A customer has a question and I hope we can get some opinions on it, thanks
My biggest question is how often should I water my plants? I transplanted to coconut coir about a week ago and have my lights on for 18on-6 off. Also one seed I had transplanted had about a cm long root and it’s the only one that isn’t already out of the coir growing towards the light. Is then one just a fail?
If you were in soil, I could tell you to water when the surface is dry down to maybe an inch or so. And to water until you get run off out the bottom. I’d imagine coco is the same, but don’t know for sure.
The seed not emerging after a week is worrying and makes me wonder if you’re overwatering. Roots and seeds need oxygen and if the soil is too wet, they’ll drown.
A Guide to Growing Cannabis in Coco and Perlite
A “soil -free” growing medium.
Growing cannabis in coco and perlite blends many of the advantages of a hydroponic
grow with the simplicity of soil. For the purposes of this piece, I’m making some
basic assumptions about anyone contemplating using this grow medium. They are:
That you have a few successful marijuana grows under your belt, but feel you could
do better – or that you have grown in soil and encountered problems.
That you understand the wet/dry cycle.
That you possess a pH pen, properly calibrated and use it every watering. Strips
are not good enough – buy a pen. Don’t continue reading this til you have.
That you are prepared to spend money on nutrients.
That you are growing in pots, either under lights or outdoors.
The advantages of using coco – perlite mix with marijuana:
Why use coco – perlite to grow cannabis?
Drainage. With this mix it is difficult to over-water once the plant’s
roots are established. This is a big plus for new growers as over-watering
is the most common mistake made by “newbies” – especially those who have planted
in peat. Those growing in colder climates will benefit from the faster watering
cycle as it facilitates more opportunities to adjust the Nutrient supply-
The lightness of the growing medium allows the roots more access to Oxygen.
I’m a strong advocate of regular root flushing – taking the medium back to
neutral and removing salts produced by used nutrients. This mix allow a rapid
and more efficient flush. Sick cannabis plants can be treated more quickly.
Tight control over your plant’s diet.
If you are using LED grow lights then the fast wet-dry cycle of the coco/perlite
mix is ideal. When you grow cannabis under HPS grow lights, the high temperatures
of these lights increases the surface evaporation of moisture from the soil, thus
speeding up the wet-dry cycle. As this is not the case with LED grow lights, plants
grown in soil often suffer from a lengthy wet/dry cycle, leading to sodden roots,
lack of oxygen and possible EC buildups.
The disadvantages of using coco – perlite mix with marijuana.
More watering days.
Strict pH control is essential.
The plant is more reliant on you to supply its needs.
More attention needs to be given when choosing or brewing Nutrients.
What’s the best coco to buy for a cannabis grow?
You use the blocks which need soaking. I find this makes for a much lighter mix
than the bagged, finely chopped stuff which seems to retain water longer.
This latter however may be an advantage in a hot summer.
GENERAL HYDROPONICS COCOTEK 5KG BAIL: $21.25
organic
high quality
few contaminants
low sodium content
makes approx 3 cubic feet of growing medium
provides plenty of aeration and drainage
Mixing the coco and perlite to make a growing medium.
Before mixing you must first ensure that your coco is clean. It depends on your source
of coco but some is produced using seawater as a flush. To be safe, flush the coco three
times with fresh water (to rinse out any residual salt etc).
Mix 50:50 by volume with perlite. Do not be tempted to add a bit of this or that – no Bat,
Goat or Horse poo nor your Uncle Arthur’s special additive. How would you know how much
to feed after that?
You are not finished yet though.
Fill a pot with the mix and bleed some pH 6 water through until you are getting run-off.
Collect some of the run-off and test its pH. If necessary, continue flushing until the
run-off is consistently similar in PH as the water going in.
Hydrofarm GMPER100L 100-Liter Super Coarse Perlite: $34.93
Perlite is a volcanic material which expands up to 20 times its orginal volume.
Because it is sterile ( it is free of diseases, plant or animal material) and hugely
expansive, it makes an excellent neutral means of holding nutrients and water and making
them available to plants roots.
A sideline note on PH.
As a cannabis seed breeder, I can’t stress the importance of pH enough. We put our breeding
stock through a number of tests prior to selection – and this includes pH stressing.
Why? Because a way out pH can cause sex reversal (hermie, if you like). This is a trait
not wanted in commercial female seeds.
I met a guy last year who was complaining that his plants were not budding.
“I’m doing everything right mate! I can’t understand it”.
I could. Because I’ve also heard the same guy tell people: “I don’t bother with pH,
its a Weed for F’s sake – it will grow anywhere”.
I left him in blissful ignorance – some people are happier that way.
My final point on pH is this. If you have got this far down my writing, I assume you
are serious about growing cannabis – buy a pen. ‘Nuff said.
Hanna Instruments HI 98129 Waterproof pH/Conductivity/TDS Tester
Nutrients for growing cannabis in coco – perlite medium.
I’m not going to recommend any brands. Everyone has their favourites. I will say this
though. If you are using only one brand, you are basically saying: “This is the best”,
right? I can’t think of any other reason. No nutrient brand is the best and no nutrient
formula performs perfectly in all growing conditions and importantly, with all strains
and / or growing mediums.
Your basic needs will be:
A root stimulant.
Vegetative nutrients.
Flowering nutrients.
Epsom salts or Cal/Mag
Bud Boosters (optional)
Molasses (optional, but recommended).
I only use organic products produced for a hydroponic grow – we are using basically
a hydroponic medium. Also, as I have hinted, I buy 2 different brands of each and alternate.
The fun bit: How to grow cannabis using coco – perlite!!
Your marijuana seedlings are well-rooted and sitting in 1 pint pots of our mix.
Your run-off is hovering around pH 5.9-6. They are at first node and as yet,
have not been nuted. Good. Resist your urge to try to turbo charge them. A quarter
to half strength dose of Root Stimulant every other watering will be enough for now.
Node 2. This now becomes a flying by the seat of your pants thing. A gradual introduction
to the vegetative nutes, quarter strength, is good – every other water as a general
guide – they are still babies. Depending on your growing temps, you will be watering
every 36 hours to 4 days.
Now your plants are 8″ high and have filled the 1 pint pots with root. You are
watering until there is good run-off and you are regularly checking your run-off pH right?
Time to pot up into their flowering pots, give root stimulant and spray once with Epsom Salts
(Magnesium Sulphate) at 1/4 teaspoon to a pint of water.
The rest is by feel. Get to know your plants – each strain has different needs.
I can liken the uptake of nutrients using this growing medium to sending an email as
opposed to snail mail (= peat medium): err on the light side until you get the hang of it.
Over nute and you’ll kill or seriously damage the marijuana, under nute and you can fix
that with one dose.
If your cannabis plants look poorly, don’t try to fix with a nutrient hit; firstly, flush
them – 5 times the pot volume of water pH 6, then let them rest. Next water, slowly
introduce the nutes again.
A bi-weekly Espom Salts foliar feed is sufficient – no more, it can burn.
Molasses. “Molasses mate, they don’t need f**ing molasses – they’re weeds, they grow anywhere”.
Well coco – perlite mix needs help to provide for the plants. The sugars break down into
aminos and other micro whatsists which feed the organisms that make our mix fertile. Some
mj growers use it to smooth and sweeten the bud and apply it only in the last stages of
flowering. I use it all the way from node 3. Again the application frequency is ramped by
age at one tablespoon per gallon.
Summary
I will emphasize that this is the way I grow. I do not present this as a “This is how
you MUST do it” guide to growing cannabis. It works for me. Its more fun than watching
claggy peat take days to dry out while the roots rot and the leaves yellow and dry.
By its nature, its a labour and brain intensive grow. You can’t sit back and hope that
the soil will deal with all your problems, cos you’re not using soil. You need to develop
forethought and feel your cannabis plants needs before they do. This is experience and
I can’t help you with that bit.
I know others growing this way and some of them do add to the mix when potting up for
flowering. A typical addition would be 10-20% of a professional soil with added perlite.
The idea being that a Pro soil will help with providing all elements required for great buds.
This is strictly speaking no longer a soil-less grow, but I’m no snob. If it works – and
it may well do, great. An adjustment to the watering pH would be needed due to the
buffering nature of the soil.
General Hydroponics Flora Series QT – FloraGro, FloraBloom, and FloraMicrostyle
So which nutrient solution is best for growing cannabis? Like Clone Ranger writes above,
its always an idea to mix and match a little to make sure you are covering all bases …
That said, the one nutrient regime which we find works wonders and is great value for
money has to be GH Flora, which despite its name, is suitable for VEGETATIVE growth
as well as FLOWER.
This entry was posted in Grow mediums and tagged cannabis, drugs, grow room, growing
cannabis, growing marijuana.
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4 thoughts on “Guide to Growing Cannabis in Coco and Perlite”
Weed Widow says:
we’ve had a few people come to this post asking if they can skip the Cal-mag when using
coco-perlite mix. Quick answer is yes you can … but keep an ever-beady eye open for signs
of deficiency. Better answer would be to avoid pricey specialist nutrients and replace
with say Magnesium Sulphate powder available cheap from the pharmacy
February 9, 2012 at 3:09 pm
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Clone Ranger says:
My answer is slightly different to Weed Widow’s unfortunately.
It really depends on a lot of variables particular to your own growing circumstances.
Water quality and the nutrient brands that you are using being 2. Calcium/Magnesium
deficiency will affect bud or seed growth.
There should be no adverse effects in giving a bi-weekly, half steength dose of
Calmag – wether you think they need it or not. This is better than dealing with a
deficiency retroactively – you will have already suffered a blow to your product.
My water contains Calcium and therefor, I only give Magnesium Sulphate (MG.S04) – better
known as Epsom Salts every other watering. Cheapest source is a horse feed supplier
where a 2 kilo tub should be around 6 Euros.
I think/hope I made it clear in the article that this medium requires a far more
hands on attitude to growing as opposed to peat based mediums.
So, my answer is in short is yes – bi-weekly half strength – either Calmag or
Epsom Salts – depending on your water, Nutrients or pocket.
The Author.
February 9, 2012 at 4:08 pm
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Weed Widow says:
thanks to The Author for his expert advice on this. I guess I didn’t make it clear
in my response that yes you can skip it … but at your own peril 
(if you do choose
to omit it you will need to know what the signs of deficiency are and be ready to
treat accordingly) and that if price is the problem, you need not stick to expensive
brand additives but can buy alternative sources of magnesium and calcium from other sources
February 9, 2012 at 6:17 pm
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Clone Ranger says:
Thing is, if your plants are showing a deficiency, it didn’t happen today because
today you see it – it happened a while back and it’s just begining to show – that’s
a while where the plant has been suffering – then you try to remedy it – thats another
long time for the plant to recover.
Could easily be a month with a plant not performing well.
Lot of lost time for the small expense to avoid it.
Yep, and I forgot to mention that my plants receive a weekly spray of 10% milk to
water ratio – this is a preventative for Powder Mold and also (I’m guessing – but
not stupidly)a further source of Calcium.
February 9, 2012 at 6:54 pm
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I hope you don’t mind my asking. But I’m using 600 watt mh for veg. So my wet dry cycle to me feels like everyday. Key word feels like. The fabric pots are dry and seem kind of light. Trying to use judgement like I did with soil. Yet I u derstand 100%different material. I’m using aptus btw if you can give feed back on that please. I love what you wrote I’m going to study it.
Thank you