Massproducer's Coco buckets

[massproducer]

honestly, I think this is easier then soil, because there is no worries of overwatering, the ph is almost unimportant, and over feeding is almost no existant. This is all because of the coco and drain hole.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

Well massproducer....you almost had me on the bubble cloner..had some success with it..i am a strong dirt farmer.and still ambut after reading threw most all your threads over the past year,,This one I been fallowing and enjoying it.I would like to experiment some more this winter and am secretly going to try a single .5 gal grow.


heres my question for the massproducer. in this bucket grow Im curious if I can use prlite in net basket insted of cocco balls..or what ever those cerial looking things are? ..i am a lover of perlite and love it that its 50% of this set up...this is some good stuff but dont let anyone on marP know I said this ..okay? thanks


KEEP M GREEN

 

[massproducer]

Yes you can use 100% perllite if you wanted to but that would be more of a normal hempy buckets, and would be immpossible to layer.

Coco coir, is not balls tho, it is almost like a cross between peat moss and soil. It is great

By the way, your secret is safe with me

 

[toke@smoke420]

intresting very intresting, i might have to try this method after i use up my FF soil.

 

[massproducer]

I hope ya do try it out Toke@Smoke, any questions I'm always around

 

[HippyInEngland]

I will say this though, coco really causes the roots to explode, you will even see roots growing out the top of the medium...

Hi Mass

Roots are not designed to grow in light and light is bad for roots, do they grow out of the surface much?, do you cover the bucket with something so the light doesnt get to the surface roots?

Absolutely fascinating post, thanks for sharing this with us :aok:

 

[massproducer]

while this is true, root hairs and roots in general, only live for very short periods of time, the are designed to capture all of the availible nutrients and water in that perticular area and then they die providing food for the soil microbiology which in turn then breaks this down to be reabsorbed. Roots are constantly growing and dying. Light is bad for roots because it slows that root hairs growth, but before that happens the roots reorient themselves and grow back into the medium

Point being we are talking about seeing roots poking our of the medium, maybe .0005% of the actual root mass. I can confidently say that you will never have a problem with these root hairs going up out of the medium a bit

 

[MarPassion]

Awesome thread Mass!! Thanks for posting this and I will add it to the grow resource page.

 

[massproducer]

Excellent Mar, I am just glad I had something to contribute to our wonderful community

 

[docfishwrinkle]

bravo, bravo!!! well done. convinced me to make the switch, on the sole part of not having to worry about the pH too much. my ? is can i still use this method with the leftover fox farm fert 6 pack i have. then im going all natural.

 

[massproducer]

yeah, fox farm would work wonderfully because of all of the organics, these buckets are living so the more organics you can feed the medium the better.

 

[miketheman]

Hey mass I was wondering if you put an airstone in the bottom with the pearlite, Would it be better for air or no?

 

[lyfr]

sup Mass, gonna have to try this one with my next clones. By then i'll have 2 hands (got cast ). seems like a bit of work to set up which means more fun to me i like that once its set up it seems to be pretty self sufficient...and i got bored with the rockwool though never had any major probs with it. got soil goin now, but i want to learn as many different ways to grow as i can...and try them all! you have a talent for explaining the details with an approach that makes it very easy to understand! thanks 4 da info

 

[halzey68]

oh boy is that scary. since the perlite in the bottom is the rez and its full of water/nutes, what if you were to put an airstone under the perlite so the rez in the bucket was being aireated?? that would add a good amount of oxygen for the plant, huh?
I plan on making a hempy bucket for 1 plant in my next cycle to try it out on. ill make a hole for a line to the airstone at the same heigth as the drain hole.
Sound like it might be beneficial???

 

[toke@smoke420]

if you used a airstone it wouldent be hempy method or massproducers coco bucket method as they both dont use any moving parts, or pumps, and would be more dwc, so might as well just go dwc jmo. thats why i think this method appeals to me so i dont have to run a bunch of air pumps. im defintly trying this soon. anyways ill letcha know as soon as i try your method out man, ill prbbly have some ?s.

 

[massproducer]

It has been tried before Halzey, it was found that with normal hempy's it didn't really have any real benefit from adding an air stone. The rez gets used up very quickly, and because you are always watering and the water has to trickle down through the medium, it actually aerates the water as it flows down into the rez, IMO a better thing would be to aerate the nute solution before you feed your plants. I like to bubble my nutes or water for 24 hours before I feed my plants and it provides plenty of D.O, but you could always try it out and report back to use, because I am always open to ways we can improve everything, but I myself don't think it will really help much at all.

Also as Toke said, the greatest thing about this method or hempy's method, is that there is no moving parts, nothing to break or malfunction, no worries of dissolved Oxygen or root rot, but you can still achieve a phenomenal growth rate that will rival other active mthods such as DWC, that totally rely on moving parts.

I am known to overcomplicate things for myself at times but with complication comes problems, so the point of this method was to avoid the complications while still keeping a very nice growth rate.

Great question Halzey

 

[toke@smoke420]

yup that aerated water does wonders i always use a air pump to aerate my water before feeding indoor, outdoor etc and im just useing normal pro mix and fox farm soil for now untill i order up some good perlite, vercumilite, and coco to try Massproducers method!!!!

another thing i used like a 40 gallon air pump to airate 1 or 2 gallons i figure the more GPH or pgm or what ever the faster you should have fully aerated water but thats JMO.

 

[Aurora_Indicas_Dad]

i'm using them coco disks right now (the ones you soak in water and they expand to the size of a gallon pot) and i'm loving it,its my first time using it and i'm actually considering using it over rockwool.like you said,ph is never a problem. i do have to water every 2-3 days,but i.m.o. it drys out alot faster than soil but i'm lovin it.definitly some good stuff.

Yes you can use 100% perllite if you wanted to but that would be more of a normal hempy buckets, and would be immpossible to layer.

Coco coir, is not balls tho, it is almost like a cross between peat moss and soil. It is great

By the way, your secret is safe with me

 

[Mutt]

honestly, I think this is easier then soil, because there is no worries of overwatering, the ph is almost unimportant, and over feeding is almost no existant. This is all because of the coco and drain hole.

more to it than that i think. the coco is really just the medium. its the factory your feeding, but yeah LO should not require much monitoring in PH. microbes take care of the feeding. just keep them buggies happy

online bro of mine sent me something on microbial life of coco...i'll see if i can dig it up.

Great thread mass....sorry if i butted in did not read entire thread...but your on track can't wait to see how this turns out for ya
:farm:

edit: one chem dude converted 200,000,000 to go

 

[massproducer]

Yeah if you are using coco coir like soil, IMO, you have to start treating it more like hydro, Coco has excellent water holding capabilites but it also hold extreme amounts of air, so if you have no rez then you want to feed your coco coir almost everyday at times, but atleast every second day.