mattdreads

with plants that size I wouldn't be giving more then .8 and I do like to give a lot of food. although for 1 month they could be a lot bigger.

you don't need to water everyday in veg, though you indeed can in cocos.

drop the mineral water, that's going to give a problem as well. just use your tap, unless it's non drinkable water. or if you really want to buy water, buy distilled and mix tap with it until it's at .2 - .3 ec and then mix your fooding in.

CANNA - THE SOLUTION FOR GROWTH AND BLOOM

they've got a nutrient calculator there, you can fill in all the info and it'll give you a printable schedule that you can use as a good guide.

use clean water, drop your ph to 5.5 and let 25% of the pot size in water come out. so 10 liter pots, 2.5 liters of run off. the low ph will slow it from taking up too much food from the high ec. your pot size is fine for now. let it get pretty dry, almost completely before giving your next watering. leave the fooding out for a few days until you see them start to want to grow again.

good luck man

[edit] just read a bit more. lol. yeah, epsom salts shoots the ec way up. I'd keep your ph at 5.8. remember, ph5.8 is twice as acidic as ph 6. it maybe seem like a small difference. each point is that many more times acidic. ph5 is 10 times more acidic then ph6.

I'm sure it'll pull around for you quickly. that's the great thing about cocos, don't have to wait like soil.

green king

I was planning to switch to my tap water once I get my new ph meter since I broke it. The thing is the ec of it is 0.8 so is this a problem? Does this mean that the ec to aim for with nutes is 1.6since you recommended an ec of 0.8 for nutes? I'll use spring water till I get my ph meter since I have very hard water, a ph of over 8

green king

What is the problem with mineral water anyway? Would spring water be better?

green king

I've just checked how much nute solution I need to add to give me an ec of 0.8 and I had to put more than twice as much as I have been adding to get to this ec which means that I have been using an ec of around 0.4 up to this point (excluding the recent times when I added Epsom salts which lifted the ec astronomically!). Therefore to state the obvious I have been underfeeding & my probs have stemmed from this. I had been going with 1/4 strength of what the recommendation was on the Canna A + B bottles.

mattdreads

glad you've got it figured out. good luck.

bottle water is very high in Na. too much of that will abruptly end the life of your plant. it'll look fine until one day there's too much, and blam... toast.

with a start ec of .8 I'd buy distilled water and cool it off a bit. say to .5, then nute back up to .8. for now, nothing though, just water for a few days. 3 or 4 then start with your 1/4 dose again and see how they react. use epsom salts in a foliar to avoid that high ec. 1/2 teaspoon in a quart is the rule of thumb.

don't go by the age of your plant for how much you feed it, go with the size and what the plant asks. 1/4 strength would still be growing it better then those are growing right now.

my guess is the mineral water and high ph is stunting them. moreso the mineral water. keep at 5.8

green king

If I added distilled water to my tap water and brought it doen to 0.5 then surely I am only putting an ec of 0.3 of nutes the plant wants. Isn't this too low or is it a case of if your base reading is higher to begin with then you simply add less nutes? My tap water is drinkable but would a base reading of 0.8 do it any harm?

green king

Is deionised water the same as distilled water and if it is different is it suitable for my purpose?

mattdreads

right now it's also because you've overfed them already. yes, a higher ec means you'll use less nutes, but it may mean you have to suppliment certain things later.

with a start ec that high what happens to you water is the calcium and the magnesium ions fuse together and make it impossible for the plant to utilize it. you can add epsom salts, but like you noticed, your ec goes haywire. I added epsom as well when I started seeing an mg def this last grow around. my water is .65-.7 and a ph of 8.4 so we're in a similar boat. when I start seeing the def this time I'm going to drop my ph to 5.0/5.1 which unlocks the build up which is causing the lock out, flush with that, and then just give a normal watering right after the flush.

adding epsom is great at first, but in the end you just end up with more build up and get an even worse lock out. the plants will still grow, and the wieght isn't effected to heavily, but the end product lacks a hardness, even after drying and can make it a difficult burn. kind of like it almost won't dry completely.

I'd flush them with the low ph, let them dry out a bit and then give them plain water at a ph of 5.8, and the next time they dry out a bit, give them the low nutes and watch them bounce back. don't worry, you'll be able to give them more nutes before you now it.

mattdreads

it's been passed through an RO filter instead of actually evaporated. and is perfectly suitable for this use.

happy growing

green king

Isn't distilled water going to be expensive in the long run, even if I am only adding it to tap water? Couldn't I just get the ec of the tap water down to 0.5 by mixing some spring or mineral water with it, or would the small amount added give my plant too much sodium like now?