How to prepare dehydrated coco coir – A-Grade Hydroponics

Introducing CocoHouse’s dehydrated coco coir. These pre-washed compressed coco coir bricks are another excellent source of quality coco coir that can be stored easily and rehydrated into fresh moist medium that your plants will thrive in.

The CocoHouse coco coir bricks come in various weights and sizes, in this instance we are using a 600g brick. Dehydrated coco coir will generally weigh around 10% of its final hydrated weight.

The rule of thumb for rehydrating dry coco coir is to find the weight of your coco coir and add a volume of water roughly 10x the weight of the dry coco brick.

For example, if we have a 600g dehydrated coco coir brick, we will need to add around 6000g (6L) of water.

 

HOW DO I USE DEHYDRATED COCO BRICKS?

Step 1 – Prepare the solution you wish to hydrate your coco brick with, this can be just plain water or a solution with a buffer or additive. We must always ‘buffer’ any inert medium to maintain a positive Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), for more info on CEC see our tutorial on the topic found here. In this case we are using CYCO’s Ryzofuel to buffer our coco brick with. Another great option for an additive would be HY-GEN’s Humiboosta.

 

In this example we are using the following items:

• 10L Watering Jug / Bucket 
• Pipettes / liquid measuring tools
• 600g Coco Coir Brick
• CYCO Ryzofuel

 

Step 2 – Open the package to expose the Brick.

 

 

Step 3 – Place the Coco bag on a raised surface that can allow for drainage, such as a Pot Grid and pour 4L of your solution straight into the opened bag on top of the Coco Coir Brick, let it sit for awhile and watch it fluff up within a few minutes.

Once the solution has been absorbed, make about 8-12 drainage holes underneath the bag and pour the remaining 2L of nutrient solution through the Coco Coir as evenly as possible and let it drain for about 5 minutes. See below for visual examples of how your coco will look during this process.

It’s just that easy, your coco is now ready to use, just add your seeds or plant and happy growing!

 

WHY COCO HOUSE?

CocoHouse Coco Coir Bricks are amazing starting bags for seedlings and cuttings, the bags can be buffered to specific phases of a plant, whether you go with the standard Calcium & Magnesium buffer or a rooting one is now up to you, giving you full control throughout all phases of a plants life cycle.

The CocoHouse Coco Brick bags are excellent way to save money by starting your plants off using the provided bag as a pot, saving you from buying additional pots for the start of your plants life cycle.

In the step by step explanation above, we opted to use CYCO Nutrients Ryzofuel, which is a very effective kelp-based root tonic to help develop, condition and strengthen roots in the early stages of growth.

“A good rule of thumb when order dehydrated coco coir is to order a weight of dehydrated coco coir roughly 10% of the final volume you will need. 

For example, if you need to fill a 50L pot, you should order around 5000g of dried coco coir.”

When it is time to transplant, we recommend using GeoPots fabric grow bags alongside a quality nutrient brand, such as CYCO, Mills or HY-Gen nutrients for the best possible end results.