The ILGM site is a great general forum for beginners, but to be honest the best documentation and expert advice you will find for growing in coco is at:
First time using coco coir
I like good washed coco with perlite. No nutes so you know what the plant is getting. GH is more economical IMO than FF but both work.
I would recommend low TDS water: if you don’t have great tap water…go with R/O.
Be sure to use cal mag.
You need a good PH and TDS meter as well.
You won’t feed the plant for at least 2 weeks and maybe longer FYI.
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That’s the direction I was leaning to because I don’t know what all is exactly in it. I used the boogie blue water filter ph’d from 6.2-6.5 my last run and had good results and yes I’m planing on just using cal mag, micro flora, and micro bloom. I’ll start germinating this weekend and I’ll start uploading pics every few days.
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Hi everyone… going to tag along here as I am getting ready shortly to try FF bush doctors coco loco in an autopot grow… maybe. lol. The more I read on coco loco the more confused I become… which I know isnt real hard these days. But good luck with your grow and will be more than willing to share anything I learn or come across along the way.
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Thanks @Myfriendis410
@Brentman1979, I use those same nutrients with pretty good luck I think. I am in coco. I have never tried any thing else. Are you going to be doing autos or photos? My autos need less food than photos do. With autos. I am like myfriend says. Basically no food for the first 10 days for me. I go more by what the plants look like they might take… For my photos. They get fed from the time they go into a rapid rooter plug to finish.
For me personally. I just use Ro water or distilled water for the first 10 days. nothing added to it. I don;t even add cal mag at that point. I was not planning on starting my next journal yet. but it might help you. I will be putting 3 seedlings in solo cups tomorrow. One in a few days. And I have 2 more on the heat mat right now. So basically you could follow along for a little bit if you wanted to get an idea of how I start off. I am starting 6 autos.
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I’ve done some research on Coco Loco. It is a mixture of coco coir and forest hummus. It’s buffered and amended with several organic nutrients. You also need to ph water at 6.5 , which is the same as soil such as FF Ocean Forest. So essentially you should consider it the same as soil. I use a 50/50 mixture of Coco Loco and FF OF. I can tell you that it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. If you want to do pure coco don’t use Coco Loco. Hopefully this information helps
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It’s my understanding CocoLoco prefers water ph’d around 6.1
That said, I’ve only used it for the last two grows. My first grow, I had three autos in 10 gallon pots. 2x purple haze and 1x orange diesel. 1 purple haze produced 9 oz and the second 3.5 ozs. The orange diesel produced 4.5 ozs.
I’m half way through my second grow with it but recently have well water issues, so my results will be off for sure, which is too bad cause I was trying my luck in 3 gallon pots. It’s much easier to water effectively, but like I said, my water is shit now from sulfur.
One thing I’ve had issues with all along is keeping the ph down. Almost always peaks around 7.0 nearing week 4-6. That said, it helps to feed every other time, but I like to push my plants by feeding ph’d water to see where they are at each time (every two days) then immediately feed ppms according to read to keep them fed.
Hope this helps!
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I’m growing autos. Got 5 Gorilla glue ready to germinate. Also every damn grow store in my town only sells coco loco. I’ll have to take a trip outta town to get what I’m wanting to use. Which is Mother Earth 70/30 coco perlite.
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If you plan on staying in coco. Getting bricks will be cheaper in the long run. I buy four 11 lb bricks at a time and the perlite by 4 cubic feet be s
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What should my neutral solution pH need to be when I water using FoxFarm Bush Doctor Coco Loco Potting Mix?
A
Per the manufacturer the [FoxFarm Bush Doctor Coco Loco is amended with dolomite lime and oyster shells to buffer pH Levels. They recommend feeding as you would any soil, with a nutrient solution pH between 6.3 and 6.8.
I checked multiple websites the all recommend ph at this level.
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Honestly, I’m not sure what you are talking about neutral solution. I was told to ph my water at 6.1 by someone who has used it many times as that is what works best.
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That is a question on a website about what level Foxfarms recommends you should ph your water to, using Coco Loco. I just copied the question and pasted it to illustrate what I was originally saying. I’m not trying say that phing at 6.1 is harmful. I haven’t called Foxfarms to ask, but I have checked multiple websites every one I’ve checked has recommended 6.3 to 6.8.I was just saying, that Foxfarms recommends treating Coco Loco as soil not pure Coco. You ph at 6.1 while I ph at 6.5 and it’s all good. 
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FWIW there are a lot of us who simply PH everything to 6.0 and call it good.
I would argue that Coco Loco is soil and not media. The very term soil-less kind of illustrates what I mean haha.
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Yeah I think I sort of got off point. I was originally confused about Coco Loco. I had read somewhere that you could mix coco and Ocean Forest to help with how hot OC was. So I went to hydro store and bought Coco Loco not realizing that it is more like soil than coco. When I started checking it out I realized that it was soil not Coco. Which brings me to what I really wanted to point out. For someone who may be new to growing Coco Loco is soil not pure coco coir.
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Lol yes y’all are getting off topic. Coco loco has castings guano fish meal etc… every natural nutrient that ocean forest has minus the dirt. I know for sure now that I’ll be growing in 70/30 coco perlite. Coco loco is out of the question. Just gotta find that shit local!! Not paying $40 a bag off amazon.
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I grow in promix hp. My sweet spot is 6.1 & use GH nutes
Yeah I used washed coco last year with GH and it was sorta ok ish kinda? My pure hydro walloped it! But to be transparent it was my first attempt at coco… trying to be environmentally conscious lol. Well this time Im using promix hp and supersoil. Works wonderful for weed. Not so much for tomatoes and peppers or lettuce. Now liquid hydro works wicked for anything except… and you need to pay attention to this one… liquid needs to be spot on for every different type of plant you grow. If it is, you will double your growth rate, if not, you have nothing but grief. Soiless is way more forgiving but the growth rate isnt as impressive.
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It’s a little off base here but I’ve been using rockwool for a couple years and took a dive into the floraflex pot pro 6” setup for a run and to be frank I think I like the rockwool better. For me there is less room for errors I feed my rockwool cubes 3 times a day one the are rooted and have never run dry. Coco in the small setups can be ok in the morning and then bone dry by afternoon the plants don’t evenly uptake water but being on a manifold when one gets water they all do. Maybe if I was doing 5 gallon dry amended pots life would be better but I prefer just checking my reservoir every day with piece of mind.
Cloud Coco is ready to go 50/50 Coco/perlite. Then I add some Happy Frog. I feed using liquid organics.
Been going in at 6.0-6.2. Using Calcium and Epsom at every input. Doing a Feed, Microbe, Water cycle per week.
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