Ya, I’ve re read it many times and I usually catch something I missed each time. I feel the high frequency is easier once you get it all set up. It takes a little tinkering to get it all set, but once you do the consistency you get is wonderful. It does take a lot of water though. That’s why I quit coco. Too many trips to the water station to keep six plants watered.
I can see that getting to be a hassle. I only plan to run 3-4 plants at a time and I only have to go to the sink to get the water. The growth I’ve gotten in just a couple days of switching has me excited as long as I can keep up with the watering
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Just a heads up and to echo what others have said here, it is utterly crucial to keep up with the watering, or better yet build an auto watering system. I run Canna Coco with 30% perlite, once the plants get huge and go into flower, even hand watering twice a day, I can’t keep up and the top of the Coco starts looking quite dry. I’m still a newbie, only done 3 grows, and in each one my run-off pH always drops below 5 near the middle / end of flower. Hopefully your climate is cooler than mine so the girls won’t drink so much and dry out the Coco for you, but just sharing my experiences.
Building an automated watering system for this grow. Just used the links from Coco for cannabis diy autowatering, very resourceful site for Coco as everyone else said here. By all means, do not think I am being negative about Coco, it is a lovely medium which promotes very fast growth, much less chance of bugs, and you know everything that’s going into your plants cause you have full control over what you are feeding from day 1.
Edit: forgot to add this, I’m running 3 plants in 3 Gal Air Pots. You might have better success with hand watering if you’re using 5 Gal as they will hold more water between feedings.
I’m also on an island in the Mediterranean, so it gets really hot here once April/May starts creeping in.
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Thank you for the reply.
I’ve researched auto watering and think I have everything figured out that I need, but that will have to wait until next run.
Life started lifeing so I’m not in the position to upgrade at the moment 
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@MagicCultivator420 if your relatively handy I would suggest getting your ideas from CFC then building on your own. I feel it can be done better and cheaper with a little thought and a trip to the local hardware store. I started with his design and have improved it(just my opinion) quite a bit over the years.
@JPhoenixX Which masterblend product are you using? You may need to add mircros or Ca when using RO water, but it depends on the particular product. If money is tight you can spread out your purchases to make it more budget friendly. A reservoir is always handy on its own and the runoff management portion of the system is really useful even if you hand water. Just some thoughts to help you get the best bang for your buck.
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@JPhoenixX glad to chip in some info, just sharing some bad experiences I faced to try helping others not face the same issues. Hopefully having 5 Gal pots and maybe more favourable weather (thankfully autumn is approaching) will see you through this grow without much trouble. I understand about life happens don’t worry, I’ve been wanting to set this up since my 2nd grow but finally getting round to it now. Best of luck!
@Gl1tch Thanks for the heads up. I was going to make a small modification to his design. More ideas would be great though especially since I haven’t set it up yet. Can I show you what I got, and what I’m planning to do? Maybe you can share your design also or tell me what to arrange from my plan if you care to discuss this a bit more. I should open a new topic and tag you in though so I don’t hijack JPhoenixX’s topic.
Don’t worry about hijacking any info on growing with coco is welcomed. You never know everything and reminders of old info has it’s place as well.
I’m in the process of planning an irrigation system so pointers on that would be helpful
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I’ve ran coco at 1 feed per day, 3 feeds per day, and 5 feeds per day. 5 is my go to. I even have a bunch of moms that I do wet dry cycles in with coco.
How much feed depends on run off numbers, pot size, and perlite ratio. There’s a lot more to it, to take full advantage of coco.
You don’t just feed multiple times per day without a reason or knowing why, you should plan how you want to feed and how often, and go from there. You have to take light intensity, room conditions/ability to control, nutrient demand, and run off handling into consideration.
There are a lot of variables. I really don’t like the generic advice of “you have to feed multiple times a day” without knowing the set up, intention, grow style, or goals.
I run high frequency fertigation and I will tell you it’s not for everyone. You have to be outfitted for it appropriately, and have the planning.
@JPhoenixX
You were on our journal recently, you are always welcome to chime in.
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Thank you @Gl1tch I’m running masterblend 4-18-38 and I’m using RO water with an alkaline filter that comes out at about 15 ppm my tap water is scary I don’t want to give any amount of it to my plants lol if you think I should be adding something to it I’m all ears let me know
Thanks for stopping by @Low I like numbers and I like tinkering so I’ve been having more fun monitoring inflow and runoff than I thought I would. I’m still getting a feel for how the coco responds but I’m trying to keep my runoff within 200 of my feed. So far I’ve kept it within 100 and for some reason my ph was 5.6 when I started it’s now coming out at 5.8 yay for minor victories lol
Not gonna lie tho after my less than stellar first grow this time I’d like wall to wall coverage 
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Get it!
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I’m happy to help with any questions, but as @Low pointed out, there are a lot of variables define what your system should be. My system is probably a bit large and pricey for your average grower. How many plants are you planning on running on the system? Medium mix? pot size? How long do you want your rez to last? How far will your rez be from your plant’s?
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It def can get expensive! Lol
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And fast
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- takes a drink •
you aren’t kidding. Lol
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I’ve noticed it adds up quick 
If it were up to me I would have as many plants as I could fit and others ready to flip as soon as the first ones are done.
Unfortunately the law says I can only have 4 flowering at a time and the wife says I need to keep it legal. I think the wife’s word carries a little farther than the law so 4 plants it is
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Idk where you are but see if you can become a caregiver 
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Thanks @JPhoenixX hopefully some of this info will serve you well in the future too!
Couldn’t have said it any better myself JPhoenixX 
I’d love to see it if you want to share, even if I’m not going to build something so elaborate myself, it’s always nice seeing awesome grow setups 
Ok, so let me start by answering your questions, then I’ll show you what my plan is. Always open to suggestions or any way to improve. I know I’m still green on this hobby (hehe see what I did there) and always willing to learn more. I’m prepping for the next grow currently. This weekend was going to clean the whole tent (bleach, then hydrogen peroxide, clean all equipment), then next week start working on the auto watering system, so any suggestions would be great while I still haven’t built it. So here we go:
-3 plants.
-Medium is Canna Coco Professional Plus with Plagron Perlite 70/30.
-Pots are 3 Gal Air Pots. I also made the auto draining saucers like in CFC. Plants are on small ‘benches’ I built, 20 cm off the tent floor, with a 2 litre container under each bench to catch the runoff. I can fit a 4 or 5 litre container under each one if need be.
-Hoping the rez lasts a week so I can stay cleaning it and making a new mix in the weekends preferably, rather than after a day at work, but if it lasts less than that nothing more I can do, I’m very constrained for space (I grow in the box room/closet, got nowhere else to, apartments are small here…). I bought a 60 litre food grade barrel/drum, it just arrived 3 days ago. I don’t need it to last more than a week.
-Rez will be half a meter away from the tent’s intake port.
So, these are the things I bought, and I’ll get to my plan at the end:
The 60 litre barrel/drum, I was planning to fill this up to 50 litres to leave some space at the top, I’ll explain why below:
3 of these pumps. One for feeding, one for stirring, and one as a spare in case one dies:
1/2 Inch Fittings:
Food grade Vinyl Tubing:
4 Ball valves, I only need 3 though, just got one as a spare:
3 Hydro Halos:
So, this is the plan… excuse my paint skills…
-The dark blue border is the tank.
-The red boxes are the 2 pumps. The one on the left will feed into the tent, planning to go in from the bottom intake port. The pump on the right will act as a stirring pump which will activate 10 mins before every feeding. Planning to do this with a piece of vinyl tubing or poly tubing into an elbow and a small piece of tubing to drop the water back in. The black is the poly/vinyl tubing, the brown is the elbow. Planning on sticking the tubing to the tank with a U-Clip above the water level.
-Light blue is the water level. The tank is 60 cm tall, if I had to fill 50 litres like I’m planning, the Hydro Halos will be higher than the water level due to the plants being on the benches and the Air Pots are 30cm tall, so this should avoid the syphon effect correct?
This is the modification I wanted to make from CFC’s system. Does this make sense?:
I’m thinking of making a ring with tubing and tees, tubing being cut equal lengths for the ring, and also equal lengths to each plant. The reasoning behind this is that I’m thinking as a ring it might pressurize the system a bit and each plant gets closer to an equal amount of water, rather than a line like how CFC does it, but I’m just brainstorming here and stand to be corrected if I’m wrong.
Filling 50 litres instead of 60 to leave some space at the top for the tubing+elbow from the stirring pump.
Thoughts?
@Low My main goal for wanting multiple fertigations is that I always end up with a pH under 5 when I’m midway through flower and this is creating issues of course cause the plants are getting nutrient lockout. I’m suspecting this is happening due to the coco drying out. The top is visibly dry when I get home after work, even though I would have given the second feeding as the last thing I do before I go to bed.
Thanks for any info or advice everyone!
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I’m in a rush.
I recommend a manifold for more plants than you currently have. That can be turned on n off, adjusted, or cap unused ports.
Here’s one for an example.
This would get rigged to a feed line. Helps distribute feed evenly and they have a strainer in the manifold.
Here is how I did mine
Look into an in line filter before manifold or main feed line. You don’t want any clogs.
The feed pump with need a break/anti siphon hole/line. If not that a check valve. Without either, the nutrients will siphon out if the plants are lower than the res level. Water will find balance.
Here is how I did mine
Anti siphon leads to a check cup for meters for convenient testing.
A timer that handles minutes and multiple programs. Preferably seconds too.
Instead of a second pump to mix consider a low wattage wave maker. Pumps generate heat with prolong usage. Depending on the res size it could be a problem. A pump can work, but works better on a timer that turns on a few times a day for x amount of time.
Out of time… have a good day
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I’ve been watering every 12 hours my runoff is pretty much exactly the same as the feed, is that a good thing or should I be waiting longer so the EC goes up a little?
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First of all you should never mix bleach and H2O2. Use one or the other. In sufficient amounts it can crate toxic gas or an O2 rich explosive atmosphere. It’s not likely spraying one then the other on your tent walls would be sufficient, but why play with fire. Either of those things will do the job on their own without the risk.
I think @Low covered most of it. Those manifolds won’t work with the halos though. The halos require .5" vinyl tube. You can make your own manifolds for three plants though. It’s not recommended to run irrigation in a circle because if your pump is powerful enough it causes water to rush back in to the pump which is very bad for the pump. There’s a word for it, but I guess I’ve smoked too much this morning to remember it. You can have one long manifold or a few small ones and longer feed lines the important thing is that everything is as close to equal as possible. Keeping that in mind you want to minimize the number of bends and amount of tube used. As the water moves through the tube it creates resistance through friction which slows the water and reduces pressure. More tube means more friction and at the end a bigger pump to do the same job. Finally you need to consider how high your tank will be in relation to your emitters. If the water level is lower than emitters it won’t siphon but your pump will have to work very hard to pump the water up to the emitters. I elevate my rez a few feet to help with this. If you do it this way you will need a means of breaking vacuum so your res doesn’t siphon into your plants. I just used a cheap vacuum breaker at the highest point in the system.
A 60l rez might be a bit small, but it’s a start. Towards the end of flower you might have to fill it every 2-3 days. That’s just a guess though. there are too many variables to say for sure. You can get away with only cleaning once a week if your rez stays on point. That means it must be completely dark inside, ideally below 21 degrees, and keep good aeration. I haven’t had consistent success going any longer than a week but I also struggle to keep the temp down at this point. Also I have found that you MUST get everything perfectly clean. I have an assortment of toothbrushes and bottle brushes I use to clean my pumps and lines with each week. I also use lots of H2O2 in a squirt bottle to sterilize everything after washing in hot water with dish soap. Just don’t forget your PPE especially if your going to use 12%. I keep it around for pretty much everything.
Your aeration and mixing would work ok, but you could stick a screen over the end of your tube to break up the water and increase surface area and therefore aeration. just make sure it’s not so fine that it gets clogged. The best option I have found is squirting up into the air and crashing back down into the the rez like a fountain. I haven’t tried wave makers myself, but I have read that they lose value in large deep tanks and I already had the pumps and timers. They may be a good option for your tank though. Since your running a pump you need a timer. Using the smallest pump you need for aeration and only running it for short periods will minimize heating.
I think the rest of what you have is at least a good place to start. My system is in pieces right now since I’m running organics right now, but I’ll see what I can dig up for pics later.
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