am i overwatering?

[that_girl]

Good day :fly:
I installed the water pomp with the timer, not sure if i bought the wrong one though. It waters every 8 hours, which makes it 3 times a day. The girls r in a second week of veging , in 1gal pots, coco and perilite (10/1)

 

[4u2sm0ke]

sorry I cant help I dont run a drip system.....best of luck


take care and be safe

 

[Growdude]

Do your plants look droopy? if not I would say no your not overwatering.

 

[BackWoodsDrifter]

I reckon 3 times a day be a bit much IMO then gain there be smarter folk here then me. I guess Growdude be right to ask ifin they are droopin but then gain I cant help thinkin 3 waterins a day gotta be too much as the roots need to breath in dirt as well. Folks here help yual out reckon fur sure though sit tight.

BWD

 

[Hushpuppy]

No you are not overwatering, IF you have good aeration in your resevoir. That(aerating the water) is critical for hydro because it gives the roots the oxygen they need to not drown. I have my drip system(which pours a stream rather than drip) on a timer so that it comes on 8 times(evenly spaced) in 24hrs and runs for 15minutes. The coco will drain nicely if you have plenty of pearlite in it(I put about 20% or 4:1, coco: pearlite) and a way for the water to drain away from all but the lowest roots, which can lay in a little bit of water. But again the key is having that air pump pushing air through a good diffusing stone into the rez.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I may have jumped the gun here as I was assuming that you have the plants setup as hydro since you are pumping water to them in coco. Sooo, I have to ask are you in hydro where the water being pumped to the plants is able to drain out of the planter? if not then you could have a tricky issue. If you are going to automate watering in a soil/soilless grow then you have to have a way for it to either drain to waste or drain to catch it for recirculation.

If you don't have it where it can drain away, then you will certainly drown the plants as they can't suck up enough to keep them from floating, or if the watering isn't enough to have to drain then they aren't getting enough water and nutes to grow properly. Please describe your setup and/or take a pic or 2 to show it and I can advise further

 

[that_girl]

The reason I installed the pump, i thought it would b nice to not mix nutrients every night. I don't think that what I have is a hydro set up. my one gall pots are coco and perilyte(10/1) the pump turns on 3 times for 15sec and drains from the pots to the tray and then out into the bottom tray. The reason i didn't set it up to resycle back into the 5 gal bucket is cause I couldn't figure out the Ph.. it was jumping like crazy. (after doing some reading this time b4 mixing i'll let the water to warm up to room temp)The girls look happy so far... oh , and i do have the oxygen beeing pumped into the water through the stone.
i'm planning to have them in 5 gal pots next week, i was gonna put a few inch of coco matt on the bottom of the pots, i thought it might b good for the roots to grow through instead of becoming root bound, also should i keep the coco / perilyte ratio the same?
Again, thank u guys for all ur help. The response of this community is really encouraging!!!!

 

[jmansweed]

That-Girl

I don't use coco much, but my experiences with it have proven fairly similar to the peat moss I do work with. With the proper ratios your medium will work fine with hydro, and your watering habits appear as if thats the intention. If your plants have started showing stress however, many things could be the issue - including a pH issue you hinted at.

I'm under the impression however, your goal here is not to go the hydro route. The 10/1 coco/pearlite ratio will most likely be too dense for three waterings daily. In my situation, the plants in 1 gallons get watered every 3 to 4 days depending on RH. My 5 gallons every 4 to 5 days. This is one aspect that can vary drastically from grower to grower depending on conditions.

At this smaller stage it's important to allow your medium to dry out somewhat between waterings. Roots will literally search for fluid and nutrients expanding size and capacity ensuring a larger, healthy root system.

HushPuppy mentioned some more detailed pics if you need further help.

 

[Locked]

What up jman...good to see you bro. Hope all is well.

 

[jmansweed]

All is well Hamster! good to see you too.......

 

[Locked]

All is well Hamster! good to see you too.......

Good to hear my friend....

 

[Hushpuppy]

Given your setup and the larger containers of coco, it is more a hybrid of hydro and soilless. You could work it so that it is a drain to waste which should work well. A 15 second watering isn't much though from what I can see of the setup, as it appears that you are using small tubing for watering. I use the tubing that is made for the fish tank air lines. It is small and flexible so that I can route it haow I want, and it probably only gives about 1-2 gallons per hour flow. I let mine run for 10-15 minutes so that the medium is thoroughly saturated with water and nutrients.

I love coco because it is so good at catching and holding the nutrients for the plants. It is also very clean which makes it ideal for recirculating hydro as the water can be captured and reused many times over before needing to be replaced. I only use pots that are about 1gal throughout the grow and I get very little root growth out of the pots. I believe this is because I keep the nutrients and water, and oxygen going to the root zone so steadily that they don't go searching for anything.

If you want your plants to get really big then you can put them in bigger pots but I personally wouldn't go any bigger than 3gal pots as its not needed with soilless or hydro, and it would encourage the plants to get bigger. My plants generally get 3-5' tall and I am averaging 3-6oz dry weight per plant.

Regardless of how you water and feed, you will need to understand and follow PH of your water and/or soil. If you are using chemical nutrients for feeding your plants then you need to maintain a PH between 5.4-6.2 for healthy growth. You will get some PH drift, but if you set up a drain to waste system then you will not need to worry about the PH once it is set. The trick is to mix up your nutes and water then allow it to sit for 24hrs with a bubbler so that it can buffer itself (unless you are using AN's Jungle Juice as it has no PH buffers in it), then you can test the PH and adjust it to 5.8 which is exact for hydro or soilless. But then you still need to let it sit again for another 6hrs at least to buffer and adjust before doing a final check and adjustment of PH and adding it to your resevoir.

If you want to see how I do mine just look at the grow journal titled "stealth cabinets" in my signature. If you have any questions about it just ask. I don't mind talking about it

 

[that_girl]

here are two pics, b4 i have to run to work

 

[King Bud]

It's been such a long time, so forgive my bad memory..

In my experience, it's pretty easy to overwater with coco.

I forget what ratio of coco to perlite I used.. but I think I added some ground limestone to help balance the pH.

The leaf curling on the lower big fan leaves is likely due to pH fluctuation, or the medium being too acidic. The new growth looks great, so I think you've solved that.

To tell when I needed to water my plants, I would lift the pots to check their weight. If the top 1/4 inch wasn't dry enough to be a little dusty, then I'd wait until it was before watering.

I'll be following along. Good luck with everything

 

[that_girl]

Hi King Bud !!! Thank u for stopping by and welcome to my garden ! yeah, i couldnt figure out why the Ph kept jumping... i would will up the bucket and Ph would be different from day to day.. i tryed lettin the water sit for 24hrs b4 mixing the nutes.. same thing.. anyways im half way through replanting them into their new homes. I decided to do coco buckets (sticky note by Massproducer) added eggshells (same as limestone, right?). B4 i replanted poor babies looked like they had a nute burn or something. I'll post pics when i get back from work

 

[Hushpuppy]

I have found that coco is a bit tricky to keep the PH ballanced. I think its partly because the coco absorbs and holds soo much of the nutes that will drastically change the chemical composition of the water. I have found that if you keep your PH right on the water that goes into the pots then you don't have to worry too much about what it is coming out of the pots.

While the eggshell is high in lime, it is very slow to release into the soil, and it has to have microbes to chelate it or it won't be available to the plants even when it does disolve. The better option there is dolomite lime from the garden store as it is more readily available to the plant when it is put into the soil.

 

[that_girl]

HI Hushpuppy! i was using Advanced Foriculture nutes, (those yellow bottles) something i had left from b4 (im not the one that bought them. they r waaaay too excpencive). i didn't wanna buy those nutes again, thats why i thought that mixing organic matter into the soil will do the trick. or at least will let me to use less nutes. also i mixed in some Great White it has all kinds of benefitial bacteria, so i hope the eggshells r gonna b digested just fine. For the three babies i have not transplanted yet, i'll use 3gal pots and lyme.

as of pH, i don't think i buffered it enough... next time when i'm gonna mix nutes i'll try to follow EXACTLY what u suggested. ...all these years ... still having trouble following directions
love ur stealth cabinets :icon_smile:

 

[that_girl]

some pics

 

[jmansweed]

Hey _girl,

Curious when your transplanting those girls?

 

[that_girl]

I did 5 on Tues and about to do 4 right now. to the 7 F13s I had, my friend gave me 2 Blue Dreams.