an EC of 2.0 and would require 4mL per Liter of water(4 mL of A and 4mL of B), then to get a 350ppm with an EC of .5 you would use 1mL per Liter of water. that is pretty close, actually because your tap water will have ppm's roughly around 150ppm your final solution will be about 350+150= 500ppm which may be just a little strong for your plant, but it could probably handle it.

The max EC of 2.0 and ppm of 1400 using 4mL of nutrient per liter is actually the exact formular for H&G nutrients, I imagine it will be similar for Canna but it may be slightly different

BTW don't mix the A and B together directly, they need to be mixed in the solution one at a time
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
Okay my friend, i have the goods a + b 15pound so average price which i was happy about,
So here's the maths feel free to correct me i will not be feeding them till tonight because the roots are currently getting oxygen
It states the maximum dose is 1:250 (40ml a and 40ml b per 10l of water)
So per litre the maximum dose is 4ml making the water's ppm raise to the maximum of about 1000?
So i should put 1ml/ just over 1ml to aim for 400ppm?

+ when i have done mixing in the a and b (seperately) i will test the ph + then adjust the formula... do i need to test the coco aswell? or just the water with the canna a + b in?

If i have to test both of their ph's say the soil was 7 and the water was 5 would that make it naturally about 6 anyway?
 

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
Don't worry about the pH of the coco. Good quality coco(such as you have) is realively low in salts and pH neutral. Its really just a material used for holding water air and roots.
Adjust to pH 5.8 and that should be good.

If 4ml makes 1000ppm then 1ml should make 250ppm. But if your using tap water then it will be slightly higher because your water will already have a starting ppm of around 150(roughly). So that means 1ml will give you a ppm of 400.
That should be about perfect for now. Remember that its usually a good idea to go a little less than the "maximum" strength, most growers will tell you they very rarely ever reach the maximum. So over the next 3 or 4 weeks slowly inrease your nutrient stength until you reach 3/4 strength. If at any point you begin to see burning on the leaves, don't panic. Just prepare your next feed at a slightly lower ppm and the problem will correct itself over time. If you see yellowing leaves you know your ppm's are too low and your plant is ready for a slight boost. Move up the ppm's in slight increments, a general rule is not to increase the ppm by more than 100ppm between two feeds.

always give a bit of runoff during waterings, and don't let the coco get too dry. What happends if you let the coco dry too much is the salts in the coco start to concentrate as there is less and less water and can hurt the plant. Once the top surface is drying out, your ready to water again. Some people water multiple times a day, but I don't think thats neccessary, and could cause root rot
 

Elliesdaddy

Active Member
I am here with a face mask on, gloves etc lol feeling like i'm making crack, just made the solution ph is at 7.0...
How much ph up do you suggest i add? i'm currently practicing on 1l of water with 1ml of a + b
 

Thedillestpickle

Well-Known Member
also are you sure 1000 is the max ppm? do the bottles say what the max EC is?
My House and Garden nutes at max strength are 4ml per 10 liters(same as yours) and that gives me a EC of 2.0 or a ppm of 1400
You'll notice that 1400 is 2x700. this means that H&G uses the 700x ppm scale. In this case ppm=700 x EC

But there is another scale which multiplies by 500 instead of 700. In this case EC x 500=ppm. Its good to know what scale your nutrients are in. I just learned this and it has saved me from overfeeding my plants because my ppm pen was reading in the 500 scale and my nutes calculator was setup for 700 scale.

If your going to just use ml measurements then you shouldnt have to worry too much about ppm anyways because you wont be able to actually measure your ppm.

A good way to avoid confusion with the two ppm scales is just to avoid thinking in ppm at all. There is only one scale for EC so if you use that you cant go wrong. Right now you should be at an EC of .5 or .6
 
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